Dorie has just moved from California to New Jersey. For most kids this would be horrendous, but for Dorie it's the chance to conduct the most important scientific research of her young life. She is determined to pour all of her scientific abilities into an experiment that will, once and for all, make her popular.

Dorie calculates the trends, habits and attitudes of the most popular girls at school but finally has her eureka moment when she discovers that the three most popular girls at school, aka "The Holly Trinity," have each dated and been dumped by the cutest boy at school, Grant Bradish. All scientific data points to the solution that Dorie has to get Grant to date her and dump her in order to secure her desired popularity. It's an impossible yet hilarious task for girl scientist, Dorie Dilts.

The National Academy for Gifted Youth (NAGY) accepts only the best and the brightest for their summer program in Washington, D.C. When Dorie's letter of acceptance for the NAGY science academy arrives she ’s thrilled. But when she finds out her best friend Dixie has been accepted to the NAGY arts academy, she ’s ecstatic. She'll get to study science all week with some of the smartest students in the country, hang out with her friend around the Dupont Circle campus on the weekends and meet her idol JANE GOODALL at the final presentations for Academy Day.

Dorie has always been the smartest and most capable student in every science class she has ever taken but when she arrives to her first day of NAGY she realizes she has gone from being a big fish in a small pond to a typically sized amphiprion percula in a hyper-acclamated environment of equally skilled amphiprion percula . More simply, Dorie no longer rules the lab. Igor Ellis, however, does.
Has Dorie met her scientific match or can she use her scientific abilities to turn Igor Ellis from geek to chic?