In addition to formal internship programs for high school students, Stanford labs sometimes host high school interns on an informal basis, usually in unpaid internships. The Office of Science Outreach is not able to help individual students identify a host lab or project but if you click on the red title above, you will find some information and tips. Please do not call the Office of Science Outreach for advice or guidance.
The RISE (Raising Interest in Science and Engineering) Summer Internship Program for HS Students is sponsored by the Office of Science Outreach. It’s an intensive 7-week summer program for local Bay Area students (living within 25-mile radius of campus) interested in science, engineering, math, computer science, or psychology. Students spend 30 hours a week on the Stanford campus, working in an active research lab under the guidance of a mentor from the lab (typically a graduate student), and attending weekly group sessions that include field trips, presentations, hands-on science activities, and lab tours.
RISE is designed for bright low income students and those who will be the first in their families to attend college.
At the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, high school students spend the summer working in research laboratories. The students become involved in existing research projects and are supervised directly by graduate students, post docs and lab managers. This program enables graduate students to serve as supervisors, prepares high schools students for college and helps strengthen the connections between Stanford and local high schools. We offer several different options, with different areas of focus and time commitments. Applicants can apply to more than one option.
The SMYSP Summer Residential Program offers five weeks of intensive science and health training each summer for low income and under-represented high school students from northern and central California. Participants live together at Stanford, attend scientific lectures, complete anatomy laboratory practicums, intern at Stanford Hospital & Clinics and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System hospital, and learn about college entrance requirements, application procedures and financial aid. The program is tuition-free; selection is based on an application process.
SIMR – The Stanford Institutes of Medicine Summer Research Program, is for high school juniors and seniors interested in hands-on research in various fields of medicine (immunology, stem cell, cancer, neuroscience, bioinformatics and cardiovascular medicine). This eight week program enables the selected students to take part in research, attend introductory lectures and to present their work at a poster session open to the Stanford community.
The Space Weather Monitor program is an education project to build and distribute inexpensive ionospheric monitors to students around the world. The monitors detect solar flares and other ionospheric disturbances.
Discovering Medicine @ Stanford is offered by the Stanford Medical Youth Science Program (SMYSP) for high school sophomores and juniors who are preparing for a 4-year college and have a serious interest in pursuing a health or medical career. The program is interactive, with small group workshops, and direct interactions with a variety of health professionals from the Stanford Hospitals & Clinics and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System hospital, as well as faculty, staff, and students from the Stanford School of Medicine. There is a $975 program fee to attend.
Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies offers online classes for academically talented youth, residential programs on campus during the summer for high school students, and a fully accredited online high school.
For the first time in its history, Stanford is offering some of its most popular engineering classes free of charge to students and educators around the world. Stanford Engineering Everywhere (SEE) expands the Stanford experience to students and educators online. A computer and an Internet connection are all you need. View lecture videos, access reading lists and other course handouts, take quizzes and tests, and communicate with other SEE students, all at your convenience. Visit the program website to access the classes.
The mission of the Stanford Educational Studies Program community is to reach out, to enthuse young eager minds, and share our muses and sources of joy and inspiration with people around us, especially middle and high school students.
We offer days on campus full of academic and non-academic classes taught by Stanford students. ESP invites students to attend classes that could vary from completely “non-academic” stuff like cookie baking and origami, to complicated and challenging classes on machine theory or quantum mechanics.
The Splash! program fee is $40, but generous need-based financial aid is available.
SMASH is a state of the art Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) summer enrichment program for high school students at Stanford, UC Berkeley and UCLA campuses, and is expanding to other sites in the future. Live on campus with other high potential Black, Latino/a, Native American, Southeast Asian or Pacific Islander high school students. Be prepared for college!
Stanford Explore is an exploratory series covering the basic fundamentals and current research areas represented by the five Institutes of the Stanford School of Medicine (Immunology, Neuroscience, Cardiovascular Medicine, Regenerative and Stem Cell Medicine, and Cancer Biology) as well as research areas in Bioengineering and Genetics. Participants are encouraged to sign up for all 4 weeks but may also sign up for just 1, 2 or 3 weeks. Cost is $750 per week.
The Cardiothoracic Surgical Skills and Education Center Stanford Summer Internship is designed to educate high school and pre-medical students considering careers in science, medicine, and public health in basic and advanced cardiovascular anatomy and physiology as well as medical and surgical techniques that will be utilized in pre-medical and medical school.
This program is open to all students worldwide. There is a fee to apply and a $6,950 fee to participate.
Due to overwhelming demand, this program has added a second session to accommodate additional students. Please note that the curriculum for both sessions are identical, and the application deadline is the same for both programs. Session 2 dates are July 11 - July 29, 2016.
The Stanford University Math Camp, SUMaC is designed for high school students who will be juniors and seniors in the fall, who have exceptional interest and ability in mathematics. SUMaC is for those who seek to be challenged in mathematics and those who would enjoy four weeks of intensive, in-depth, mathematical pursuits. SUMaC provides an environment that fosters social and intellectual development centered on the study and enjoyment of mathematics.
This two-week course is for students considering careers in a variety of procedure-based medical fields, such as surgery, dental surgery, and nursing. It may also be of interest to students who intend to study biomedical engineering, occupational or physical therapy, sports medicine, or to become EMTs/paramedics. There is a $4,250 fee to participate.
The Stanford Middle School and High School Science Circles are academic enrichment programs for students in the Stanford area who are interested in the sciences. Activities take place in the evening during the academic year. Program fee of $250 or $375 per quarter.
The Collaborative Haptics and Robotics in Medicine (CHARM) Lab offers field trips and demos/presentations in local K-12 classrooms and on campus. The CHARM Lab creates robots and human-computer interfaces that use haptics in order to improve human health, safety, and quality of life. The word haptics refers to the sense of touch. Applications of our research include:
MEDCSI is a rigorous 2 week program in Medicine that is open to highly motivated high school and premed students. It was created to empower students with the knowledge to plan for a career in medicine. Workshops and sessions are taught by Stanford faculty and include hands on experiences such as performing bedside ultrasounds, dissections, suturing, splinting and visits to the Stanford emergency life flight station and free clinics.
Math circles are weekly gatherings of high school, middle school, and elementary school students working on problems involving complex and advanced mathematical topics, guided by mathematicians and educators. Fee of $250 per quarter.
The Stanford Brain Bee is a local qualifying round of the International Brain Bee (IBB), a neuroscience competition exclusively for high school students ages 14-18. The Stanford Brain Bee involves both a written component and a live oral Q&A session. In addition to the competition, students will have the opportunity to attend a presentation by a Stanford neuroscientist and speak with Stanford professors and students from the medical, biosciences, and neuroscience fields.
The Stanford Brain Bee is co-sponsored and funded by the Stanford Neurosciences Institute.
Stanford's Clinical Anatomy invites high school students to visit their labs and facilities. Through customizable programs, instructors help students discover, learn, and apply human anatomy in a professional context by introducing students to many of the same learning resources used by Stanford medical students.
Stanford offers many free lectures for the general public on science and engineering topics that are delivered by Stanford's top researchers in terms understandable to the lay public. Examples include the SLAC Lecture Series and the Summer Science Lecture Series. See the "Lectures & Public Events" page on this site for more information.
Inspiring Future Scientists Through Shadowing (IFSS) is a program hosted annually by the chemistry department at Stanford University during the first two weeks of August. This program gives rising juniors and seniors in high school an opportunity to experience cutting edge chemical research while shadowing a graduate student mentor as they work in the laboratory. We encourage applications from US citizens and permanent residents over the age of 16 interested in careers in science - particularly from women and under-represented minorities. Preference will be given to local students, as no on-campus housing is available for this program. Participants must arrange for their own transportation to/from the Stanford Campus. There is no cost to participate.
The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is opening its lab doors with a new summer program aimed at girls who will be in 10th grade in Fall 2016. SAILORS aims to expose high school students from underrepresented populations to the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The two-week, full-time program will provide both broad exposure to AI topics through faculty lectures and industry field trips, as well as in-depth experience with a research area through hands-on projects. Mentoring and career/personal development sessions with faculty, researchers, and graduate students will further enable personal growth and an opportunity to explore career interests in AI. There is no cost to participate.
The Canary Center at Stanford is a research center dedicated to early cancer detection research. As part of our efforts to train the next generation of scientists, we offer a paid and unpaid summer internship program. Canary Center interns will work in faculty labs for a 10-week internship in our state-of-the-art research facility. Each participant will be matched with a faculty, postdoctoral scholar, or senior scientist mentor who will help them craft a research project. The successful applicant can expect to work in a dynamic lab environment on challenging projects that involve a broad range of research techniques. The program also includes a series of weekly seminars on early cancer detection research, conducting scientific research, careers in science and the chance to interact with other interns. The program culminates with a research symposium, where students present individual talks or posters on their summer projects in front of their peers, faculty and lab mentors.
The Stanford Visitor's Center offers many public tours.
Project Motivation, affectionately known as ProMo, is a student group dedicated to promoting higher education to minority youths through on-campus visits and tours. Project Motivation is determined to instill a positive attitude towards higher education and help K-12 students understand the unlimited opportunities open to them. Formed in the mid-70's, Project Motivation seeks to encourage under represented high school students to pursue higher education. It is a program that facilitates the interaction between high school students and Stanford undergraduates. Teachers, help your students tour part of campus, see a dorm room, hear college stories from undergraduates and get the scoop about college life.
SIMR Bioengineering Bootcamp is a hands-on design experience in bioengineering for high school students. Students attend lectures on a diverse set of bioengineering research topics and work for 2 full days a week only (Tues/Thurs) for 8 weeks on a real-world biodesign project which addresses a medical need. There is no cost to participate other than an application fee.
The Youth Leadership Conference on Asian and Pacific Islander Health is a four day residential conference at Stanford University. High school students (including those entering high school Fall 2015 or those who will graduate Summer 2015) from across the country are invited to attend to gain leadership skills for effecting change in local communities. Conference participants will meet other students interested in making a difference in public health. Leading medical experts, professors, and policymakers will speak on issues of Asian and Pacific Islander health. Students will also have a chance to apply the skills they gain in an outreach planning simulation. There is a $450 fee to participate (some financial aid available).
These 7-week unpaid internships are awarded to outstanding high school and undergraduate students interested in pursuing careers in biomedicine and biological sciences. Interns work from mid-June until early August on a research project within the lab of Professor Jill Helms that entails exposure to the latest biochemical, molecular, and analytical techniques in a given field.
Stanford High School Summer College is a selective program that grants high-achieving students, ages 16 – 19, access to undergraduate education at Stanford University. This program offers an eight-week or nine-week college experience that provides academic, social, and intellectual opportunities not found in a high school classroom. High School Summer College participants enroll as visiting undergraduates in Stanford’s Summer Quarter and take the same courses as matriculated Stanford students taught by Stanford faculty.
Stanford Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine is a hub of interdisciplinary research in genomics with a goal towards improving human health. GeneCamp offers a 9-week internship program for high school students and undergraduates. There is no charge to participate.
The SSTEM program consists of 4 Saturdays; each day introduces students to four different specialties: primary care, general surgery, ophthalmology, and cardiology. Each day will include breakfast, an opening activity, health professional-led presentations, and 2-3 hands-on activities led by Stanford medical students. Students will get opportunities to suture, learn surgical knot tying, perform CPR on mannequins, and dissect sheep hearts and cow eyes. In addition, students will also get an opportunity to visit Stanford for a session in the anatomy lab and a tour of campus.
Stanford Pre-Collegiate University-Level Online Math & Physics courses bring motivated and academically-talented high school students together to allow them to explore their intellectual passions, develop analytic reasoning and creative thinking, and study directly with expert instructors. These online courses are offered throughout the year and give students the opportunity to take a broad offering of math and physics courses not typically offered in secondary schools.
All courses carry Stanford University Continuing Studies credit, and students earn a Stanford Continuing Studies transcript. Formerly offered as University-Level EPGY and OHSx online courses at Stanford.
Stanford Summer College Academy is an academically selective program that provides access to undergraduate-level education at one of America’s most respected universities. Summer College Academy is an innovative online-residential hybrid college experience that provides academic, social, and intellectual opportunities not found in a high school classroom.
Girls Teaching Girls to Code is a program where Stanford women teach and inspire Bay Area high school girls to explore Computer Science and Engineering. Students learn coding basics, build exciting projects, and develop strong relationships with mentors in the field. We host Code Camp and several smaller events throughout the year, including workshops, puzzle hunts, and company tours, to encourage continued engagement and to help our students further explore their passions.
The Clinical Neuroscience Internship Experience (CNI-X) at Stanford University is an intensive week long summer program following the sophomore, junior, or senior years in high school. Interns are introduced to the amazing breadth of research found in the Stanford Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Packed back-to-back are sessions and lab trips seeing how creativity is visualized with brain waves, miniature human brains are grown in dishes, apps and virtual reality are treating eating disorders, cognition is studied in flight simulators, psychiatric testimony supports human rights at the World Court, and more. The program is free.
This conference targets San Francisco Bay and surrounding area high school juniors and seniors considering health professions careers. Activities include:
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