Top 30 Online High School Research Programs in Summer

Are you looking for online research opportunities for high school students in STEM for the summertime?

So, what are your options, other than taking an e-course in which you learn in a traditional classroom setting? Why not try a more hands-on research program? (Although, for safety, in this case, hands-on means virtually.) Virtual summer programs and research opportunities for high school students are out there! Let's discuss online research opportunities for your upcoming mid-year break.

Firstly, let's take a look at how one of these online research opportunities for high school students can help you.

STEM research programs offer participants the chance to be actively involved in either group or individual research projects. In some cases, projects are combined with lectures in specific STEM subjects. In fact, in these unique high school summer research programs, the combined instruction overlaps with research work. And best of all, an experienced mentor or supervisor paired with each student group can help guide the tangible research process to be educational. 

However, these summer research programs for high school students tend to be more competitive than traditional extracurricular activities. Often, the material itself requires some prior knowledge. Beyond this, in many high school summer research programs, applicants need to meet a GPA requirement and/or take specific high school courses to apply. In addition, they also tend to be targeted at students in the last two to three years of high school. Nonetheless, if you think you're up to the challenge, seeking online research opportunities for high school students will give you a jump start on the process in college.

In future summers, many colleges believe that COVID restrictions will still be in place. As a result, they offer their high school summer research opportunities and programs online. Others have not yet made a decision but will offer online learning if restrictions still apply. Either way: virtual summer programs are a great way to expand your academic portfolio. Because of recent changes, if these competitive programs interest you, then take a look at our top 30 list of online research programs for opportunities open to you below! 

Firstly, option one:

About: The Rockefeller University Summer Science Research Program (SSRP) provides high school students with a unique and personalized opportunity to conduct hands-on research. For instance, students study under the mentorship of leading scientists at great research facilities. Overall, during this rigorous 7-week program, students immerse themselves in scientific culture while gaining an appreciation for discovery.

Deadline: 1/4/2021

Length: 6 weeks

Age: Minimum age of 16 years old

Cost: Free, stipend paid

About: Similarly, the Simons Summer Research Program gives high school students the opportunity to engage in hands-on research. Research subjects include science, math, or engineering. In addition, Simons Fellows work with distinguished faculty mentors, learn laboratory techniques and tools, become part of active research teams, and experience life at a research university.

Deadline: Opens late Jan 2021; last year's deadline was 1/22/2020

Length: 6 weeks

Age: Minimum age of 16 years old

Cost: Free, stipend paid

About: Like the first two, MDI Biological Laboratory offers summer research fellowship opportunities for high school students with an interest in developing scientific research skills. MDI welcomes applicants who desire hands-on, research training experience within an advanced laboratory.

Deadline: Teacher nomination due 1/8/2021

Length: 10 weeks

Age: Minimum age of 16; must be nominated by a teacher before the student can initiate an application.

Cost: Free, stipend paid

About: This is a unique 5  ½ week-long research experience for highly capable students. Participants conduct scientific research under the guidance of a faculty mentor. Thus, students spend approximately 40 hours a week working in labs on The University of Iowa campus.

Deadline: 2/18/2021 

Length: 5 weeks

Age: Current 10-11th graders

Cost: $6,395

Next on the list?

Deadline: 1/16/2021

About: Each summer, 80 students gather at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for the Research Science Institute (RSI). In contrast to others, RSI is the first cost-free summer science & engineering program to combine on-campus coursework in scientific theory with off-campus work in science and technology research.

Length: 7 weeks

Age: Rising 12th graders

Cost: Free

Deadline: 1/22/2021

About: The Broad Summer Scholars Program invites high school students with a strong interest in science to spend six weeks at the Broad Institute. Then, they match students with Broad scientists to conduct research projects in a variety of specialties.

Length: 6 weeks

Age: Rising 12th graders attending a high school in the greater Boston area

Cost: Free

About: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) provides an opportunity to spend a summer working at the NIH side-by-side with some of the leading scientists in the world. Accordingly, these students work in an environment devoted exclusively to biomedical research.

Deadline: 2/1/2021

Length: Minimum 8 weeks

Age: Minimum age of 17

Cost: Free, paid a stipend

About: The UCSD Research Scholars program allows up to about 25 total students to each work individually with a UCSD Faculty researcher. They will do so in an actual Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biology, or Nanotechnology lab on campus. In this case, this program offers both winter and summer sessions for these online summer programs. 

Deadline: Rolling admissions. In fact, the application is open now for the winter session.

Length: 6 weeks

Age: Rising 10-12th graders

Cost: $4,200

About: As can be seen, students work one-on-one with researchers at George Mason University or collaborating institutions. Hence, students will use state-of-the-art technology to solve hypothesis-driven questions in a variety of STEM and related fields.

Deadline: 1/31/2021

Length: 7.5 weeks

Age: Minimum age of 16

Cost: Free

Still, are you looking for more suggestions?

About: The IU Simon Cancer Center Summer Research Program (SRP) aims to increase the number of under-represented high school and undergraduate students. Specifically, this program is for students pursuing biomedical and behavioral science careers. In order to do this, IU supports these students by providing first-hand exposure to these fields.

Deadline: 2/14/2021

Length 8 weeks

Age: Current 12th graders. Additionally, preference is given to students from Indianapolis

Cost: Free, stipend paid

About: The CHORI Summer Student Research Program allows students to immerse themselves in basic and/or clinical research for three months during the summer. More importantly, the program pairs students with one or two CHORI PIs who serve as mentors, guiding the students through all phases of research. As such, the phases include the research design, testing of their own hypotheses, and methodology growth. Coupled with these aspects, students present their research to their peers just as any professional researcher would do.

Deadline: 2/5/2021

Length: 9 weeks

Age: Current 11-12th graders

Cost: Free

About: Students who are passionate about the sciences and entering their senior year of high school are invited to apply to the Research in Science & Engineering (RISE) program. RISE offers two tracks: Internship and Practicum. Because of this, you can spend six weeks at BU conducting university laboratory research with some of the nation's brightest scientific minds and advance your knowledge and skills.

Deadline: 2/14/2021

Length: 6 weeks

Age: Rising 12th grader

Cost: Residential student - $7500, Commuter student - $5000

About: The UPMC Hillman Cancer Center Academy, previously the UPCI Academy, strives to provide cutting-edge research and career preparatory experiences. Like other programs, they seek a diverse group of highly motivated high school students. Above all, the program is designed for students who are pursuing higher education and careers in STEM fields, especially research and medicine.

Deadline: 2/16/2021

Length: 7 weeks

Age: Minimum age of 15 years old

Cost: Free. Cost to reside on campus - $7,000

About: The Summer Youth Intensive Program (SYIP) is designed, organized, and delivered by the College of Chemistry at UC Berkeley. However, SYIP is far from the traditional summer program. In fact, SYIP goes over the course of one year and serves students who are passionate about scientific research and who are focused on maximizing their future success in college. Importantly, it's worth noting which online summer programs like this help you transition to college life.

Deadline: Rolling admissions

Length: 4 weeks

Age: Rising 9-12th graders in the SF Bay Area, CA

Cost: Approx. $14, 500

Moving on, let's take a look at the next batch:

About: As has been noted, participants experience direct patient observation, shadow mentors in patient care settings, and interact with a broad spectrum of health staff. Along with this, students attend daily development seminars.

Deadline: Opens 1/4/202, last year deadline: 2/21/2020

Length: 4 weeks

Age: Current 9-12th graders from underrepresented groups in health in the SF Bay Area, CA

Cost: Free, may receive a stipend

About: Students learn the fundamentals of enzyme structure, function, and evolution. After that, each team of three combines bench experiments and computer tools to characterize a member of an enzyme family that is implicated in crop infection by fungal pathogens. In fact, students work with one which has never been modeled by anyone before.

Deadline: 2/5/2021

Length: 39 days

Age: Rising 12th graders but will consider rising 11th graders too

Cost: 3,950 if online, or $6,950 if in-person

About: The National Eye Institute NIH Summer Internship Program (SIP) provides opportunities for students to spend the summer working with some of the world's leading scientists. As a result, summer interns come to the NEI to participate in research projects.

Deadline: 2/1/2021

Length: 8 weeks

Age: Minimum age of 17. In addition, applicants must reside approximately 40 miles from the NIH Bethesda campus at the time of application, if they are not eighteen by June 15, 2021

Cost: Free, monthly stipend is paid

About: SIP is a summer-long (10-week) research internship program for high-school students in STEM fields. In other words, UCSC faculty, graduate students, and post-doctoral researchers provide one-on-one mentoring for these high-school interns. As you can see, this is a great opportunity to see how some online summer programs allow you to work at a collegiate level. The research projects are real, in that they are not made up just for high-school students; instead, students are inserted into existing research projects here at UCSC.

Deadline: TBD; however, note last year's deadline: 3/20/2020

Length: 8 weeks

Age: Must be 14 (or 16 for some projects)

Cost: Approx. $4,000

About: Rising high school juniors and seniors are invited to apply for an authentic STEM research experience at a world-class research university for 6 weeks during the summer. Given that they are accepted, students gain hands-on experience in various STEM fields.

Deadline: Opens March 2021, last year's deadline: 3/20/2020

Length: 1.5 months

Age: Current 10-11th graders

Cost: Free, stipend is paid

In this section, let's keep considering options:

About: This summer internship is an elective course for high school and pre-med students. To be specific, this internship will provide exposure to the steps towards mastering basic and advanced cardiothoracic surgery (for example, knot tying, dissection, suturing, coronary artery bypass graft, and aortic valve replacements).

Deadline: 3/21/2021

Length: 2 weeks

Age: Minimum age of 16 years old

Cost: Approx. $6,000

About: High school students are welcome to apply for an 8-week, paid summer research internship at Fred Hutch. Indeed, Hutch has an international reputation for its pioneering research in biological sciences, bone marrow and stem cell transplantation, cancer prevention, epidemiology, and biostatistics.

Deadline: 3/31/2021

Length: 6 weeks

Age: Rising 12th graders

Cost: Free, stipend paid.

About: Become familiar with working in a research lab environment and gain hands-on experience. In addition, learn about what you want to do with your future and possible careers. Beyond this, you can increase your knowledge of global health. What's more, you will discover options for college and scholarships.

Further, students will also participate in workshops on college readiness and career exploration. These programs provide students with a solid foundation for a future career in biomedical research, and there is no cost to participate. 

Deadline: In-person: 4/4/2021; or Online: 6/20/21

Length: Online: 1 week, In-person: 3 weeks

Age: High school students

Cost: Free

About: Pioneer Academics is an online research program founded in cooperation between American university professors and international education experts. Its goal is to provide outstanding high school students around the world with challenging and creative research opportunities across a wide range of disciplines.

Carry out research in the areas of natural sciences, mathematics, social sciences, and humanities. This is one of several online summer programs especially equipped for digital learning.

Deadline: The deadline will be announced on March 10, 2021, last year's deadline was 4/26/2020

Length: 10 weeks

Age: Current 9-12th graders

Cost: Approx. $6,500

About: The goal of this program is to educate next-generation scientists about rational drug design & discovery in biotechnology.  As such, the Summer Internship program will also have guest lectures by experts from leading Pharma/Biotech companies. In addition, they will host two workshops for career development. Students will have a chance to work on the Bioinformatics project for 7 weeks and give oral presentations and submit project reports.

Deadline: TBD, last year's deadline was 5/20/2020

Length: 7 weeks

Age: Rising 12th graders

Cost: $200

If you've made it this far, there is still more to review!

About: A program for talented high school students hosted by the University of California, Irvine. COSMOS students apply to a specific "cluster", with each cluster addressing advanced topics in STEM fields, including a variety of engineering disciplines, pharmaceutical sciences, and computer science (to name a few).

Deadline: 2/19/2021

Length: 4 weeks

Age: High school students

Cost: Approx. $2,000

About: The Research Mentorship Program is a competitive, six-week summer program that engages high-achieving high school students from all over the world in university-level research. Students will be paired up with a mentor (graduate student, postdoc, or faculty) and choose a research project from a large list of disciplines offered by the program each year.

Deadline: 3/15/2021

Length: 6 weeks

Age: Current 10-11th graders

Cost: Approx. $10,500 

About: Join 28 girls from 7 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) for an exciting and unparalleled week of quality tech training and international friendship on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg VA. Participants will collaborate on tech projects by day and participate in stimulating cross-cultural dialogues and fun times at night!

Deadline: 1/15/2021

Length: 22 days

Age: Minimum age of 15 years old, GIRLS ONLY

Cost: Free

About: Facebook Summer Academy Externs will have the opportunity to learn about the day-to-day operations of one of the leading social media networks by being part of a live workforce. Externs will work closely with Facebook Mentors to gain real-world work experience and on-the-job skills that will help propel them into successful careers.

Deadline: 2/14/2021

Length: 6 weeks

Age: Current 10th graders. Must be full-year residents of the SF Bay Area

Cost: Free, stipend paid

About: Camp Euclid is an online math research program for youth. Participants will encounter math problems (which have never been solved before). Mull over and grapple with difficult math problems within a circle of fellow researchers.

Deadline: TBD, last year's deadline was 6/13/2020

Length: 6 weeks

Age: Maximum age of 19 years old

Cost: Approx $1,400

And finally, our last entry of online research opportunities for high schoolers today:

About: Math ExpLR is a program in mathematical biology. Students will be paired up with undergraduates and work with a PI on a computational biology research project.  In addition, there will be weekly activities in skills development, including how to give presentations, or how to write math on the computer. By the end of the project, all students will give a presentation about their research and submit an expository paper about their work.

Deadline: TBD, last year's deadline was 3/1/2020

Length: 6 weeks

Age: High school students

Online high school research programs offer valuable opportunities for students to engage in research and expand their academic horizons from the comfort of their own homes. These programs provide access to online research opportunities for high school students, allowing them to delve into a variety of fields and explore their interests. Virtual research opportunities for high school students enable them to work on real research projects, collaborate with professionals, and contribute to the advancement of knowledge in their chosen fields. These programs foster critical thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills, setting students up for success in future academic and professional endeavors.

One of the key advantages of online high school research programs is their flexibility and accessibility. These programs are designed to be accessible to students regardless of their location or time constraints. Students can participate in online summer research for high school students without the need for travel or being tied to a specific location. This flexibility allows students to engage in research activities while managing other commitments, such as part-time jobs or extracurricular activities. Virtual research programs provide an inclusive and convenient platform for high school students to pursue their research interests.

High school summer research programs conducted online offer students a chance to gain valuable experience and build a strong foundation for future academic and professional pursuits. By participating in these programs, students have the opportunity to work closely with researchers and experts in their fields of interest. They can develop research skills, learn about the research process, and gain exposure to cutting-edge research methodologies and technologies. Online high school research programs also offer mentorship and guidance, providing students with invaluable insights and support as they navigate their research projects.

Another significant advantage of online high school research programs is that they often provide free high school internships for the summertime. These programs offer financial accessibility, ensuring that students from diverse backgrounds can participate and benefit from research experiences. Free high school internships through online research programs allow students to explore their interests without the burden of financial constraints. By removing financial barriers, these programs promote equity and inclusivity, ensuring that talented high school students have equal opportunities to engage in meaningful research and enhance their academic profiles.

Bonus Reads:

• 40 Incredible Research Opportunities for High School Students
• 19 Computer Science Research Opportunities for High School Students
• 25 Science Internships for High School Students

Yes, applications for these online research opportunities for high school students tend to be lengthier than other less competitive programs available to you. Not only that, these reputable summer research programs for high school students apps usually require essay responses to several questions as well as letters of recommendation. Furthermore, these online summer programs will definitely be in-demand this year and in years to come.

Securing a spot in online high school research programs can open doors to exciting research opportunities and contribute to a student's academic and professional growth. To tap into online research opportunities for high school students, start by actively searching for virtual research programs that align with your interests. Look for organizations, universities, and institutions that offer online summer research for high school students. Explore their websites and program details to understand the application process, eligibility criteria, and deadlines. One way to increase your chances of getting into online high school research programs is to showcase your passion and interest in the field. Craft a compelling application that highlights your enthusiasm, relevant coursework, and any previous research experiences or projects you have undertaken. Emphasize how participating in the program aligns with your academic goals and how it will contribute to your personal and professional development. Additionally, highlight any extracurricular activities, awards, or achievements that demonstrate your dedication and commitment to the field of research.

Networking and reaching out to mentors or professionals in your desired research field can also be beneficial. Attend virtual conferences, webinars, or workshops related to your area of interest and connect with experts in the field. Engage in meaningful conversations, ask questions, and express your eagerness to learn and contribute to research. Building relationships and establishing connections with professionals can provide you with valuable insights, advice, and potential recommendations that may enhance your application for online high school research programs.

Don't overlook the importance of researching and applying for free high school internships for the summertime. Many organizations and institutions offer free or funded research internships specifically designed for high school students. Explore online platforms, research institutes, and educational websites that curate a list of available internships. Make sure to read the requirements and application instructions carefully, and tailor your application to showcase your skills, academic achievements, and interest in the specific research area. Take advantage of these opportunities to gain hands-on experience, contribute to ongoing research projects, and expand your knowledge in your chosen field.

But, if you need help constructing a quality application for these online research opportunities, why not get experts to help? The Empowerly community can not only help you find exactly which online summer research opportunities for high school students suit your interests. Not only that, we edit your essay responses. Most of all, working with a counselor can even ensure that you meet the fast-approaching summer research programs in high school deadlines.