Can any high school student apply to a Columbia research program?

Not on every page. The DBMI program is open to rising or graduating seniors who are at least 17 and in the New York City area, while other options name specific neighborhoods or communities. Read the eligibility section of each page.

Is Columbia's Summer Immersion program a research program?

Columbia's pre-college page lists on-campus and online course formats and makes no statement about research. Check the course descriptions on that site for the session you are considering.

Do I need a program to do research?

No. You can start with a question, public data or published papers, and feedback from a teacher or mentor. Our guide on how to do research in high school shows the steps.

Columbia Summer Research Programs for High School Students

This page is part of our guide on how to do research in high school. Lists of Columbia options often come from companies that sell their own programs. This one uses only Columbia’s pages, dates each claim, and separates research internships from enrichment courses and observerships.

Does Columbia run a summer research program for high school students?

Yes, but the research internships on Columbia’s pages are narrow in who they accept. The Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI) runs a seven-week program for rising or graduating seniors, and participants must be in the New York City area for its full length.^[1] The Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center runs YES in THE HEIGHTS, an eight-week paid internship across two summers, for students who are at least 14 and U.S. citizens or permanent residents.^[2] Other Columbia pages describe programs that are observerships, enrichment, or research limited to named communities.^[3]^[4]

Program	Who it is for, per Columbia	Format	Pay or cost, per Columbia
DBMI Summer Research Program	Rising or graduating seniors, at least 17, in the New York City area^[1]	Seven weeks with a faculty-led research project^[1]	Not stated on the page^[1]
YES in THE HEIGHTS	Students at least 14, U.S. citizens or permanent residents^[2]	Eight weeks per summer, two summers, in a cancer research lab^[2]	Paid, no dollar amount listed^[2]
CU-HERE	Students from Washington Heights, Harlem and the Bronx^[3]	Four two-week observerships in a Department of Surgery^[3]	Not stated in the article^[3]
EARTH	High school students and teachers from three Native communities in the Northern Plains^[4]	Structured summer environmental health sciences research^[4]	Not stated on the page^[4]
Summer Immersion	Pre-college students^[6]	Courses, from one to three weeks, on campus or online^[6]	On a separate costs page^[6]

What does the DBMI summer research program involve?

The DBMI program is a seven-week research experience in biomedical informatics, and its dates for 2026 were June 29 to August 14.^[1] Rising or graduating seniors and undergraduates are invited to apply, participants must be at least 17 by the start date, and they must be able to be in the New York City area for the full program.^[1] Students work on a research project led by DBMI faculty and graduate students, watch and discuss recorded lectures, attend weekly lab meetings, and present journal club articles on healthcare interventions.^[1] They also design a study of their own using the OHDSI framework, a clinical data warehouse.^[1]

The page says applications for the 2027 program are not yet open and lists no deadline, so there is no date to plan around yet.^[1] It does not state a stipend, cost or required application documents. Contact names on the page are the place to ask.^[1]

How does YES in THE HEIGHTS work?

YES in THE HEIGHTS is a cancer research internship that lasts two summers, with eight weeks each summer.^[2] Columbia says students work hands-on with a faculty mentor, usually on the mentor’s research or a related project of the student’s own, attend a weekly journal club, complete an Individual Development Plan and submit a scientific abstract, and second-year participants give an oral presentation.^[2] Applicants must be at least 14 and U.S. citizens or permanent residents, and the program is paid for the eight weeks.^[2]

For 2027, high school scholars run from June 29 to August 27. The application opens November 13, 2026, is due January 8, 2027, and decisions are released in February 2027.^[2] Housing and transportation funds are not provided, so local applicants are encouraged, and applicants from the cancer center’s catchment area are prioritized.^[2] Columbia states that fewer than 10% of high school applicants are accepted.^[2]

Which Columbia programs are not research?

Some programs that appear on Columbia lists are observerships or courses. CU-HERE offers four two-week summer observerships for students from Washington Heights, Harlem and the Bronx, where students observe doctors, nurses and medical students in settings that include research labs.^[3] Observing is different from running a project of your own. The Columbia Stem Cell Initiative program for middle and high school students lasts two days, and the State Pre-College Enrichment Program is a free program for students in grades 7 to 12 interested in STEM.^[3]

Columbia’s School of Professional Studies lists pre-college Summer Immersion formats: one or three weeks on campus as a commuter, three weeks residential, and one or two weeks online.^[6] The page describes academically exceptional students and makes no statement about research or tuition, which sits on a separate costs page.^[6] Treat it as a course program unless a course description says otherwise.

How can you tell a Columbia-run program from one that uses the name?

Check who runs it, on a page you can verify. A Columbia-run program sits on a columbia.edu address and names the department, school or center in charge, as the pages above do. Companies may rent space on campus or describe a course as research, so the name alone does not tell you who teaches or mentors. This checklist works for any program:

Open the program’s own page. Does the address end in columbia.edu, and does it name the unit in charge?
Find eligibility on that page. Many Columbia internships name an age, a neighborhood, a citizenship status or a school partnership.
Find pay or cost on that page. If it is not stated, ask the contact listed.
Read what you will do. A research project, an observership and a set of courses are different things.
Ask who mentors you, and what is refunded if you withdraw. Get the answers in writing.

Our hub on how to tell if a research program is legit covers red flags and questions to ask before you pay. For the same comparison at another school, see our guide to Yale summer research programs.

What can you do if you cannot attend a Columbia program?

You can start research without a program. A project needs a question, a source of data or text, and feedback from someone who knows the field. Read how to find a research mentor and how to volunteer in a lab. Both start with the university or lab nearest to you.

What should you do next?

Open the Columbia pages above for the year you plan to apply and write down eligibility, deadline and pay for each program you qualify for. Then decide whether a Columbia option, a local lab or a project you run on your own fits your goal. If you want an outside view of how your overall profile reads, the free review on ivy-league.io is built for that.

What do we not know?

Eligibility, dates and pay on Columbia’s pages change each year, and several pages state no dates, costs or stipends. This is not a complete list of Columbia-affiliated options, and other departments may run their own. Columbia’s engineering school, its earth science and neuroscience centers, and its community programs may run options with their own rules. We do not know how any program affects an admission decision, and no source we know of shows that it does.