Do I need a professor to be my research mentor?

No. A mentor can also be a graduate student, a postdoc or another working researcher. Georgia Tech's Project ENGAGES, for example, uses graduate students and postdoctoral fellows as mentors for high school students.

Can a high school student have a research mentor without a lab?

Yes. A mentor can read your plan, answer questions and give feedback on a literature review or a public-data project, which needs no lab. Lab access is a separate question with its own rules for minors.

Should I pay for a research mentor?

You do not have to. Free routes exist, such as teachers, nearby researchers and university-run programs. The FTC says honest employers never ask you to pay to get a job, which is a useful test for any offer that charges for a placement.

How to Find a Research Mentor as a High School Student

A mentor is one step in our guide on how to do research in high school, and you can start a project before you have one. This page covers who can mentor you, where to look, which rules may apply to a minor, and how to tell whether a mentor is a good fit.

Who can be a research mentor for a high school student?

A mentor is anyone who does research in your field and will give you feedback on yours. That can be a professor, a graduate student, a postdoctoral fellow, or a researcher at an institute or company. A teacher with relevant training can also help you start, even if they do research less often.

Programs show the range. Georgia Tech’s Project ENGAGES recruits graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to mentor high school students in research, asks them to be available through the full program year, and has a committee review each mentor’s project proposal.^[1] Graduate students and postdocs often have more time for day-to-day questions than a faculty member, and a faculty member may be better placed to explain how a field works. You do not have to choose one type. Many students end up with a main contact and a second person who reads drafts.

Where do you look for a mentor?

Look first where people already know you, then widen the circle. Each route below works without paying anyone.

A science, math or social studies teacher who knows a local researcher
Faculty and graduate students in nearby university departments, found through their department and lab pages
Researchers at nearby institutes, hospitals, museums and government labs
The authors of papers you read for your project, who may answer a short, specific question
Structured programs run by universities, which match students with mentors for you

Structured programs are worth checking because the matching is done for you, though most have set eligibility and deadlines. MIT PRIMES describes itself as a free year-long in-person program with research projects in mathematics and bioinformatics, open to high school sophomores and juniors from Greater Boston, with a posted application deadline of November 2, 2026.^[2] Georgia Tech’s page does not say how students are placed with mentors or what students pay, so ask the program before you apply.^[1] If your question needs lab access, our guide on how to get a lab position as a high school student covers the forms and safety rules.

What rules apply when a mentor works with a minor?

Expect rules, and expect them to differ by school. They exist to protect you, and a mentor who says “I need to check what our university allows” is following them, not brushing you off.

University	What its policy says
Purdue	Minors must be at least 14 to enter potentially hazardous areas, a parent or guardian must give written permission, the lab manager must approve, and most minors need two adults present the entire time.^[3]
Yale Chemistry	Welcomes high school students aged 16 or 17, treats the work as an educational mentoring opportunity, and says the minor may not receive wages or other compensation, with a narrow exception.^[4]
Old Dominion	Staff who supervise minors in a program must pass a criminal background check and complete university-approved training before any contact with minors.^[5]

These are examples, not a full list. They also cover formal programs and labs, so a conversation with a teacher or a feedback session on a paper may fall under none of them. A parent or guardian should know who you are working with and how you will be in touch, whatever the setting. If a mentor wants to move to private messaging apps or meet one-on-one in a closed room, say so to a parent or teacher.

How do you know a mentor is a good fit?

Check fit before you commit, and agree on the basics in writing. Research groups use a “mentoring compact” for this. Duke’s discussion guide says the two sides should address communication style and how urgent questions are handled, meeting frequency and who sets the agenda, project design input, milestones, likely papers and authorship principles, and expectations for responsible conduct of research.^[6] It is written for medical school researchers, but the list translates to a high school project.

Turn it into questions you can ask in a first conversation:

How do you prefer to communicate, and how quickly do you usually reply?
How often could we meet, and who sets the agenda?
Will the project be mine, with your feedback, or part of your own work?
If something is written up, how is credit decided?
What would you expect me to have done before each meeting?
What does your university require for a student under 18?

A good answer is specific. A vague yes, or promises about outcomes, is a reason to ask more questions.

In what order should you do it?

Do the work that makes you easy to help before you ask for help. A mentor can respond to a clear question much faster than to “I want to do research.”

Write your question in one sentence and read a few papers on it. Our guide on research project ideas you can actually finish helps narrow it.
List the people and programs from the routes above, starting with the closest.
Read each person’s recent work, so you can ask about something specific.
Contact them with a short message that says who you are, what you are asking and what you can commit to.
Ask the fit questions above and what rules apply to a minor.
If nobody says yes yet, keep going on your own. Our guide on research without a lab shows how.

What if someone asks you to pay for a mentor?

Treat a fee as a reason to slow down and compare. Mentors at universities and institutes are reached through free routes like those above, and some programs are free to students. A paid program is a different thing, and it should be judged as one.

The FTC says honest employers will never ask you to pay to get a job and that anyone who does is a scammer, and it says to search the company’s name with words like “scam” or “complaint” and to talk to someone you trust.^[7] That advice is about job offers, not research programs, but the test is a useful one for any offer to sell you a mentor. Our checklist on how to tell if a high school research program is legit lists what to ask about who teaches, what you produce and what is refunded.

What should you do next?

Write your research question in one sentence, then list the people and programs you could ask and read one recent paper from each. If you want an outside view of how your profile reads, the free review on ivy-league.io is built for that.

What do we not know?

Program details change, and deadlines like the one above pass, so confirm each on the program’s own page. Rules for minors vary by school and department, and the three examples here are not a complete picture. We do not know how many high school students find a mentor through each route, and we found no source that measures it. Duke’s mentoring compact guide is written for medical school researchers, so treat it as a model for questions, not a requirement. Nothing here shows that having a mentor changes an admission decision.