Harvard Summer Research Programs for High School Students

This page is part of our guide on how to do research in high school. Most lists of Harvard summer options come from companies that sell their own programs, so this one uses only Harvard’s pages, dates each claim, and separates what Harvard runs from programs that only borrow the name.

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

Harvard Summer School runs two programs for high schoolers, the Pre-College Program and the Secondary School Program, and both are built around courses. Their overview describes college-level courses, advising and campus life, and does not describe a lab placement.^[1] Lab internships for high schoolers do exist inside Harvard departments and Harvard Medical School, but the ones described on Harvard’s own pages have been small and tied to local schools or residence.^[6]^[8]

Program	Who it is for, per Harvard	Format	Cost, per Harvard
Pre-College Program (Summer School)	Students entering college in 2028 or 2029^[3]	Two weeks, non-credit, residential^[3]	$6,250 per session, plus a $75 application fee^[3]
Secondary School Program (Summer School)	Students entering college in 2027, 2028 or 2029^[2]	Four or seven weeks, for credit^[2]	$4,180 to $15,980 by length and format, plus a $75 fee^[2]
High School Lab Skills (Chemistry and Ed Portal)	Local students nominated by teachers^[6]	Spring class, then a six-week summer internship^[6]	Not stated on the page^[6]
Project Success (Harvard Medical School)	Boston and Cambridge students^[8]	Paid summer research, eight weeks in a 2013 item^[8]	Paid position, per the 2013 item^[8]

The first two rows describe the upcoming summer on Harvard’s pages.^[2] The last two come from news items written in earlier years, so they show what existed, not what is open now.

What do the Harvard Summer School programs cost?

Costs depend on the program, length and format. For Summer 2027, Harvard lists the Pre-College Program at $6,250 plus a $75 application fee.^[3] The Secondary School Program lists four-week online or commuting at $4,180, four-week residential at $9,260, seven-week online or commuting at $4,180 for four credits or $8,160 for eight credits, and seven-week residential at $15,980.^[2] The $75 application fee is nonrefundable, and no fee is needed to start the application.^[4]

Harvard says financial aid exists, but the amount depends on family finances, available funds and format, and staff cannot predict it.^[4] Aid requires U.S. citizenship, permanent residency or DACA status, the early round has more aid available, and late applicants get none.^[4] Applications open December 1, 2026. The early deadline is January 13, 2027, the regular deadline is February 10, 2027 and the late deadline is March 31, 2027 or earlier if waitlists fill.^[3]

Do Harvard Summer School courses include research?

Some course titles suggest lab or research content, but Harvard’s page does not describe what students do in them. The Secondary School Program lists courses such as Integrated Biology Laboratory and Introduction to Research in Psychopathology in the four-week option, and Becoming a Brain Scientist: Neuroscience and Psychology Research in a seven-week career pathway.^[5] Read the course description on Harvard’s page before you assume a course gives you a project of your own. The Pre-College page lists no course labeled as research, and its cost covers tuition, room and meal plan.^[3]

A course is not a mentored project. A course gives you instruction and a grade or evaluation, while a research project gives you a question that you pursue with feedback. Our guide to what a mentored research program involves explains the difference.

Are there Harvard lab programs for local high school students?

Yes, though the ones Harvard describes are small and local. In 2022, Harvard’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and the Harvard Ed Portal ran the first High School Lab Skills program: a spring class for Brighton High School students nominated by their teachers, then a six-week summer research internship with five students placed in five research groups.^[6] A Gazette article in 2023 describes a second year with a similar structure.^[7]

Harvard Medical School has also described Project Success, a summer internship for Boston and Cambridge high school students. A 2013 news item says it ran for eight weeks, paid students, and was geared toward students underrepresented in the sciences.^[8] These pages are years old. If you live nearby, ask your school counselor or science teacher and check the department’s or school’s current page for the terms that apply now.

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

Check who runs it, on a page you can verify. A Harvard-run program names the Harvard school or department that runs it, and its application, cost and eligibility sit on a harvard.edu page. Programs that rent space or use the name may look similar but be run by a company. This checklist works for any program:

Open the program’s own page. Does the address end in harvard.edu, and does it name the Harvard unit in charge?
Find the cost on that page. Compare it with any other site, and trust the Harvard page when they differ.
Read what you will do. A course, a lab internship and a company’s own mentoring are different things.
Ask who teaches or mentors you. Get the answer in writing.
Ask what is refunded and when. Refund rules differ by program, so get them in writing.

Our hub on how to tell if a research program is legit covers red flags and questions to ask before you pay.

What can you do if you cannot attend a Harvard 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, how to volunteer in a lab, and our comparison of humanities and social science programs, which puts free and paid options on the same criteria.

What should you do next?

Open the Harvard Summer School pages for the year you plan to apply and write down the cost, deadline and eligibility. Then decide whether a course, a local lab internship 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?

Costs, dates and eligibility on Harvard’s pages change each year. The Harvard Summer School pages reviewed here describe the coming summer, and they give the June age cutoff with different days, so check the current page. The chemistry and Harvard Medical School internships are described only by older news items, so we do not know whether they run in the same form now, who is eligible this year, or how to apply. This is not a complete list of Harvard-affiliated options. We do not know how any program affects an admission decision, and no source we know of shows that it does.