To help high school students explore the best options, we’ve curated a list of the top 10 research opportunities in Chicago, IL

Discover the top research opportunities for high school students in 2026. This includes free, paid, online, summer, and prestigious research opportunities by top institutions from around the world!

Sixteen of these 17 programs won't cost you anything. Only Veritas AI charges tuition, and even that comes with need-based aid.

Here are the 10 best research opportunities for high school students in New York City.

Every program below puts you inside a real research project with an actual mentor, not a lecture hall.

Here is our list of the top 8 in-person medicine research opportunities in NJ to help you get started!

Nine programs made this list, split into three groups by how you access them. Three are fully remote, so your location doesn't matter: the Lumiere Research Scholar Program, the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), and the USC Center for the Political Future's environmental policy internship.

We’ve narrowed down the top 7 finance research opportunities for high school students.

Eleven programs on this list put high schoolers into real data science research projects, not just coding classes.

In this blog post, we'll explore 7 research opportunities for high school students in New Jersey.

This blog covers 10 of the best cancer research opportunities for high school students.

This blog covers 10 of the best free research opportunities for high school students across STEM and humanities subjects.

Computer science research programs for high school students range from fully remote, worldwide-eligible options to free residential programs at top universities to paid regional labs that require local residency.

This blog includes 8 great research opportunities in mechanical engineering for high school students in 2024.

We've curated a list of 11 research opportunities for middle school students .

HCSSiM is a six-week residential summer program in college-level math held at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, and it's one of the most respected proof-based math programs a high schooler can attend.

The Simons Summer Research Program officially says prior research experience isn't required, and that's true, but it's not the whole picture.

NSLC is a legitimate for-profit pre-college provider that has run career exploration programs since 1989, and in 2026 it cost between $3,095 and $6,395 for five to twelve days on one of 12 campuses across the US and England.

The Boston Leadership Institute is a paid summer program based in the Boston area that's run one-week and three-week courses for high schoolers since 2011.

The Regeneron Science Talent Search is the oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors in the United States, and the 2027 application is open right now through 8:00 pm Eastern on Thursday, November 5, 2026. Over 2,600 seniors enter each year, 300 are named scholars and receive $2,000 each, 40 become finalists and receive at least $25,000, and the first place winner receives $250,000.