15 Medical Programs for High School Students in New Haven, CT
- Stephen Turban
- 6 minutes ago
- 10 min read
If you are planning to study medicine in college or you want a future in healthcare, high school is a good time to start building skills and exposure. A medical program shows you what advanced training looks like and what different medical careers involve. These programs cover topics like human biology, diagnostics, public health, lab research, and clinical skills. Some programs are research-focused, some are patient-care focused, and others are built around simulations. Either way, you get a better sense of what the field involves and what kind of work you enjoy.
What medical programs are available for high schoolers in New Haven, Connecticut?
New Haven has a strong medical ecosystem for students because it is built around major universities, research centers, and academic hospitals. These institutions offer programs where you can learn in medical and research environments, often with access to faculty, researchers, and mentors who work in the field. Medical programs like these give you a solid edge in college applications because they show initiative to explore medicine.
With that, here are 15 medical programs for high school students in New Haven, Connecticut!
Location: Remote (students can participate from anywhere in the world)
Cost: Varies depending on program type; full financial aid available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: Varies by cohort (summer, fall, winter, or spring); program lengths range from 12 weeks to 1 year
Application Deadline: Varies by the cohort
Eligibility: Current high school students who demonstrate strong academic achievement
The Lumiere Research Scholar Program is a selective, fully remote research program where you’ll work one-on-one with a Ph.D. mentor to design and complete your own independent research project. You’ll choose a topic you’re genuinely curious about, whether that’s psychology, economics, computer science, engineering, data science, or another academic field. Throughout the program, your mentor will guide you through each step of the research process, from refining your question to analyzing results and strengthening your final paper. By the end of the standard 12-week track, most students walk away with a polished research paper they can use for future academic opportunities. You can find more details about the application here, and check out students’ reviews of the program here and here.
Location: In-person at UConn Health, Farmington, CT, or Central Connecticut State University
Cost: Paid stipend (amount not specified)
Acceptance rate/cohort size: There is no information available
Dates: June 15 - July 17
Application Deadline: April 1
Eligibility: Connecticut high school juniors (11th grade) aged 16+ by program start
UConn Health’s High School Student Research Apprentice Program is a full-time summer research placement where you work in a basic science or clinical lab setting. You will support research through lab tasks, data collection, and structured research activities, which gives you an early look at how academic medical labs function. Because it is commuter-based, the schedule is closer to a job than a camp, with daily attendance and long workdays. The apprenticeship structure also makes it a strong option if you want proof of research exposure, not just classroom learning.
Location: Virtual
Cost: Varies depending on program type; full financial aid available
Acceptance Rate/Cohort Size: Not publicly disclosed
Dates: Multiple cohorts offered throughout the year (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter)
Application Deadline: Rolling admissions with seasonal deadlines
Eligibility: High school students interested in artificial intelligence; prior exposure to Python or AI concepts is recommended but not strictly required
Veritas AI’s AI + Medicine Deep Dive is a virtual program where you learn how machine learning shows up in real healthcare work, not just in headlines. You study practical use cases like disease detection and improving medical scan quality, then work through guided coding sessions and applied projects tied to those problems. The structure mixes lectures with hands-on tasks, so you spend time both learning the concepts and actually using them in a medical context. A key part of the program is learning how to explain model outputs in plain language. Here is the program brochure and the application form.
Location: Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT
Cost: Not publicly specified
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selection based on interview
Dates: July 16 - 31
Application Deadline: March 31
Eligibility: Rising 11th and 12th graders
Yale School of Public Health’s Young Scholars Summer Program in Biostatistics and Clinical Research is designed for students who want to understand medicine through data. You will learn how clinical studies are designed, how health datasets are structured, and how researchers decide whether a result is meaningful. R is introduced as the main tool, so you spend time learning how to clean data, run basic statistical analysis, and interpret outputs in a way that matches real public health work. Most of the learning happens through team-based projects, where you develop a question using real health science datasets and build a final presentation based on your findings.
Location: New Haven, Connecticut
Cost: There is no information available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Approximately 25 students per year
Dates: February–April (spring session, tentatively); July–August (summer session, tentatively)
Application Deadline: December 5 (tentatively)
Eligibility: High school juniors and seniors in good academic standing attending a New Haven Public Partnership high school
Yale New Haven Hospital’s School to Career Program is a selective internship model where you rotate through different parts of a major hospital system. You will get exposure to both clinical and nonclinical areas, which can include nursing, patient care, radiology technology, business operations, law, and hospital engineering. The structure is mentorship-based, and the program puts a lot of focus on professional behavior, accountability, and how hospital teams coordinate work. The spring-to-summer setup also means you spend enough time in the environment to understand routines, hierarchy, and how departments actually function day to day.
Location: Virtual (administered from New Haven, CT)
Cost: Free; academic credit may be available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: There is no information available
Dates: July 6 - 31
Application Deadline: April 4
Eligibility: High school students (minimum age 15) and undergraduate students ages 15 - 21
The Yale Centre for Clinical Investigation’s Exposures Program is a four-week virtual research internship that blends health research training with modern topics like health technology, patient engagement, health disparities, and data science. You will work with a mentor while developing a small project, and the program builds in structured activities like seminars, journal clubs, and discussions with clinical and research professionals. The pace is steady and academic, but the work still stays applied since projects are framed around real healthcare problems. It ends with a formal presentation, so you also practice turning research work into something you can explain clearly to an audience.
Location: Yale University, New Haven, CT
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Not publicly available
Dates: July 5 - 17
Application Deadline: February 24
Eligibility: Current pathways scholars entering grades 10 - 12; teacher recommendation required
Yale’s Pathways to Science Summer Scholars Program is a short, intensive on-campus experience for students already connected to the Pathways initiative. The program runs as a sequence of workshops led by Yale faculty, staff, graduate students, and undergraduates, so the teaching style feels closer to a university environment than a high school classroom. You will attend sessions across different STEM topics, which makes the program like a structured academic sampler. Rising seniors also complete a dedicated college essay workshop, so part of the program is about writing and planning, not just science.
Location: New Haven, Connecticut
Cost: There is no information available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: There is no information available
Dates: Five-week summer program
Application Deadline: Rolling
Eligibility: High school seniors attending a New Haven public school
The Yale New Haven Hospital School to Career Internship Program is a summer placement designed specifically for New Haven public school seniors who want early exposure to healthcare careers. The format is straightforward: you commit to a fixed weekly schedule, work in a supervised hospital setting, and learn how professional hospital environments operate. While the program does not publicly describe detailed clinical duties, the main value is the workplace exposure, the routines, and learning how hospital departments interact. Since the internship is coordinated through school counselors, it is built around local access and structured support rather than open national recruitment.
Location: New Haven, Connecticut
Cost: $4,298 (residential); $2,498 (commuter); $250 course supplement
Acceptance rate/cohort size: There is no information available
Dates: June 14–June 20; July 5–July 11
Application Deadline: There is no information available
Eligibility: High school students
Summer Springboard’s Emergency Medicine course at Yale University is built around practical clinical skills and simulation-style learning. Over the week, you will learn basics like taking vital signs, CPR, splinting, suturing, and first aid, then use those skills in structured mock emergency scenarios. A major part of the week is spent in medical simulation labs, where you get used to how healthcare trainees practice under pressure. The course also includes a mass casualty simulation where you work in teams to triage and stabilize “patients,” which gives you a clearer sense of how emergency medicine is organized in real life.
Location: University of New Haven, West Haven, CT
Cost: $700 (day program); $1,250 (on-campus accommodations)
Acceptance rate/cohort size: There is no information available
Dates: July 14 - 18
Application Deadline: Not specified
Eligibility: Students entering grades 10-12 or the freshman year of college
The University of New Haven’s Health Professions Academy runs as a one-week survey of healthcare careers, but with a lot more hands-on work than a typical overview program. You will explore fields like nursing, paramedicine, physician associate studies, nutrition sciences, occupational therapy, and speech-language pathology. The week usually includes CPR certification and lab sessions tied to diagnostics, fitness, and patient-centered care. It also gives you a basic sense of how healthcare teams work across roles, which is useful if you’re still deciding what kind of healthcare pathway fits you.
11. Harvard Medical School Pre-College: Medical Research – Shaping the Future of Health and Medicine
Location: Online
Cost: $2,195
Acceptance rate/cohort size: There is no information available
Dates: Multiple sessions available year-round (2-week or 4-week options)
Application Deadline: April 5; April 26; May 10 (varies by session)
Eligibility: Students age 13 and older
Medical Research: Shaping the Future of Health and Medicine is an online, college-level course designed to introduce you to how medical discoveries move from the lab to patient care. You’ll explore the foundations of biomedical research, including drug development, genomics, protein structure, and the role of data science and AI in modern medicine. A central component of the course is a final capstone project, where you design a research-based therapeutic proposal to address a real human disease. The course is taught by Harvard Medical School faculty and combines video lessons, interactive content, quizzes, and applied assignments totaling approximately 30 hours. You’ll also receive feedback and guidance from expert mentors who help support your learning throughout the course.
Location: Virtual (hosted by Stanford University)
Cost: $2,400 program fee plus a $45 application fee; financial aid is available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Approximately 50 students per cohort
Dates: Session A: June 15 - 26; Session B: July 6 - 17
Application Deadline: Financial Aid: February 13; Standard Application: February 20
Eligibility: Students residing in the U.S. and attending a U.S. high school; must be 14+ by program start
The Stanford AIMI Summer Research Internship is a selective, two-week virtual program run by the Stanford Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine & Imaging at Stanford University, designed for those interested in AI applications in healthcare. You’ll engage in introductory and technical lectures on AI in medicine, group research projects, and daily mentoring with Stanford student leads and researchers. The program also features “Meet the Expert” sessions with professionals from academia, industry, non-profits, and government. You’ll collaborate in a structured, team-based virtual environment and are expected to participate fully throughout the two-week schedule. Those who complete the full program receive a Certificate of Completion from Stanford AIMI.
Location: Online hosted by Wake Forest University
Cost: $1,595; need-based scholarships available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Not publicly available
Dates: Multiple 2 and 4-week sessions throughout the year; earliest session begins March 1
Application Deadline: Varies by session (typically 1 week before program start)
Eligibility: Students ages 13 and older
In this program, you’ll study major diseases such as COVID-19, HIV, tuberculosis, cholera, and Zika while learning how epidemiologists trace outbreaks and identify “patient zero.” The curriculum explores the differences between viral, bacterial, and other pathogens, as well as how the immune system responds to infection. You’ll also examine the history of vaccines, modern treatment strategies, and cutting-edge detection technologies. Through guided research activities, you’ll learn how to work with scientific databases and biomedical literature. The course culminates in a capstone project in which you’ll select an infectious disease and present its story, covering causes, history, and treatments, using a creative medium such as video, slides, or digital presentations.
Location: Virtual (online), offered by Wake Forest University
Cost: $1,595; need-based scholarships available; no stipend
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Not publicly available
Dates: Multiple 1, 2, and 4-week sessions; earliest session begins March 1
Application Deadline: Varies by session (typically 1 week before the start date)
Eligibility: Open to students ages 13 and older interested in pre-med or clinical medicine
Wake Forest University’s Making the Rounds course is structured around the patient journey, starting from an emergency call and moving through hospital admission, diagnosis, treatment decisions, and follow-up care. The program shows how hospital systems function and how teams coordinate under real constraints. You also cover clinical concepts such as cardiovascular anatomy and broader influences on health outcomes, including social and environmental factors. The course includes mentoring support and ends with a capstone where you present a healthcare topic through a creative format, which is useful if you like explaining ideas, not just learning them.
Location: Virtual (CNV-X via Zoom) and In-person on campus, Stanford University, CA
Cost: $1,725 (Virtual); $3,325 (in-person); scholarships are available for qualified applicants
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Approximately 12% acceptance rate with a 12:1 student-to-staff ratio
Dates: Virtual (CNV-X): June 8 - 19 or June 22 - July 3; In-person (CNI-X): July 6 - 17 or July 20 - 31
Application Deadline: Rolling admission from December 15 to March 1
Eligibility: High school students who have completed their sophomore, junior, or senior year
Stanford’s Clinical Neuroscience Immersion Experience (CNI-X) focuses on how neuroscience connects to psychiatry, psychology, and clinical decision-making. You will explore topics like neuroimaging, brain development, addiction, sleep, psychiatric epidemiology, and mental health through seminars led by Stanford faculty and researchers. A central part of the program is the capstone, where you work in small teams to design a solution to a real-world issue tied to brain health, mental health, or social behavior. The structure makes it feel closer to a research-and-policy workshop than a standard lecture program, especially because you are expected to collaborate, build an argument, and present your work clearly.
Stephen is one of the founders of Lumiere and a Harvard College graduate. He founded Lumiere as a PhD student at Harvard Business School. Lumiere is a selective research program where students work 1-1 with a research mentor to develop an independent research paper.
Image Source - Yale University logo