Summer gets all the attention, but fall is usually where students build the habits that actually matter. During the fall semester, you are already dealing with classes and deadlines, so adding one meaningful activity teaches you how to manage your time more realistically.
Fall is also a good time to explore something before you commit to it long-term. You can try an activity, see if you enjoy it, and decide whether you want to keep going into winter or switch directions. That kind of early testing saves time later, especially if you are trying to build a strong profile before senior year.
Why should you choose a fall activity?
Fall activities come in many forms, and you do not need to pick the most competitive option for it to be valuable. You can join a program, volunteer in a consistent role, compete in something academic, take an online course, or build a personal project that you work on each week. The goal is not to stay busy. The goal is to build experience you can actually point to.
These activities also strengthen college applications because they show consistency. Admissions officers can usually tell the difference between a one-time activity and something you stuck with. Fall is the season when you can build that kind of track record, while also learning what you want to spend your time on.
To help you get started, here are 15 fall activities for high school students! If you’re more interested in a specific field, such as sociology or coding, you can check out the links for options tailored to that.
15 Fall Activities for High School Students
1. New-York Historical Society Student Historian Internship
Location: New York, NY
Cost: No cost, interns earn a $700 stipend
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Highly selective
Dates: Weekly meetings during the academic year from October 29 – June 24
Application Deadline: August 24
Eligibility: High school students entering grades 10, 11, or 12 who live in and attend school in the New York City metro area.
The New York Historical Society Student Historian Internship puts you inside a working museum and library collection. You research a specific theme using primary sources from the Society’s archives, then turn that research into digital storytelling. The work is hands-on and document-based. You learn how to read letters, photographs, newspapers, and other archival material like a historian. You also see how museums build classroom resources and public exhibits from the same evidence. By the end, you have a research product you can actually show.
2. The New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) Junior Academy
Location: Virtual
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: Semesters run Fall and Spring
Application Deadline: Early July for fall
Eligibility: Students ages 13–17 from anywhere in the world.
The New York Academy of Sciences Junior Academy is a virtual challenge program where you work in teams on real problems. You pick a challenge area like health, food systems, or sustainability, then build a solution using research and data. The work feels closer to project design than a class. You spend time defining the problem, testing ideas, and writing up a final proposal. You also learn how to collaborate online with structured tools, since the program runs like a remote research team.
3. American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) Science Research Mentoring Program (SRMP)
Location: New York, NY
Cost: Fully funded, students receive a $2,500 stipend.
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Highly selective
Dates: 1 month Summer Institute in August, twice-weekly mentored research sessions throughout the academic year, and monthly workshops
Application Deadline: March 1
Eligibility: NYC high school students in grades 10 or 11 who have either completed one of AMNH’s preparatory courses or attend one of their partner high schools or programs.
The American Museum of Natural History’s Science Research Mentoring Program is a long-term research placement built around real museum science. You work with a research team led by AMNH scientists and spend the year contributing to an original project in an area like astrophysics, conservation biology, or anthropology. The program expects consistency. You do real research tasks, learn the tools used in that field, and build enough depth to understand what the work looks like week to week. Workshops run alongside the research, so you keep improving your scientific writing and presentation skills. The end goal is a research product you can present.
4. MIT PRIMES-USA
Location: Online
Cost: Free!
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Extremely selective, fewer than 50 students selected per batch
Dates: Phase 4: Phase IV, September 1 – December 31: Full program: January 1 – December 31
Application Deadline: Early December of the previous year
Eligibility: High school sophomores and juniors residing in the United States. While not required, it’s preferred that you also be either a USAMO or USAJMO qualifier, have received a grade A for a college-level proof-based math course, participated in a summer math program, or have a letter of recommendation from a college professor of mathematics.
MIT PRIMES-USA offers you the opportunity to work on unsolved problems in mathematics, computer science, and computational biology in a year-long research and mentorship program. During the fall portion of the program, the focus is on finalizing your research paper and preparing for professional presentations such as the Fall PRIMES Conference. You will utilize advanced computational tools and LaTeX for mathematical typesetting while receiving guidance from MIT graduate students and faculty. This phase emphasizes the technical writing skills necessary to contribute to the global scientific body of knowledge.
5. Brookfield Zoo King Conservation Science Scholars
Location: Brookfield Zoo, Chicago, Brookfield, IL, or select community sites or virtual.
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: The fall cohort is onboarded in November, duration depends on the activities chosen
Application Deadline: Opens early September
Eligibility: High schoolers in grades 9–11, aged 14–18
Brookfield Zoo King Conservation Science Scholars is a conservation and science leadership program based at Brookfield Zoo. You learn how conservation work is done through workshops, field activities, and projects tied to animal behavior, ecology, and environmental education. The program also includes public-facing work, like supporting zoo events and helping with conservation outreach. Over time, you build a record of conservation involvement, including data collection and interpretation activities. It is structured like a pipeline program, so you keep returning for new experiences and an alumni network. You finish with a portfolio of work.
6. Library of Congress High School Work Study Program
Location: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Cost: No cost, this is a paid internship
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Highly selective
Dates: Varies, can extend up to one year alongside the academic school year
Application Deadline: The application window opens July 3 and closes April 24
Eligibility: Local area high schoolers living within a 45-minute commute of the Library, aged 16+, and who are U.S. citizens
The Library of Congress High School Work Study Program gives you paid experience inside a federal library system. You work part-time supporting day-to-day operations like processing materials, organizing records, and completing administrative tasks that keep collections usable. The value is in how much you learn about information systems and institutional workflow. You see how large archives manage physical and digital materials and how document organization works at scale. It is also one of the few high school roles where you work in a federal workplace with real standards.
7. U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Headquarters Student Internship Program
Location: Washington, D.C.
Cost: No cost; this is an unpaid internship
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Highly selective
Dates: September – December
Application Deadline: Spring for Fall start
Eligibility: High school students who are U.S. citizens
U.S. Department of the Treasury Headquarters Student Internship Program places you in a working office inside a Cabinet-level agency. Your tasks depend on the office, but you can be assigned work like research, basic analysis, briefing prep, and support for internal projects. You also get exposure to how federal economic and financial policy is handled in practice, through meetings, documents, and day-to-day workflow. The program matters because you are close to the machinery of government, not watching from outside. You learn what policy work actually looks like: reading, writing, data, and coordination.
8. City Limits CLARIFY Youth Program
Location: Virtual + on-site field trips in New York City, NY
Cost: No cost, students are paid a $500 stipend
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Highly selective
Dates: Two days per week during the fall semester
Application Deadline: Usually around September, keep an eye on the website for details
Eligibility: High school sophomores, juniors, and seniors attending a public or charter school in, and residing in, NYC
The City Limits Accountability Reporting Initiative for Youth (CLARIFY) is a public service journalism internship at NYC’s oldest nonprofit investigative news agency. You will learn what public service journalism is all about and the career readiness skills required for it, such as research, writing, and interviewing skills. You will benefit from hands-on training and mentorship in essential skills like communication, media literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. You will work with City Limits’ staff to report on local news stories and even publish your own in a student-produced newsletter.
9. Stanford Math Circle
Location: Stanford, CA (In-person) or Virtual
Cost: $525 per quarter in-person, $500 for virtual
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Open enrolment but small batch sizes
Dates: September–December (Fall quarter)
Application Deadline: Registration opens around 1-2 months before class start and closes when full
Eligibility: High school students in grades 9–12 with a strong interest in mathematics
Stanford Math Circle is a weekly problem-solving program where you work through advanced math topics with mentors. The sessions are discussion-based, so you spend time exploring why solutions work. Topics vary, but the style leans toward proof thinking, structured reasoning, and learning how to write clean arguments. You work alongside other students, which helps because many problems are designed to be tackled collaboratively. The program is taught by Stanford instructors and graduate students.
10. Sandia National Laboratories Year-Round Internship
Location: Albuquerque, NM or Livermore, CA.
Cost: No cost; these are paid internships.
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; varies by department
Dates: Available year-round, allows for part-time work for up to 25 hours per week at a local Sandia site during the academic term
Application Deadline: Rolling, positions are posted on the careers page as they become available.
Eligibility: Students aged 16+, U.S. citizenship often required for security-related roles, enrolled full-time in high school, and with a GPA of 3.0.
Sandia National Laboratories’ Year-Round Internship is a paid research internship where you work part-time during the school year. You join a lab team and contribute to projects tied to engineering, computing, and national security research. The work depends on the group, but it can include coding, data analysis, modeling, or testing. You use professional tools that labs actually rely on, like Python, MATLAB, and CAD. You also work with deadlines and deliverables, which makes it feel like a job.
11. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) High School Internship
Location: Los Alamos, NM
Cost: No cost; these are paid internships.
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Highly selective
Dates: 10-20 hours per week during the Fall term
Application Deadline: September 30
Eligibility: High school seniors who are U.S. citizens with a 2.75 minimum GPA
The Los Alamos National Laboratory High School Internship places you in a national lab environment during your senior year. You support a research team working in areas like bioscience, physics, chemistry, or engineering. The work is structured around real lab needs, so you help with data, experiments, documentation, and technical reporting. You learn how research teams operate and how problems get broken down into tasks. It is a part-time commitment, which means you have to manage it alongside school.
12. Project TRUE (Teens Researching Urban Ecology)
Location: Bronx, NY
Cost: No cost, students earn $750 in the summer component and $350 in the fall component
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; approximately 50 students
Dates: Late June to August for the summer component, September–December for the fall program
Application Deadline: February 25
Eligibility: High school sophomores and juniors from the Bronx
Project TRUE is a collaborative research program between Fordham University and the Wildlife Conservation Society. You will work in small groups with undergraduate mentors to collect and analyze data on local ecosystems within NYC parks. The program emphasizes field techniques such as animal tracking and water quality testing. You will learn to use statistical software to interpret your results and communicate your findings in the Bronx Science Consortium Poster Symposium. This experience provides practical training in urban conservation and field biology.
13. Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY) Online Programs
Location: Virtual
Cost: Varies by format and course, can range from ~$900–$1,400; financial aid is available.
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: Vary by course; sessions are available throughout the year, including in the fall term.
Application Deadline: Varies by course and format
Eligibility: Students in grades 9 – 12 who meet CTY eligibility requirements through qualifying test scores (e.g., SCAT, PSAT, etc).
CTY Online provides advanced courses in mathematics, computer science, and writing during the fall term. You will engage in project-based learning that explores subjects like cryptography, AP Computer Science, or advanced statistics. The program utilizes interactive virtual classrooms to facilitate peer collaboration and instructor feedback. You will build technical skills in programming languages such as Java or Python and learn to apply complex mathematical theories.
14. Northwestern Center for Talent Development (CTD) Online Programs
Location: Virtual
Cost: $575–$800+, depending on credits
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: September 10 – January 14 for 1-credit courses, September 10 – May 20 for 2-credit courses
Application Deadline: Rolling until October 1
Eligibility: Students in grades 9–12 who are either in the 95th percentile or higher on a nationally normed grade-level assessment in the required qualifying subject area, have completed a CTD course in the past two years, or have received a teacher recommendation with a transcript/report card
Northwestern’s CTD offers online enrichment and credit-bearing courses in STEM and the humanities. During the fall, you can enroll in subjects such as neuroscience, biochemistry, machine learning, pre-calculus, creative writing, or criminal law. The curriculum focuses on developing critical thinking and subject-specific software proficiency. You will interact with instructors and peers through virtual discussions and collaborative assignments. This program allows you to explore niche academic interests at an advanced level while maintaining your regular school schedule.
15. Columbia University Science Honors Program (SHP)
Location: Columbia University, New York, NY
Cost: $700
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Highly competitive, requires you to clear a two-hour-long entrance examination
Dates: Every Saturday from September – April
Application Deadline: April 15
Eligibility: High school students (Grades 10–12) living within 75 miles of the Columbia campus
The Science Honors Program allows you to attend advanced Saturday morning courses in a variety of STEM subjects ranging from astrophysics and relativity to immunology and biotechnology. You will participate in lectures and laboratory sessions led by Columbia researchers in fields like quantum mechanics and organic chemistry. The curriculum focuses on quantitative analysis and the development of collegiate-level scientific reasoning. You will gain experience in interpreting experimental data and conducting literature reviews.
One more option – Horizon Academic Research Program
If you’re looking for a competitive mentored research program in subjects like data science, machine learning, political theory, biology, and chemistry, consider applying to Horizon’s Research Seminars and Labs! This is a selective virtual research program that lets you engage in advanced research and develop a research paper on a subject of your choosing. Horizon has worked with 1000+ high school students so far and offers 600+ research specializations for you to choose from. You can find the application link here!
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