It’s completely normal not to know what you want to pursue after high school. That’s where trying something outside your regular classes can really help. These programs let you explore a subject you’re curious about without the pressure of grades or exams. Most of them are structured, guided by mentors or instructors, and end with a project or experience you can look back on with confidence.
Why choose a program in NYC?
If you’re a high school student in New York City, you’re in a great position. NYC offers access to an incredible range of fields, and many programs are completely free to join. Staying local also means you don’t have to worry about travel or housing costs, and it’s easier to fit these opportunities into your existing schedule.
Getting involved in a program during high school can also give you a head start. You begin building experience early, exploring what you enjoy, and creating a record of meaningful activities. Over time, this can help you stand out when applying to competitive summer programs, internships, or college pathways.
With that in mind, here are 15 free programs for high school students in NYC! You can also check out our guide on free programs for high school students, here.
15 Free Programs for High School Students in NYC
1. Summer Science Research Program (SSRP)
Location: RockEDU Science Outreach Laboratory, New York, NY
Cost: None
Dates: June 22 to August 6
Application Deadline: January 2
Eligibility: High school juniors or seniors who are at least 16 by the program start
Summer Science Research Program (SSRP) gives you seven focused weeks inside a working research lab at Rockefeller, Memorial Sloan Kettering, or Weill Cornell. You spend full days learning core lab techniques, reading papers that connect to your project, and planning experiments with guidance from a mentor. The schedule mixes hands-on bench work with short workshops and guest sessions, so you see how research actually moves from an idea to data. You also trade notes with other students across the three institutions, which helps you understand different areas of biomedical science.
2. Applied Research Innovations in Science and Engineering (ARISE)
Location: NYU Tandon School of Engineering, Brooklyn, NY
Cost: $1,000 stipend
Dates: June 1 to August 14
Application Deadline: Typically in Spring
Eligibility: Rising 11th or 12th graders enrolled in NYC high schools
Applied Research Innovations in Science and Engineering (ARISE) is tuition-free and built around a full summer of work with NYU researchers. The first month is training, where you learn lab safety, basic data practices, and how to communicate scientific results. After that, you move into a university lab for six weeks of full-time research in fields that range from computer science to biomedical engineering or robotics. Along the way, you practice speaking about your work, get feedback from faculty, and connect with other students working across STEM areas. The summer closes with a research colloquium at NYU and a poster presentation at the American Museum of Natural History.
3. Summer Shakespeare
Location: 65 Broadway, New York, NY
Cost: None
Dates: 5 weeks in the summer
Application Deadline: Typically in Late May
Eligibility: Current high school students enrolled in NYC schools
Summer Shakespeare is a five-week acting intensive that runs for five weeks and treats you like part of a working rehearsal room. You spend full days on voice and movement, dig into text work, and rehearse scenes in a steady rhythm with your ensemble. The schedule includes about 50 hours of instruction with teaching artists who guide blocking, interpretation, and collaborative stage habits. As the weeks go on, you shape an abridged production with your group and finish the program with a live performance.
4. Thurgood Marshall Summer Law Internship Program
Location: New York, NY
Cost: Pays a stipend
Dates: Six to eight-week placement during the summer
Application Deadline: December 11
Eligibility: Students enrolled in New York City public high schools
The Thurgood Marshall Summer Law Internship Program places you inside a legal office for the summer, where you help with everyday tasks like organizing case files, preparing documents, and supporting staff on ongoing matters. Training starts months earlier, with March workshops on interviewing, communication, and basic workplace skills so you’re ready when your placement begins. Once you’re on site, you sit in on meetings, watch how legal teams handle clients and paperwork, and get a ground-level look at law firms, nonprofits, public agencies, or corporate legal departments. Along the way, you join career talks and meet attorneys from different specialties, giving you a practical sense of what the profession looks like from inside the building.
5. Summer Arts Institute
Location: Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, Astoria, NY
Cost: Free
Dates: 4 weeks in the summer
Application Deadline: March 2
Eligibility: Students entering grades 8 to 12 who are enrolled in or will enroll in a NYC Department of Education public high school
Summer Arts Institute runs for four intensive weeks and brings you into daily studio work with professional artists across fields like dance, theater, music, film, and visual arts. Most of your time is spent rehearsing, building techniques, and developing ideas through practical exercises rather than lectures. Depending on your chosen discipline, you could be training with artists connected to places such as American Ballet Theatre, Carnegie Hall, Ghetto Film School, or the New York Philharmonic, which gives you a sense of how these institutions shape their craft. Each track focuses on its own methods, but you also learn how collaborative arts environments function by working alongside peers.
6. BossGirls Summer Program
Location: The City College of New York, New York, NY
Cost: Free
Dates: June 29 to July 30
Application Deadline: Not specified
Eligibility: High school girls and non-binary students in grades 9 to 12
The BossGirls Summer Program gives you five weeks to build a business idea from the ground up, with a focus on solving an issue you see around you. You work in small teams to define a problem, study who’s affected, and shape a practical solution through simple prototypes. The program introduces human-centered design in a very hands-on way, so you’re always testing, adjusting, and talking through your choices. Mentors from Standard Chartered check in regularly, and guest founders share how they’ve approached similar challenges in their own ventures. The summer ends with a team pitch.
7. The Wooster Group Summer Institute
Location: The Performing Garage, New York, NY
Cost: None
Dates: Three weeks in the summer
Application Deadline: Not specified
Eligibility: NYC public middle and high school students ages 12 to 17
During this three-week program, you work with professional teaching artists to study acting, movement, voice, and writing while exploring how design elements like sound, lighting, costumes, and sets shape performance. You spend your time building scenes, experimenting with creative approaches, and learning how collaborative theater-making functions behind the scenes. Small group sessions give you space to refine your individual skills while contributing to larger ensemble projects. By the end of the session, you present your work in a series of public performances that reflect the techniques and concepts you practiced. Students may return each year during high school, and graduates can come back as paid interns.
8. Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and the Science of Smart Cities (ieSoSC)
Location: NYU Tandon School of Engineering, Brooklyn, NY
Cost: None
Dates:
Application Deadline:
Eligibility: High school students aged 15 and older who live in New York City
In this five-week program, you investigate how smart city technologies work by studying sensors, circuitry, microcontrollers, cloud systems, and basic coding. You apply these tools to urban challenges, building prototypes and testing ideas through structured engineering exercises. Alongside the technical work, you learn entrepreneurial skills such as planning, product development, pitching, and understanding intellectual property. Theater-based communication workshops help you strengthen your public speaking and presentation abilities. Your final project brings together both the engineering and entrepreneurial components as you develop and present a solution to a city-focused problem.
9. Biorocket Research Internship Program at Genspace
Location: Genspace, Brooklyn, NY
Cost: Free. A stipend of $2,000 is provided
Dates: Spring: Feb 25 – May 1. Summer: July 6 – August 14
Application Deadline: Opens November 1
Eligibility: Students enrolled in NYC public or charter schools who are at least 16 by orientation
Biorocket Research Internship Program at Genspace puts you inside a working community biotech lab, where you spend the summer running experiments in genetics and molecular biology. You handle lab tools yourself, learn how to set up and adjust procedures, and work with mentors who guide you through each step. Most days are spent planning experiments, testing approaches, and making sense of the data you collect. Past interns have looked at things like biofilms, algae-based water cleaning, or cell studies in Zebrafish, so the range is broad and pretty lab-driven.
10. Met High School Internship Program
Location: The Met Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
Cost: None. A stipend of $1,100 upon completion of the program
Dates: Not specified
Application Deadline: Typically early February
Eligibility: 10th or 11th graders living in or attending school in NY, NJ, or CT
The Met High School Internship Program puts you inside The Met for the summer, where you spend your time with a professional department and see how a major museum actually runs. Depending on your placement, you might help with education work, conservation tasks, scientific research projects, or communication and marketing efforts tied to exhibitions and visitors. Most days mix regular department responsibilities with workshops and career labs that show you how people at the museum plan programs, communicate with the public, and keep large projects organized. You also meet staff from different areas and take part in events that let you talk about what you’re doing. By the end, you put together a short reflection that sums up your role and what you learned from being behind the scenes.
11. NYU Computer Science for Cyber Security (CS4CS)
Location: NYU Tandon School of Engineering, Brooklyn, NY
Cost: None
Dates: 3 weeks in the summer
Application Deadline: Not specified
Eligibility: Students entering grades 10 or 11 living in NYC or Nassau County
NYU Computer Science for Cyber Security is a three-week summer program that teaches you how digital systems are protected and how attacks actually work. You move through topics like ethical hacking, cryptography, digital forensics, and data privacy using short lessons followed by labs and case studies. There’s even a communication component where theater-based exercises help you explain technical ideas more clearly, which is unusual but useful when you need to present complicated security concepts. You leave with a working understanding of cybersecurity basics and a clearer picture of the field.
12. Zuckerman Institute – BRAINYAC (Brain Research Apprenticeships in New York at Columbia)
Location: Columbia University labs, New York, NY
Cost: Free. A stipend is provided
Dates: October 6-31
Application Deadline: Applications open in October
Eligibility: High school sophomores and juniors (10th-11th grade) currently enrolled in one of these partner programs: S-PREP, Lang Youth Medical, Double Discovery Center, Columbia Secondary School, or BioBus. Students must live in NYC, with preference given to Upper Manhattan and South Bronx residents.
BRAINYAC places you inside a neuroscience laboratory at Columbia, where a mentor guides you through research projects. You start with basic training in lab methods before moving into data collection and analysis tied to ongoing experiments. You spend most of your time inside an active lab, learning how research gets done, rather than only reading about it. Students who complete the program can apply for continued funding or return as paid interns, which makes the experience more than a single summer.
13. Columbia University: State Pre-College Enrichment Program (S-PREP)
Location: Columbia University, New York, NY
Cost: Free
Application Deadline: Not specified
Program Dates: July for summer; October to May for the academic year
Eligibility: Students in grades 7 to 12 with a minimum 80 percent GPA, especially in math and science
S-PREP provides academic enrichment for students exploring pathways in medicine or STEM while supporting those from groups underrepresented in these fields. You take weekend or summer courses in subjects such as anatomy, statistics, and standardized test preparation, depending on your grade level. The program also offers college readiness sessions, advising, and occasional campus-based activities to help you understand academic expectations at the university level. Through group work and mentorship, you build connections with peers who share similar interests in science and health careers.
14. Stony Brook University: Simons Summer Research Program
Location: Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY
Cost: Free tuition; stipend provided after completion
Application Deadline:
Program Dates: June 29 to August 7
Eligibility: Rising high school seniors who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents and at least 16 years old
The Simons Summer Research Program brings you into a Stony Brook lab for six weeks to work on research in biology, chemistry, physics, math, or engineering. You help with daily lab tasks, learn data analysis, and meet regularly with your mentor to shape your project. As the program wraps up, you prepare an abstract and design a research poster that walks through your methods and findings. It’s a straightforward way to see how academic research operates before college.
15. NYU High School Medical Ethics Internship
Location: NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY
Cost: A stipend is provided
Dates: Summer
Application Deadline: Opens in January
Eligibility: Rising high school juniors and seniors
The NYU High School Medical Ethics Internship looks at how ethical questions influence medical decisions, biotechnology, and public health. You attend weekly seminars, read bioethics texts, and listen to guest speakers from medicine and law. A short research paper and regular reflection time push you to frame arguments carefully and write clearly about complicated issues. By the end, you’ve practiced reasoning through medical dilemmas and strengthened your writing and communication around them.
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!
Image source – NYU