Internship guides
Internships for high school students
Most internships you see online are aimed at college students, and plenty of sites will not tell you that. This guide is the honest version: what genuinely exists for high schoolers, where to find it, and how to use high school to set up the internships that come later.
The honest landscape
A small set of large companies run real high school programs: think bank early-insight weeks, hospital volunteer-to-shadow tracks, university research summers, and a handful of tech programs aimed at juniors and seniors. These are competitive and application windows come early, often the winter before the summer you want.
Beyond those named programs, most postings that say "intern" assume you are in college. Applying to them from high school usually goes nowhere, and that is about legal and insurance constraints as much as skills. Do not read rejection as a verdict on you.
Where high schoolers actually get in
Local beats national. Small businesses, nonprofits, local labs, city programs, and family networks say yes to motivated high schoolers far more often than brand-name application portals do. A ten-minute conversation with a local business owner outperforms fifty cold applications.
Structured programs worth searching by name: hospital junior volunteer programs, museum youth councils, library teen programs, university pre-college research programs, and municipal youth employment programs. These exist specifically for your age group, so the competition is fair.
If you cannot land a formal internship
Build proof instead. A self-run project, a small freelance gig, a club you started, a research summer, or a part-time job all read as initiative to the college internship recruiters you will meet in two years. Employers care about evidence you do things without being told.
Treat this year as positioning for your first college internship. Freshman-year applications open in the fall, so entering college with a project portfolio and one reference letter puts you ahead of most of your class on day one.
Using Intern Insider as a high schooler
Our board indexes internships that mostly target college students, so use it as a map rather than an application list: see which companies hire interns in fields you care about, what skills the postings repeat, and which cities have depth in your field. Then aim your high school years at exactly those skills.
Common questions
- Can a high school student get an internship?
- Yes, but mostly through programs built for high schoolers or through local employers, not through general internship postings, which are almost always aimed at college students.
- When should I apply for summer programs?
- Named high school programs typically open applications in late fall or winter for the following summer. If you are searching in spring, prioritize local employers and community programs, which stay open later.
- Do unpaid high school internships matter for college?
- Experience and initiative matter; whether it was paid does not. A documented project or consistent volunteer role carries the same signal for admissions and future internships.
- What if my school or town has nothing?
- Build online: contribute to open projects, run a small site or store, do citizen science, or take on remote micro-internship platforms aimed at students. Proof of initiative travels.
