Colorado · Checked 29 July 2026
Research programs for high school students in Denver and Colorado
Each entry starts with who cannot apply, because most Colorado placements exclude most high schoolers on age or residency and the other guides bury that detail.
Read the eligibility line first
The flagship Colorado placement for high school students, the Summer Child Health Research Internship at Children's Hospital Colorado, requires applicants to be 18 before the programme starts on 1 June, and requires high school applicants to be Colorado residents. Between those two rules, most of the students who find that programme through a summer-programs roundup are not eligible to apply to it.
That is not unusual, and it is not hidden either. It is stated plainly on the organiser's own page. It just tends not to survive into the listicles, because those are assembled from each other rather than from the source. So this page leads with the exclusion on every entry.
Verified programmes
Summer Child Health Research Internship
Children's Hospital Colorado and CU Anschutz, Aurora
Who cannot apply
Must be 18 by 1 June 2026, and high school applicants must be Colorado residents
- Pay
- Stipend of $4,400 toward travel and housing
- Dates
- 1 June to 31 July 2026
- Deadline
- Applications 1 December 2025 to 1 February 2026
Placement in a Department of Pediatrics lab on the Anschutz Medical Campus. The age rule is the one that catches people: a student who turns 18 during the summer is not eligible, because the cutoff is the start date. Worth reading before you spend a weekend on the application.
Organiser's pageCS@Mines Summer Scholarship intern
Colorado School of Mines, Golden
Who cannot apply
Requires in-person attendance at the Golden campus, so you need to be able to get there
- Pay
- $20 per hour, 10 to 20 hours per week
- Dates
- 10 weeks, start and end agreed with your faculty advisor
- Deadline
- 10 April 2026 for priority consideration, decisions by 15 May 2026
The paid strand of the CS@Mines intern programme, working with a faculty advisor. Open to high school and community college students, and unusually for a paid research placement the department does not publish a prior-coursework requirement.
Organiser's pageCS@Mines Research Intern and DECTech
Colorado School of Mines, Golden
Who cannot apply
Unpaid, so budget for the summer accordingly
- Pay
- Unpaid
- Dates
- Late May to early August 2026, set by the faculty advisor
- Deadline
- 10 April 2026 for priority consideration
The unpaid strands of the same programme. Still real research supervision, and a reasonable route if cost is not the binding constraint for you. Apply through the same page as the scholarship strand.
Organiser's pageComputing For Good
Colorado School of Mines, primarily virtual
Who cannot apply
Costs $200 to attend, so this is a course you pay for rather than a paid placement
- Pay
- You pay: $200 total programme cost
- Dates
- 22 June to 28 July 2026, five weeks, 5 to 10 hours per week
- Deadline
- 10 April 2026 for priority consideration
Listed here because it appears in other roundups alongside the paid strands without the cost being obvious. It is a short virtual programme rather than a research placement, and no prior computer science training is required.
Organiser's pageWorth chasing, but we could not verify them
These are real institutions with real programmes. We are listing them without details rather than repeating dates we could not confirm on the organiser's own page.
- NREL and NCAR both run education programmes and are the obvious draw for energy and atmospheric science, but neither publishes 2026 high school dates in a form we could verify on the review date. Contact them directly rather than trusting a date you read in a roundup.
- CU Science Discovery runs a summer programme with CU Boulder and Anschutz mentors. Dates circulating for 2026 are 3 June to 31 July, but we could not confirm the high school eligibility terms first-hand, so treat that as a lead rather than a fact.
Frequently asked questions
Why does this list have fewer programmes than other Denver guides?
Because every entry here was opened and read on the review date, and anything we could not confirm is in a separate section marked as unverified. Roundups that list fifteen or twenty programmes usually copy details from each other, which is how an out-of-date deadline survives for years. A shorter list you can act on is more useful than a long one you have to re-check yourself.
I am 16. Which of these can I actually apply to?
Not the Children's Colorado internship, which requires you to be 18 before 1 June. The CS@Mines strands do not publish an age floor, so they are the ones to ask about. This is the single most common wasted application in Colorado, and it is why every entry above leads with who is excluded.
I am not a Colorado resident. Is anything here open to me?
The Children's Colorado internship restricts high school applicants to Colorado residents. The CS@Mines programmes do not publish a residency requirement, but they do require you to get to the Golden campus in person for the paid strand. If you are out of state, the routes that do not depend on selection are usually a better use of your time.
What if I do not get into any of them?
That is the normal outcome, and it is worth planning for rather than treating as failure. Emailing a researcher directly, entering a science fair in the ISEF network, or taking a community college research methods course are all available without anyone selecting you first. We have written up how to do the first of those properly.
Sources, checked 29 July 2026
- Children's Hospital Colorado, training and internships
- CS@Mines high school and community college interns
Deadlines and eligibility change every year and organisers do not always announce changes. Confirm on the organiser's own page before applying, and treat any date on any roundup, including this one, as a prompt to check rather than as a fact.