This program is designed for ambitious high school students who are interested in careers in medicine, bio-tech, pharma, public health, and related areas. Are you excited about the idea of helping people live longer, healthier lives, but aren’t quite sure yet how that translates into a specific job that matches your skills and interests? Maybe becoming a doctor sounds good— but what type of doctor, and in what setting? Or maybe you would prefer a career in research, developing new medical devices, or building robots that automate drug testing? Maybe a career in public health, working hands-on to fight new epidemics, is exciting to you; or maybe you love the idea of building a business helping people live healthier lives. We will take you on a journey inside this field, and hope to open your eyes to high-impact careers you might not have known existed or were open to you.

You want to explore career options, but can’t set aside several weeks for an in-person experience. Maybe you are taking college classes this summer, or you work a part-time job, or your sport is keeping you busy. It’s hard to find time to purposefully explore careers, and just researching online doesn’t sound fun or helpful. This course is for you: the online portion leaves time for your summer activities, and the in-person experience at the end gives you a chance to meet new friends and experience life on a college campus. 

You are actively exploring your college options—thinking about your career and majors, and which colleges are a best fit. Or maybe you are thinking about a direct-to-career program, such as the Thiel Fellowship, or the 1517 Fund program, or another selective internship or apprenticeship program. You have taken honors classes and maybe are signed up for a few AP courses, too. You have proven that you can succeed in fast-paced, rigorous coursework—either by maintaining a 3.5 or better GPA, or by showing your intellectual chops in other ways.

You can make time to attend the 2-hour live online classes four days a week, from 1-3 pm US Pacific Time / 4-6 pm US Eastern Time, for five weeks.

• June 15-July 10 → case studies and career skills
• July 20-24 → Learn the "10 Hour Essay" and write a personal narrative

You are able and willing to spend 2-5 hours per week independently for reading, online discussion, and other related work.

You’ll be 16 by July 1st, 2026, and are willing and able to travel independently to the San Francisco Bay Area for the four-day in-person experience hosted at Stanford University (transport to/from SFO can be provided). If you won’t yet be 16 by July 2026, you can still attend if you are local to the Bay Area and/or your parents can chaperone you on your travel to/from San Francisco; please explain your travel support in the “anything else?” section of the application. 

A written application including short answer questions and background information. 

If you need a scholarship, there’s an optional section in the application where you can tell us more about your situation and financial needs.

Expected time needed to complete: 1-2 hours

We’ll invite a select number of applicants to Zoom calls with a Roots of Progress Institute staff member. The goal here is to get to know you, and to ensure that every participant is comfortable interacting via Zoom, which will be a key part of the summer program. 

The last step is to verify your availability to attend the Zoom sessions and the in-person experience. We expect this program, as with our others, to have more applicants than our available spaces. Please enroll only if you can commit to fully participate in all parts of the program. You’ll also need to pay the program fee (or accept a scholarship, if offered), and send a transcript pdf to confirm the GPA you self-reported in the written application. 

The core target age for this program is rising sophomores to rising seniors—or roughly ages 15-17. If you’re 16+ you can, with your parent’s permission, travel to San Francisco/Palo Alto on your own; we’ll arrange pick-up at San Francisco airport. If you are younger, your parents will need to accompany you to Stanford and drop you off at the dorms.

We cannot accept participation by students younger than age 14 as of July 1st, 2026, or students older than 19 as of July 1st, 2026.

Progress in Medicine is run by the Roots of Progress Institute and not by Stanford University. While we’re working with several Stanford-affiliated programs and are hosted in their dorms, we aren’t endorsed by Stanford University; we are what they call a third-party summer program renting dorms and dining hall support.

Participating in the program will not give you any special access to Stanford admissions. That said, understanding more clearly what you want to study, and what problems you want to solve, can help you succeed in college applications or other competitive situations (internships, grants, etc.)

Each college has their own way of assessing student fit, so it’s hard to say what impact any summer program will have. Here are some ways in which this program may help:

• Get you more clarity on what you want to study, and why. This can help you find a university that is a better match with your goals. It can also help you explain more concisely why you choose a specific major, and why this particular university helps you achieve your goals.
• Give you practice for writing your personal narrative. During the last week of the program, you’ll work through a 10-hour essay writing module. You’ll reflect on what problem in medicine/biotech/health you’ve become most interested in, and why. Then, you’ll craft a personal essay, much in the style of a college application essay. This practice and the content of your essay can be a great step towards writing a compelling college application essay.
• Show initiative in actively exploring your purpose. Joining a competitive program like Progress in Medicine and dedicating time during the summer can indicate to schools that you are a purposeful, engaged student eager to tackle rigorous work.

We purposefully designed the program to be largely remote with live Zoom classes. That way, even if you are traveling you can join. We do understand, though, that summer comes with other commitments. With proper communication and make-up of missed work (including watching a recording of the missed session), up to 3 absences can be excused. If admitted, please let us know asap if you learn of a date you will not be able to attend.

To be eligible to participate in the in-person experience in San Francisco, living in the Stanford dorms, you will need to have strong attendance, class participation, and complete the online coursework.

If admitted, you'll need to be able to commit to join us for the four-day program hosted in the Stanford dorms, July 15-18. This is an on-site, residential program and all students must stay in the dorms.

You are responsible for arranging travel to the Bay Area. Transportation arranged by the program is available form SFO airport, or you can arrive at the Stanford dorms directly.

The program fee is $2,000. This covers all expenses, including room and board during the in-person stay at Stanford. Students/families are responsible for the travel to and from San Francisco.

A limited number of scholarships are available to cover the program fee. There are also a limited number of travel awards for travel costs to San Francisco. Scholarships are limited and will be distributed on the basis of financial need and merit. You can indicate your need for financial support in the application.

If you’ve done all your research and are ready to start practicing in the field, there are a range of other programs that will give you more hands-on experiences. This program has a different take and offers a different value. Sometimes, teens go into specific fields in medicine, and only later discover that there are other tracks that they would have liked better. This summer course could be valuable to you in double-checking your hypothesis of your current career aspirations, by broadening your exposure to a wide range of careers in medicine/health/biotech and how they fit into the overall trajectory of progress humans have made in extending lives and enabling us to live healthier. It might also raise your ambition by showing different, higher-impact pathways in the areas you already are curious about.