Teachers and High School Students Program (TAHSS)

Application process:

• Attend a Mandatory Information Session (January 22 at 8:00pm or January 31 at 5:00pm)
  • You MUST sign up for a Mandatory Information Session here: registration form
  • If you are unable to attend either of the information sessions, please contact Valerie Solon at SciEd@tufts.edu.
  • After the information session you will be given a personal link to the application to be filled out online.
• Fill out your application (due March 2 at 11:59pm)
  • You will need:
    • A cover letter
    • A resume
    • Your high school transcript
    • Recommendation forms from two adults at your school (one must be your science or math teacher) due by March 16
• You may be contacted for an interview
• Final acceptance letters will be sent by April 18

To be eligible, you must:

• Be a current sophomore or junior
• Be 16 years old by July 7, 2025
• Be able to commute daily to the Tufts University Boston Health Sciences Campus
• Be authorized to work in the US: US citizen, or permanent resident (Green Card holder), or have an EAD
• Be interested in STEM and/or health sciences
• Attend a Mandatory Information Session on Zoom
• Complete our online application (available after informational sessions)
• Receive two recommendations from adults at your school, one must be a science or math teacher

The number of spots in the CONNECT program are limited and we prioritize offering the opportunity to students that demonstrate how their environments or experiences (individual, family, home, neighborhood, or community), and values position them to contribute to a future workforce that will either address the range of health challenges facing our increasingly diverse patient population and their communities (in the case of Mini Med School), or for Lab Science Investigations, position them as biomedical researchers who will advocate for scientific solutions that will serve diverse communities. 

The CONNECT programming begins the week before the residential Pre-College programs and continues the week after, with follow-up experiences throughout the next year.

CONNECT has FIVE key strands:

• Let’s Have Fun – Bonding activities to build relationship between high school students and mentors (games, movies, field trips and more)
• The Hidden Curriculum – Workshops about professional and life skills that are rarely explicitly taught
• Celebrating Diversity in STEM +M – Scientist spotlights of various BIPOC professional role models
• Let’s Learn Some Science – Activities such as reviewing biology concepts prior to the Pre-College programs and tours of lab spaces
• Individual Mentoring – Structured weekly check-ins with undergraduate STEM Mentors

Mini Med School

Mini Med School is a summer intensive that provides driven students who are interested in medical school and other health professions the opportunity to study with one of the nation's leading medical schools: Tufts University School of Medicine.

The program is run and designed by faculty from the Department of Medical Education and is instructed by Tufts medical students and faculty. Students will experience what it takes to study medical sciences through lectures on cutting-edge topics and medical case studies coupled with hands-on training, which includes time in the Clinical Simulation Center and advanced anatomy lab at the Tufts medical campus. Question and answer sessions with admissions staff, doctors, medical students, and professionals from other medical fields (such as dentists, veterinarians, and physician assistants) will help participants get a feel for medical school and career options they have in medicine and related health sciences. 

For more details, please look at the Mini Med School webpage here.

Lab Science Investigations Highlights

In the Tufts Lab Science Investigations: Antimicrobial Resistance, you will become a researcher working to understand the challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and antibiotic stewardship. Just imagine a world where antibiotics don’t work! AMR claimed 1.27 million human lives in 2019. If trends continue, drug-resistant diseases could cause 10 million deaths annually by 2050, surpassing diabetes, heart disease, and cancer as a leading cause of human death.

As a student researcher in Lab Science Investigations: Antimicrobial Resistance, you will have a uniquely immersive experience with the One Health approach that recognizes that the health of people is closely connected to the health of animals and our shared environment. In the case of AMR, excessive use of antibiotics in agriculture, animals, and people, all contribute to this problem. To address this, you will hear perspectives from experts in many fields who work together at the Tufts Levy Center for Integrated Management of Antimicrobial Resistance (CIMAR), work with laboratory and research techniques used by engineers, social scientists, biomedical scientists, veterinarians, physicians, drug developers, epidemiologists, healthcare policy experts, and environmental scientists. 

For more details, please look at the Lab Science Investigations webpage here.