Teachers and High School Students Program (TAHSS)

Application process:

• Attend a Mandatory Information Session (January 21 at 8:00pm or January 30 at 6:00pm)
  • 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 1 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 15
• You may be contacted for an interview
• Final acceptance letters will be sent by April 17

To be eligible, you must:

• Be a current sophomore or junior (graduation year 2027 or 2028)
• Be 16 years old by July 6, 2026
• 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
• Have taken at least one Biology class
• Attend a Mandatory Information Session on Zoom (January 21 or 30)
• Complete our online application (available after information sessions), which includes recommendation forms from two adults at your school (at least one from your science or math teacher) and submission of your high school transcript.

*Please note: Although submission of a transcript is required, we evaluate applications holistically and encourage you to share any context you would like in your cover letter or short answer questions to support your transcript.

All students who meet the eligibility criteria above are welcome to apply. Students who will be first-generation college students and/or come from low-income backgrounds are highly encouraged to apply. Selections will be made consistent with university policy and will not consider any information related to protected class as described in the OEO policy linked below.

• https://oeo.tufts.edu/policies-procedures/non-discrimination/

Currently, the program is only open to students in the Boston area who can commute daily to the Tufts University Boston Health Sciences Campus, and who have NOT participated in the program in the past.

If you have any questions about your eligibility, please contact us at SciEd@tufts.edu.

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 – Networking with and spotlights of diverse 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.