2 Weeks of STEM Exploration
Build. Risk. Strive.
Each July, 100+ Pathways Scholars entering grades 10-12 step onto Yale’s campus for an immersive STEM experience. In this free, two-week intensive program, Scholars are invited for a deep-dive into the topics that interest them.
Yale Pathways to Science Summer Scholars offers 20+ week-long workshops with class sizes of 16 students or less. Scholars entering grades 10-11 receive a personalized schedule with four distinct workshops. In addition to two regular workshops, rising seniors (grade 12) take a ten-day-long College Essay writing workshop.
Over 150 Yale faculty, students, and staff are involved in the program each summer. They support our Scholars as workshop and enrichment instructors, teaching assistants, and residential advisors.
2026 Program Timeline
- January: Applications are sent to eligible Pathways Scholars
- February 24: Applications and teacher recommendations due
- March/April: Admissions decisions are announced
- June: Family Info Session for accepted Scholars
- July 5: Student Orientation
- July 6 - 10: Week 1 Workshops
- July 13 - 17: Week 2 Workshops
- July 17: Closing Ceremony
See what our Scholars did in this 2025 summer recap video!
Workshops and Enrichments
Workshops last five days and are offered in the morning and afternoon. Enrichments are 60-minute-long activities that occur between morning workshops and lunchtime. These sessions give Scholars a taste of subjects they may want to revisit later.
In past workshops, Scholars have
- sampled and viewed soil bacteria at the Yale Farm
- built string instruments at the Center for Engineering Innovation and Design
- frozen tardigrades in time in a biology laboratory
- controlled robotic claws with muscle movements at the School of Medicine
Scholars learn how chemicals produce currents in the Power of Electrochemistry workshop
For Rising Seniors
Sample the College Life
Pathways Scholars entering grade 12 can apply to our Residential program and automatically receive college essay guidance.
The Residential Program is a special opportunity for up to 40 students — live, eat, and sleep in a Yale residential college. Alongside a dedicated, live-in Residential Director and Residential Advisor team, Scholars sample life on a university campus and learn how to “do college right.”
All rising seniors take the College Essay workshop, where students draft, revise, and polish their Common App personal essay over the course of ten days.
Summer Scholars pose in the residential college where they stayed 10 days.
Sample Day Program Schedule
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 8:45 - 9:00 AM | Check-in |
| 9:30 - 11:00 AM | Morning Workshop - Peanuts to Plasma Cells: Exploring Immunology |
| 11:20 AM – 12:30 PM | Enrichment Activity - How to Control Light and Electrons |
| 12:50 – 1:30 PM | Lunch in a Yale residential college dining hall |
| 1:50 – 3:20 PM | Afternoon Workshop - Musical Acoustics & Instrument Design: When Engineering Meets Music |
| 3:30 - 4:00 PM | Snack and Dismissal |
Sample Residential Program Schedule
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 8:30 - 9:00 AM | Breakfast in a Yale residential college dining hall |
| 9:30 - 11:00 AM | Morning Workshop - Model Organisms in Biology: The Mighty Worm |
| 11:20 AM – 12:30 PM | Enrichment Activity - Math Without Numbers |
| 12:50 - 1:30 PM | Lunch in a Yale residential college dining hall |
| 1:50 - 3:20 PM | Afternoon Workshop - The College Essay |
| 4:45 – 6:15 PM | “Doing College Right” College Prep Seminar |
| 6:30 - 7:15 PM | Dinner in a Yale residential college dining hall |
| 7:00 - 11:00 PM | Free Time and Lights Out |
How to Apply
To apply, students must
- currently be a Pathways Scholar in grades 9-11 (rising 10-12th graders)
- submit a complete application by February 24, 2026
- ask a teacher to submit a recommendation on their behalf by February 24, 2026
The online application includes a) two short and one long essay, b) supplementary college-related questions for rising seniors, and c) forms to be signed by a parent/legal guardian. The student application and teacher recommendation forms are sent to eligible Scholars by email in January.
Summer Scholars prepare flowering plants for dissection in a Yale greenhouse
Gallery
What color are your eyes? Can you roll your tongue? Genes dictate these traits and more. Using techniques critical to the latest biomedical discoveries, students explored how human genetics affects taste.
Students learned to tackle real-world climate challenges using design. They worked with fellow students to brainstorm, develop, and present their own solutions to pressing issues in climate tech.
What makes us human? Do we have free will? And when exactly will technology have a sense of self? By cracking open these questions, students explored the neuroscience of consciousness.
This hands-on workshop introduced students to the role of HER2 in breast cancer and its impact on tumor behavior, treatment, and prognosis. Through laboratory techniques like Western blotting, students analyzed protein expression and learned how scientists study cancer at the molecular level. In direct discussions with cancer researchers and physicians, students gained insight into careers in medicine and biomedical research.
Do you wonder how our body fights against diseases? In this workshop, students utilized and understood how we harness our own cells to defend ourselves against cancer.
Welcome to the world of RNA! In this week-long workshop, students made mRNAs to test how processing and reading mRNAs make different amounts of protein. Students used their wet lab skills in preparing RNAs from yeast cultures and reactions for experiments that use light.
Food allergy is a complicated and serious disease. Through hands-on laboratory activities, students discovered how allergy is caused by the immune system, how scientists are working to stop it, and what mysteries remain.
Can you think of an animal that could survive a mass extinction event? This week, students learned about tardigrades, microscopic organisms that have adapted to survive extreme conditions from the Arctic to Antarctic, deserts to tundra, mountains to deep-sea trenches, and even outer space.
The future of sustainable energy is based in electrochemistry. By building their own batteries, redox pairs, solar cells, and more, students learned about the science behind how electrical energy is applied.
Drawing inspiration from the “Scales of the Universe” walkway at the American Museum of Natural History, students were provided with a primer on astrophysics and cosmology by leveraging the sheer contrast in physical scales across various inter-connected cosmic structures: from (exo)planets, to black holes, to galaxies, to dark matter halos, and out to the cosmic void dominated by the dark-energy-driven accelerated expansion.
Air is all around us, but how can we tell if it’s clean? In this workshop, students built their own air quality monitors capable of measuring major pollutants, used them to collect data on campus, and shared their findings.
Dive in and learn about the animals that live under the water! All of the bodies of water on this earth are teeming with life, particularly invertebrates that are incredibly diverse. In this workshop we will learn about the aquatic invertebrates that live on this planet.
Bacteria, though seemingly simple and invisible to the naked eye, play a hidden yet vital role in the delicate web of life on Earth. Deep within the soil, they are responsible for creating the elements essential for life itself and for growing the fruits and vegetables we eat every day. In this workshop, you will dig your hands in the dirt to discover who these hidden architects are, what secrets they guard, and how we can unlock their mysterious potential to shape a future of sustainability.
Through physical demonstrations, interactive experiments, challenges, and a little math, you will discover the wonders of the quantum world - a world made of molecules, atoms, light, and waves!
What was Earth like in the past, and how will it change in the future? Using specimens from the Peabody Museum, explore our dynamic planet and the role of Earth scientists in addressing societal challenges. Discover the diversity of life through time, from ancient oceans to modern landscapes. Investigate the processes that shape our world, whether in the formation of microscopic crystals, the shifting of tectonic plates, or the immense power of storms.
What makes up matter? What are the smallest particles? Smash protons with electrons in computer simulations and study the wreckage to find the answers – just like physicists do at particle colliders!
Students will learn about basic engineering tools and acoustic concepts that can be used to design and build musical instruments ranging from electronic to mechanical.
Develop your science communication skills through exciting hands-on physics demonstrations and creative presentations. Build your own tabletop physics demo—like a mini Tesla coil, LED fidget spinner, firefly robot, or metal detector—to take home and share. Team up with other students to create fun skits that bring large-scale physics demos to life. Plus, you’ll contribute to the Yale Physics Lecture Demonstrations repository by developing outreach materials that inspire future learners.
Ten Days; one killer essay. Can they do it? Yes, they can! In this workshop, students will learn to write their positive stories that unveil who they are, at their best, to a college admissions officer. This is a Creative Writing Experience, not an English class.
Earth is a beacon of warmth in an otherwise frozen solar system. In this workshop, you will learn the fundamental processes maintaining this hospitable climate, such as how the planet traps and circulates the sun’s energy, and how the ocean and atmosphere interact. You will learn to use Python to investigate and manipulate real datasets recorded on planet Earth, such as the famous Mauna Loa CO2 data, solar radiation data, and Arctic sea ice measurements. You will come away with the tools and understanding to ask (and answer!) interesting questions in the field of climate science.
For all of us who can see, we experience light and color every moment. But what are they? We will explore light’s visible and invisible properties, and how these properties enable technologies from lasers to smart phones.
We experience the world through our senses. Explore how they work, test their limits, and compare sensory abilities of animals through hands-on experiments involving taste and smell, touch, and sight.
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