A key factor in my decision to go to graduate school to pursue a PhD  and a career doing research were my experiences in summer research programs at the University Michigan and Johns Hopkins University. As a way to pay it forward, I’ve compiled a list of similar summer programs across the US. As I am a social scientist, the focus is on programs for undergraduates interested in possibly pursuing a career conducting social science research (e.g., sociology, economics, political science, public health, psychology, etc.).  Nonetheless, some of the programs below are general and open to students interested in pursuing PhDs not only in the social sciences but also natural sciences, math, engineering, and the humanities. Regardless of your field of interest, these programs will provide you with a glimpse into what life as an academic is like and can, thereby, be useful in helping you decide if a PhD is the right path for you.

Communications, Information Science, and Media Studies

• iSchool Inclusion Institute

General

• Big 10 Summer Research Opportunity Programs
  • Partnered with many schools in the Big 10  Academic Alliance, including Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, UW-Madison, and more
• Emory University – LGS-SOAR
• The Leadership Alliance’s Summer Research Early Identification Program
  • Partnered with many universities, including UPenn, University of Virginia, Harvard, Howard, Columbia, Tufts, and more.
• UC Davis – SURP
• UC Irvine – SURF
• UC Riverside – MSRIP
• UNC Chapel Hill – MURAP
• University of Michigan – Summer Research Opportunity Program
• Virginia Tech – MAOP SRI

Political Science

• Ralph Bunche Summer Institute (RBSI)

Psychology

• University of Michigan – MSPICED

Public health, epidemiology, population health, and other health-specific social science

• CDC  Undergraduate Public Health Scholars (CUPS) Program
  • Kennedy Krieger Institute (three locations)
    • Kennedy Krieger Institute/Johns Hopkins University
    • The University of South Dakota/Sanford School of Medicine Center for Disabilities
    • University of California, Davis
  • Moorehouse College – Project IMHOTEP 
• Columbia University – Biostatistics Epidemiology Summer Training
• Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
  • Fostering Advancement & Careers through Enrichment Training in Science (FACETS)
  • Summer Internships in Biological Sciences in Public Health
  • Summer Program in Biostatistics & Computational Biology
  • Summer Program in Epidemiology
• National Institutes of Health (NIH) Summer Internship Program in Biomedical Research
• University of Pennsylvania – SUMR
• Stanford Population Health Summer Research Program

Statistics

• UMD College Park – Joint Program in Survey Methodology Junior Fellows Program