About

Applications open each November and close in early January; students submit a 10-page proposal outlining a novel STEM research or engineering idea, the scientific background, a project plan completable within one semester, and a budget not exceeding $1,000. Projects may address any STEM discipline and must represent original work — individual or two-person team submissions only. Semifinalists, selected from the initial proposal review, advance to a video interview round before finalists are chosen. Finalists designated as MIT THINK Scholars receive $1,000 in project funding to implement their proposals, weekly mentorship meetings with MIT undergraduate mentors, access to MIT faculty guidance, and an all-expenses-paid trip to MIT campus where they present their work, visit research labs, and attend classes. The program is open to US high school students with a permanent US address; international students without US residency are not eligible.

MIT THINK occupies a specific and well-understood position in the STEM competition landscape — it is a proposal competition rather than a completed-research competition, which means it rewards students who are at the conceptual and planning stage rather than those who have already completed a project. This distinguishes it from Davidson Fellows, ISEF, and Regeneron STS, which require completed research. For a student with a compelling STEM idea and the ability to articulate its scientific basis and feasibility, MIT THINK is the most accessible national-level competition that provides both recognition and the resources to actually build the project. Semifinalist status — reached by under 3% of applicants — is a meaningful credential; Scholar status, earned by six students nationally, is a distinctive one.

MIT THINK is the right competition for a US high school student with a novel STEM idea they want to develop — the proposal format rewards intellectual ambition and clear scientific thinking, and the funding and mentorship that comes with Scholar status turns an idea into an actual project.