About

The Secondary Student Training Program, housed at the University of Iowa's Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development, is one of the most substantive and respected faculty-mentored research programs available to high school students anywhere in the country. Running June 17 through July 24, 2026, SSTP places rising juniors and seniors in active University of Iowa research groups for five and a half weeks of full-time lab work. The program fee is $7,500, covering room, board, materials, all scheduled activities, and three semester hours of undergraduate credit from the University of Iowa — a meaningful academic credential. Financial aid is available up to 95% of the program cost, and application fee waivers are offered to students with demonstrated need; a named scholarship from the Perry Family specifically supports students from New York.

Students apply to SSTP in grades 10 or 11 and may attend only once. The application requires two essays of up to 750 words each — one describing research interests and relevant skills, one addressing career goals and what the student hopes to gain — along with a transcript, two letters of recommendation from non-family adults, and optional SAT/ACT scores. Selection weighs essays most heavily, followed by academic record, recommendations, and alignment with a participating faculty mentor's research. The 2026 research application deadline is February 16; international students are welcome and receive health insurance coverage and airport transportation from the program.

Research placements for 2026 span 19 departments including biology, chemistry, biomedical engineering, neuroscience and pharmacology, psychiatry, psychological and brain sciences, internal medicine, pathology, business analytics, and several engineering disciplines. Students work within their assigned research group from 9am to 4pm Monday through Friday, attending required evening seminars on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and participating in structured weekend activities. The program builds explicitly toward a culminating research poster presentation — not a summary of what others have done, but a presentation of the student's own contribution to an ongoing research project. Evening programming is deliberately varied, including yoga, improv, and faculty seminars, reflecting the Belin-Blank Center's holistic philosophy of intellectual and personal development.

SSTP sits in a select tier of high school research programs that can credibly claim to offer authentic university-level research experience. The breadth of departments is unusual — most comparable programs concentrate in STEM biology or chemistry; SSTP's inclusion of business analytics, anthropology, geographical sciences, and communication sciences and disorders reflects a genuine commitment to research across disciplines. The undergraduate credit, the financial aid depth, and the Belin-Blank Center's four-decade standing as a national leader in gifted education all contribute to a program that carries more weight than its Iowa City location might suggest to families anchored to coastal institutions.

For a 10th or 11th grader serious about research — in any field — SSTP is worth treating as a peer of the most selective programs in its category.