About

The Summer Youth Science Fellowship Program (YSFP), hosted by the UC Irvine Cancer Research Institute, is a six-week commuter research experience for Orange County high school juniors and seniors. Founded in 1992 and solely sponsored by the Cancer Research Institute since 2013, YSFP places each fellow individually in a UCI cancer research lab, working directly alongside faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers on ongoing bench science. The program is entirely free of charge.

Each summer YSFP admits approximately 20 students from a pool of more than 100 applicants, placing its acceptance rate in the range of 15–20%. Eligibility is strictly limited to juniors and seniors enrolled at an Orange County high school — residency alone does not qualify — and applicants must have completed both biology and chemistry before the program begins. The application requires transcripts, short-answer essays, and a single teacher recommendation.

Fellows spend 30 hours per week in their assigned lab, Monday through Friday, working on projects in basic or population cancer sciences. Each student is placed in a different lab, meaning mentorship is genuinely individual rather than cohort-based. Seminars, career development workshops, and cohort reflections supplement the lab experience throughout the six weeks. The program culminates in a required poster symposium where fellows present their work to faculty, researchers, and the broader CRI community.

Alumni have co-authored peer-reviewed publications — a meaningful benchmark for a high school program — and YSFP's three-decade track record at a major UC research institution gives it real credibility. For Orange County students with a serious interest in biomedical or cancer research, YSFP is one of the strongest free research opportunities available to them, combining individual faculty mentorship with authentic lab science in a way that larger programs sometimes struggle to replicate.