Summer Internships for High Schoolers: How to Get One When You're 16

Most advice about high school internships assumes you live in a major city, know someone who knows someone, and have parents who can make a phone call on your behalf. This article doesn't assume any of that. Whether you're in a suburb, a small town, or a rural area, and whether you know zero professionals in any field, there are paths to a meaningful internship — or an experience that functions like one — this summer. The key is understanding what you're actually looking for and being willing to ask for it directly.

The Reality

The concept of a "high school internship" is looser than you think. When colleges and employers use the word, they mean any structured work experience where you're learning skills in a professional environment — paid or unpaid, formal or informal, 40 hours a week or 10. The student who spends the summer helping at a veterinary clinic three days a week, learning to handle intake paperwork and assist during appointments, has an internship. The student who convinces a local nonprofit to let them redesign their newsletter has an internship. The word matters less than the experience.

The Department of Labor's guidelines on youth employment set the legal framework for what you can do at different ages. At 14 and 15, federal law restricts the types of work you can perform and the hours you can work — no more than 3 hours on a school day, 8 hours on a non-school day, and 18 hours in a school week, with extended hours permitted during summer (U.S. Department of Labor, Youth & Labor). At 16 and 17, most restrictions are lifted except for hazardous occupations — you can work unlimited hours in non-hazardous jobs. Your state may have additional restrictions, so check your state's department of labor website. [VERIFY: Specific state-by-state variations in teen employment law — some states are more restrictive than federal baseline]

The reality about access is that formal internship programs for high school students are rare outside of major metropolitan areas. In New York, D.C., San Francisco, and similar cities, organizations like the Mayor's Office, large nonprofits, and tech companies sometimes run structured high school internship programs. If you don't live in one of those cities, the formal pipeline likely doesn't exist. That doesn't mean the opportunity doesn't exist. It means you have to create it.

The Play

There are three paths to a summer internship: formal programs, cold outreach, and virtual opportunities. Let's walk through each.

Path 1: Formal programs. If these exist near you, they're the easiest route. Search for "[your city/county] high school internship program" and "[your state] youth employment program." Many cities run summer youth employment programs that place teens in local government offices, nonprofits, and businesses — and these programs often pay. The federal government's Summer Youth Employment and Training programs, administered through local workforce development boards, are available in many areas. Check your city or county workforce development board's website. Libraries, museums, parks departments, and hospitals also run formal volunteer and intern programs for teens, usually with applications due in the spring.

Path 2: Cold outreach. This is the path most students overlook, and it's the most widely available. The strategy is simple: identify a local business, nonprofit, or professional office where you'd like to learn, and ask if you can work there for the summer. Here's how.

Make a list of 15-20 local organizations that interest you. Think broadly: law firms, accounting offices, dental practices, veterinary clinics, real estate agencies, restaurants (the business side, not just serving), auto repair shops, graphic design studios, local newspapers, farms, nonprofits, churches, mosques, community centers, city hall offices. Any place where adults do work that you're curious about.

For each one, find the owner, manager, or person in charge. For small businesses, this is often the owner. For nonprofits, it's the executive director. For professional offices, it's the office manager. You can find names through the organization's website, Google, or by walking in and asking who to speak with.

Send an email or, for small local businesses, walk in during a quiet time. Here's a script that works:

"My name is [Name] and I'm a [grade] at [School]. I'm interested in [field/industry] and I'm looking for a summer learning experience. I'd be willing to work as an unpaid intern or at any wage you're able to offer — I'm mainly looking for the chance to learn how [specific aspect of their work] works. I'm available [dates and hours]. I'm responsible, I show up on time, and I'm willing to do whatever tasks are useful. Would you be open to having me work with you this summer?"

Send 15 of these. You need one yes. Most will say no or won't respond — that's normal. The ones who say yes are usually small business owners who remember being young and wanting to learn, or nonprofit directors who are perpetually short-staffed and grateful for an extra set of hands. Once you're in the door, your job is to make yourself useful and pay attention to everything.

Path 3: Virtual internships. The pandemic expanded remote internship opportunities for high school students, and some of these have persisted. Organizations like Extern, Virtual Internships, and Ladder Internships offer structured remote internship experiences, some of which are free and some of which charge a fee. [VERIFY: Current status and pricing of Virtual Internships and Ladder Internships for high school students] Be careful to evaluate these the same way you'd evaluate a paid summer program: who's running it, what do you produce, and what's the acceptance rate? A virtual internship where you complete real work for a real organization is valuable. A virtual internship that's mostly webinars and a certificate is not.

For a free DIY virtual internship equivalent, consider this approach: identify an organization (a nonprofit, a small business, a community group) that has a digital presence you could improve. Offer to manage their social media, redesign their website, write their newsletter, or organize their donor database — remotely, on your schedule. This is functionally an internship, even if nobody calls it one. You're doing real work for a real organization, and you can document it on your application.

Documenting your internship. Whatever path you take, documentation is what transforms the experience from a memory into an application asset. Keep a weekly log of what you did, what you learned, and what skills you developed. Ask your supervisor for a brief letter of reference at the end of the internship — this takes them five minutes and gives you a document you can use for years. Take notes on specific projects: "Reorganized the filing system for 200+ client records" is better than "helped with office tasks." Quantify what you can. Be specific.

The Math

The financial equation for internships varies. Paid internships for high school students typically pay minimum wage to $15 per hour, depending on location. If your internship is unpaid, calculate the opportunity cost: the hours you're spending interning are hours you're not earning at a paying job. For some students, that trade-off makes sense — the skills and experience are worth the lost income. For others, the math doesn't work. If you need the income, get a paying job and treat it as a learning experience (see the previous article in this series on summer jobs).

Some formal internship programs pay well above minimum wage. The Bank of America Student Leaders program, for instance, pairs students with community nonprofits for an eight-week paid internship. Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT) runs programs that include paid summer placements for high school students from underrepresented backgrounds. [VERIFY: Current MLT high school program format and compensation] These programs are competitive but free to apply.

The application value of an internship depends entirely on what you did and how you describe it. On the Common App, the Activities section gives you 150 characters to describe each activity. "Summer intern at Johnson & Associates Law Firm — researched case law, drafted client intake forms, observed 12 depositions" is specific and tells a story. "Internship" tells nothing. The description is where the value lives.

For students weighing an internship against other summer options, consider this: an internship provides three things that most other activities don't. First, it gives you professional experience — you learn how adults work, communicate, and solve problems in a real setting. Second, it gives you an adult reference — someone outside your school who can speak to your character and abilities. Third, it gives you content for your application and essays that's grounded in the professional world, which distinguishes you from students whose activities are entirely school-based.

The time math is manageable. Most high school internships run 15-25 hours per week, leaving time for a part-time job, essay writing, college research, or simply resting. If you're doing cold outreach, you can negotiate the schedule — most small employers are flexible with teen interns because they're grateful to have you at all.

What Most People Get Wrong

The first mistake is waiting for someone to offer you an internship. In the adult job market, people apply for positions. In the high school internship market, you often have to create the position yourself. Cold outreach feels uncomfortable, but it works — and the discomfort itself is a skill worth developing.

The second mistake is limiting your search to glamorous fields. An internship at a local accounting firm sounds less exciting than one at a tech startup, but it teaches you real skills — organization, attention to detail, financial literacy — that matter in any career. Don't overlook the ordinary. Some of the most valuable professional experiences happen in offices that would never make it onto Instagram.

The third mistake is treating the internship as a passive experience. Showing up and doing what you're told is the baseline, not the goal. The students who get the most out of internships are the ones who ask questions, volunteer for extra projects, and take initiative. "Is there anything else I can help with?" is the most powerful sentence in any internship.

The fourth mistake is not following up after the internship ends. Send a thank-you email to your supervisor within a week of your last day. Connect with them on LinkedIn if appropriate. Check in once or twice during the school year with a brief update on what you're doing. These relationships can lead to future opportunities, stronger recommendation letters, and professional connections that last beyond high school.

The fifth mistake is thinking an internship has to last all summer. A focused three-week internship combined with a part-time job and a personal project can be just as valuable as a 10-week placement. What matters is that you treated the experience seriously, learned something, and can articulate what you gained.

This is Part 9 of the 10-part Summer Strategy series on survivehighschool.com. Your summer is 10 weeks. Here's how to make them count more than any semester.

Related reading: The Junior Summer Playbook: Your Last Chance to Build Before Applications, The "Do Nothing" Summer: When Rest Is the Strategic Play, When Getting a Summer Job Is the Smartest Move You Can Make