Growing up as a homeschooled student in Virginia, Matt Shoulders developed a passion for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) that ultimately led to his current role as the Class of 1942 Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Soon after joining MIT in 2012, Shoulders sought ways to support the rising generation of STEM-focused homeschoolers. He teamed up with Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. A homeschooling dad, Strano shared the desire to create new research opportunities for homeschooled students.
The colleagues secured grant funding to launch the MIT Homeschool Internship Program for Science and Technology (HIP-SAT), an eight-week paid summer internship on MIT’s Cambridge campus where homeschooled high schoolers from across the US work side by side with faculty and student mentors on cutting-edge research projects. The 2025 HIP-SAT application is currently open, and STEM-focused high school homeschoolers ages 16 and over are encouraged to apply. This year, the internship program has expanded to include on-campus research opportunities in New York City, in partnership with Weill Cornell Medicine.
“We launched MIT HIP-SAT because we saw a substantial gap in existing high school outreach programs, especially those that provide opportunities to actually work in academic laboratories,” said Shoulders. “Specifically, more traditional programs often struggle to assess the qualifications of homeschooled high school students. This challenge can result in very limited access to these opportunities for the growing homeschool community in the US. By developing a program specifically emphasizing the homeschooled community, we felt we could help to fill this gap.”
MIT offers a variety of STEM-focused summer programs for ambitious high schoolers, but HIP-SAT is the first one intentionally geared toward homeschooled students. Over the past decade, dozens of HIP-SAT students have worked in multiple labs across MIT. My daughter Molly is one of them. A lifelong homeschooler, she participated in the HIP-SAT experience last summer, conducting research in one of MIT’s microrobotic labs.
“Being able to work alongside other students in a lab setting, collaborating on everything from creating robots to coding simulations, really solidified my interest in studying a STEM subject in college,” said Molly, who is currently a high school senior planning to major in mathematics and computer science when she begins college this fall. Shoulders and Strano say that the vast majority of HIP-SAT students choose to pursue STEM studies as undergraduates and beyond.
Molly is one of roughly 3 million homeschooled students in the US, representing nearly 6% of the total K-12 school-age population. This compares to about 9% of students who attend private schools in the US and about 7% who attend charter schools, according to data analyzed by Johns Hopkins University professor Angela Watson. The number of homeschoolers has soared since 2020, when pandemic-related school closures and prolonged remote learning prompted more parents to consider alternatives to conventional schooling. Today, homeschooling rates remain above pre-pandemic levels nationwide, with the Washington Post proclaiming in 2023 that homeschooling has become the fastest-growing form of education in the US.
Opportunities like MIT’s HIP-SAT recognize the rising number of homeschooled students and the need for programming that reflects their unique backgrounds, especially in STEM subjects. “Homeschooled students often have an eclectic mix of experiences and credentialing that bring them to STEM,” said Strano. “These often include advanced college courses, but also self-taught subject matter, and garage or kitchen-table experimentation. HIP-SAT allows promising and interested students to build on these experiences. My colleagues and I have been very impressed with HIP-SAT interns for their curiosity and motivation.”
As homeschooling continues to gain widespread popularity, along with microschools and similar alternative educational models, more colleges and universities should follow MIT’s lead in creating robust programming for students who learn beyond standard schooling. In the meantime, the MIT HIP-SAT internship is a great opportunity for STEM-focused homeschoolers. “I think HIP-SAT serves the needs of a growing portion of the student population interested in STEM but often falling outside of requirements and resources provided by conventional K-12 programs,” said Strano.
