About the program

Promoting everyday innovation and creativity

COMMUNITY SERVICE

Provide access to scientific research and mentorship for high school students underrepresented in STEM or students with socioeconomic difficulty.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Give students an opportunity for original research in an environment that provides them with the mentorship and resources to explore research in a variety of STEM and interdisciplinary fields.

EDUCATION

Give students familiarity with the current scientific literature & the frontiers of modern research in their field of interest.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Build skills in public speaking, technical writing, analytical thinking, and experimental design.

Mission & Vision

Mission

The Aspiring Scholars Directed Research Program (ASDRP) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research & development (R&D) institution that provides opportunities for high school students throughout the Bay Area, especially those who are underrepresented in STEM or who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, to conduct high-level novel scientific research. As the premier precollegiate research establishment in the Bay Area, ASDRP is committed to both producing state-of-the-art research year round, and serving the diverse community in which we are located.

Students participate in research projects across various subjects in STEM, including chemistry, biology, computational modeling, computer science, and much more. Students publish and present their work as well in venues within and outside of ASDRP. Research in ASDRP is supervised by highly skilled scientists and engineers on the research faculty, who are clustered under one of three departments - Biological/Human/Life Sciences, Chemistry/Biochemistry/Physics, or Computer Science & Engineering. Click on the Research tab above to learn more about each department. We function much like any other research establishment in industry or in academia: we pursue challenging and novel research questions, we make discoveries, and we publish papers and present work at conferences. But there's one catch - the science is in the hands of high school students.

ASDRP provides students with research mentors and over $20M worth of research equipment in our research laboratory (for more information, please see our Facilities page). Students are matched with research mentors who have experience in academia or industry in their particular field; together, they design a research project. These projects are not science experiments in which the results are known a priori, but rather are original research projects that expand current scientific knowledge. Students execute research projects, learn scientific reading and writing skills, write research papers on their results, undergo mock peer-review, publish their research papers in the ASDRP Communications online journal, and give poster presentations at the end-of-summer expo. Students additionally publish and present their work in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. We follow up with students from ASDRP to help place them into university research laboratories and industry internships in subsequent summers. The inaugural cohort of ASDRP started in summer 2018.

We invite you to read more about our facilities and program model throughout this website. You can access student research papers on the Journal page, peruse the various projects and disciplines in which students conduct research, learn more about our facilities, and more.

ASDRP is a translatable model for increasing interest in, and exposure to, novel scientific research among high school students, especially those who are underrepresented in STEM. ASDRP is a production of Olive Children Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in Fremont, CA.

Please email us at support@asdrp.org if you have any questions.

RSVP for one of our prospective applicant webinars

At a glance: Academic Year 2026-2027

Timeline

Autumn Term

September 1 - January 15

May 1: Applications for Autumn open
July 15: Priority application submission deadline for applicants. (notifications go out first week of August).
August 15: Applications due for research positions (notifications go out first week of September)
September 19-20: New Student Orientation

Spring Term:

January 15 - May 30

August 15: Applications for Spring open
November 15: Priority application submission deadline for Spring applicants. (notifications go out first week of December)
December 15: Applications due for Spring research positions (notifications go out first week of January)
January 9: New Student & Parent Orientation and ASDRP Faculty Spotlight Talks.

Summer Term:

June 1 - August 30

October 15: Applications for Summer open
February 1: Priority application submission deadline #1 deadline for Summer applicants (notifications go out first week of March).
March 1: Priority application submission deadline #2 deadline for Summer applicants (notifications go out first week of April).
April 15: Priority application submission deadline #3 deadline for Summer applicants (notifications go out first week of May).
May 22: New Student & Parent Orientation and ASDRP Faculty Spotlight Talks.

Research is typically conducted in the evenings and weekends.

Applications for School Year Research are open to current 9th - 12th grade students around the Bay Area. We encourage all students, regardless of demographic and socioeconomic background, to apply.

Apply Now

Logistics & Details

General Questions:

admissions@asdrp.org

Admissions & Applications:

admissions@asdrp.org

Facilities & Stockroom:

asdrp.admin@asdrp.org

Each year, ASDRP awards several partial and full scholarships for students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue STEM research. We firmly believe that finances should never be a barrier in STEM opportunities, so all applicants are encouraged to apply, and to apply specifically for financial aid where there is need.

We believe keeping a minimal operational cost is consistent with the spirit and vision of ASDRP. The above cost does not reflect the actual cost of taking on a student researcher. In fact, program costs account for less than half of the resources and funding required to take on a research student. This would not be made possible without the generous support of our corporate and community sponsors, research grants, and other sources of funding.

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE: ASDRP dues cover about 25% of the cost of supporting a research student, and reflect the minimum operational costs of the organization's infrastructure.

For students who meet financial need eligibility criteria, there is no cost to attending ASDRP. Please email admissions@asdrp.org for questions related to financial aid.

Additionally, students accepted in ASDRP are given the option to select specialty courses such as Machine Learning, Organic Chemistry, MatLab, etc. at no additional cost.

$1070

Program Cost

Sponsors & Community Supporters

We thank our sponsors for support to make ASDRP possible and

accessible to students of all socioeconomic backgrounds.