CHICAGO - This summer, teenagers will canvass in support of politicians, help nurses in hospitals or tweet as part of a company’s social media effort. They’re still in high school but they are working unpaid internships - sometimes even paying thousands of dollars to do so.
Once largely the province of college students, internships are becoming more common for high school students who are eager to flesh out college applications and get an insider’s look into career tracks, some experts say.
“Part-time jobs have become scarcer and scarcer for high school students,” said Alison Cooper Chisolm, CEO of Massachusetts-based Ivey College Consulting Inc. “The job at McDonald’s is now being taken by an adult because the adult needs the work.”
Instead, more high schoolers - at least the ones who can afford to work without pay - are looking for new ways to better themselves and their college prospects, said Chisolm, who worked for more than 10 years in secondary schools and university admissions before entering independent college admissions consulting.
“More and more kids, because of the economic climate, are thinking carefully about both college and the investment it represents, but also starting in the right place,” she said.
The rise of the high school internship is fueled by long-term, underlying factors, from the 2008 economic downturn to a more competitive college admissions process that accelerated in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Chisolm said. In addition, more hands-on experiential learning is taking place in high schools, while more companies, particularly in engineering and technology, are offering internships to high schoolers as a form of long-term labor development, she said.
Ross Perlin, author of “Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy,” said he has noticed more high school students taking internships.
“My impression was that it was . (to build) up your profile, looking like a particular sort of person for your college application,” Perlin said.
The phenomenon has yet to be thoroughly studied, said Perlin, who did not focus on high school students in his book. There does not appear to be official data tracking the matter.
But some who are familiar with the high school education system acknowledge more high schoolers are taking internships.
A statement from Chicago Public Schools said there has been an “an upward trend,” with 100 more CPS students anticipated to take part this year in the CTE Summer Internship program, which pays its interns.
Lisa Dieckman, 18, a senior at Rolling Meadows High School, used her school’s internship placement program to peek into career possibilities. Every day after school she has been doing administrative work for a Rolling Meadows, Ill., nonprofit that helps orphans in the developing world.
“What I’m doing at Warm Blankets is basically what I want to do after college,” Dieckman said. “I’ve been able to see what my career will involve.”
That’s an aspect that Bob Musiker, one of the owners of New York-based Discovery Internships, said has motivated high school students to apply to his program.
“It’s gone from a handful of students to literally 400 or so (per summer),” Musiker said of the decade-old, tuition-based program. “It’s been very difficult for teenagers to get meaningful jobs and we’ve been able to capitalize on that.”
Discovery Internships places students each summer in about 30 different industries - ranging from architecture to journalism to government - in Boston, New York, London and Los Angeles, he said. Students pay up to $7,999 for the four-week unpaid internship, which covers housing, activity fees, a one-credit class taken through New York University, and other fees. The employer is not compensated for taking an intern, he said.
“They take their expertise as being teenagers and at many of these companies, they’re marketing to young people,” he said. “So they offer in-house knowledge.”
“It’s certainly easier for these students to get college internships, and even paid internships, because they’ve had these experiences in high school,” Musiker said. “And I do think it makes them stand out in the college application process.”
Jori Horberg, 18, was placed through the program in unpaid business internships in New York City during the summers leading up to her junior and senior years.
“I think it did put me over the edge,” said Horberg, a senior at North Shore Country Day School in Winnetka, Ill., who in previous years had worked in a clothing store. “On the college application, I got to say that I’ve worked at these . New York companies. And New York, that’s one of the biggest business capitals in the world.”
“You can take the internship and go through the steps, or you can really utilize it and make those connections,” Horberg said. “And that’s why I loved it so much, because I got everything that I needed out of it.”
Through the program, Horberg said she met a New York University professor who wrote a recommendation for her college, and that she might be able to find more work through the second company she interned for. Horberg plans on attending the New York University Stern School of Business in the fall.
Discovery Internships’ New York City program this year costs $7,199 for four weeks, according to the website. Horberg acknowledged that she had to pay to work unpaid, but said the two internships were worth it.
“It’s kind of the only way the big companies are going to accept high schoolers they don’t know,” she said.
Jori’s mother, Kim Horberg of Highland Park, said the summer gigs - market research analysis at a small chocolate company and administrative work in a boutique travel agency - helped her daughter confirm she was on the right career track while providing a strong foundation for the future.
“I have some friends with kids who are graduating college . and they’re saying how hard it is to find a job,” Kim Horberg said. “And all that stuff puts it in your mind, about what you can do to make (your children) stand out a little more or prepare them for the road after college.”
David Hawkins, director of public policy and research for the National Association for College Admission Counseling, said that an internship can be viewed favorably, “particularly if the student has worked in an environment that parallels their academic interests.”
“But college admission officers understand that not every student is able to obtain an internship, and therefore do not, as a rule, believe internships to offer a particular advantage just because the student has completed one,” he added.
