Hey! I am a sophomore in the Bay Area, and I had wanted to get involve with research in the Biochemistry field. I had looked up some professors, and got their email, and conducted some research upon topics, but I had hit a few roadblocks, so wanted advice upon what to do. Firstly, I noticed that Stanford had set a limit of 16 on labs, and I am 15, turning 16 during spring, and I was wondering if they would make me do non-dangerous work, or whether they would not accept me at all, until I would reach 16. My second question was that when looking at the other colleges around: SJSU, SCU, as well as Berkeley and UCSC, they had not had any specific instructions for high schoolers for working over the school year, and none of the alumni listed had done so either, so I was wondering whether it was worth emailing those professors. Thirdly, I noticed that the time period I am emailing professors is not ideal, but I was wondering whether I would still have decent odds at getting accepted by one professor, or not, since this is winter time. Basically, my questions boil down to whether emailing professors right now for whole year research interns would be productive at all, though we do have a start of a new semester, especially given my age, or whether I should wait till summer and then ask the same group of professors + apply for NASA AMES, and if I had a chance at emailing other professors such as ones in SJSU or SCU or a community college, and not having to worry about the age rule.
Just as background, I have a 4.0 GPA at the moment, have done AP Chem and Hon. Bio, but have no other qualifications. I am doing a fairly competitive local science fair which feeds into ISEF, but have no other research background.