Suppose you have a talented 16-year-old daughter who is interested enough in science to think about studying it at university, but is not obsessed. Her school does its best to sustain her interest, perhaps with help of career materials supplied by learned societies and employers. She has taken on board the statistics showing that graduates in all sciences have very good employment prospects. But she could yet be diverted by the financial blandishments of law or accountancy, or the human intrigues of history or politics.

Maybe the next summer break will provide an opportunity to stimulate her interest. You go to Google. You'll find summer camps in the United States to make your offspring physically and/or morally healthier, or a cyber expert. You can send her to NASA space camp in Alabama, where she'll learn to fly a (virtual) space shuttle. You find US universities and government labs reaching out to seize her soul. Other countries, however, are invisible. And yet the cry the world over is that there are too few young souls knocking on university doors. Non-US universities should do much more to capture them.

Academics will hate the idea of compromising their precious summer months' research opportunities any further, but maybe they have no choice. To be fair, there are many outreach schemes already in place: open days, postdocs assisting in schools and museums. But too few universities have grabbed the idea that youngsters could be stimulated by exposing them to science departments' teaching and research activities in more depth.

More universities should invite older school students to apply for a week in residence where they can be introduced to the leading edges of research and to the diversity of training and education that they can expect to receive. Those students who show particular aptitude should be given the chance to spend a few summer weeks working alongside students and postdocs, helping with tasks that may be menial to the latter but that give young people enough of a glimpse of the world of science to be enticed further into it. And those universities enlightened enough to do this should advertise their wares in a search-friendly form on the web, to be eagerly seized by relieved parents.