The FBI's Future Agents in Training Program: How a Federal Career Actually Starts

By Maryam House, Founder & COO, ResumeYourWay INC

Most people picture a federal career starting with a college degree and a stack of applications. It usually starts earlier than that, with a kid who got curious about how the work actually gets done. The FBI runs a program built for exactly that moment, and the Little Rock Field Office is taking applications for its fall session right now.

It is called Future Agents in Training, or FAIT. It is free. And for a high school student in central Arkansas who has ever wondered what the inside of a federal investigation looks like, it is about as close as you can get before you are old enough to apply for the job.

Here is what it is, who can apply, and how, plus a bit on why an early look at a federal path is worth more than most families realize.

What Future Agents in Training actually is

FAIT is a hands-on program the FBI runs for high school students. Instead of a lecture about the Bureau, students spend the day working alongside special agents, intelligence analysts, and professional staff, and they get a real look at how cases move from a tip to an arrest.

The Little Rock sessions cover a wide range of what the FBI does: terrorism, cybercrime, public corruption, evidence response, SWAT operations, and violent crime. Students also get walked through the investigative side of the work, the parts you never see on television. That means evidence collection, witness interviews, surveillance, and the case support that holds an investigation together. There is a session on FBI careers and recruitment too, so students leave knowing what the different paths into the Bureau look like.

It is not a tour. It is a working introduction to a profession, run by the people who do it.

Who can apply

The 2026 fall Little Rock announcement lists a specific set of eligibility rules. A student needs to be:

• Between the ages of 15 and 18
• A United States citizen
• Carrying a GPA of 3.0 or higher
• Enrolled in an accredited high school or a recognized homeschool program
• Able to attend all three sessions
• Willing to complete the full application

That homeschool line matters, and it is easy to miss. Homeschool families sometimes assume programs like this are built only for students in a traditional building. This one is written to include a recognized homeschool program on the same footing as an accredited high school. If you are homeschooling a teenager who lights up at forensics, cybersecurity, or law, this is open to them.

One practical note the announcement makes clear: students provide their own transportation to and from the field office. Worth planning for before you apply.

The dates, the place, and how to apply

The fall FAIT sessions run on three Fridays in October: October 9, 16, and 23, 2026, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. each day. They are held at the FBI Little Rock Field Office, 24 Shackleford West Boulevard, Little Rock.

Applications are due August 21, 2026. You apply by sending the completed application to the FBI Little Rock Community Outreach office at lrcommunityoutreach@fbi.gov.

Because dates and deadlines on a program like this can shift, confirm the current details on the official FBI Little Rock application before you send anything. The email above is the office to ask. When a deadline is this close, it is worth a five-minute check straight from the source rather than from anyone repeating it, including us.

Why an early look at a federal career is worth it

Here is the part that goes beyond one program in one city.

Federal work runs on a specific way of thinking. It is process-driven, it is documented, and it rewards people who understand the system before they try to move through it. A high schooler who spends three Fridays watching how the FBI actually builds a case is learning that mindset years ahead of the people they will one day compete with for a job.

One thing worth knowing early is that the entry rules are not what most people assume. Plenty of federal jobs do not require a college degree at all, and we went through what OPM actually asks for in Do Federal Jobs Require a College Degree? For a 15-year-old weighing what comes after high school, that is worth knowing before the pressure starts.

We see the other end of that curve every day. RYW has helped more than 110,000 people since 2014, and our team includes 17 former federal hiring managers, the people who used to sit on the other side of the desk. The clients who move fastest into federal roles are almost never the ones with the flashiest degree. They are the ones who understood, early, that a federal career is a long game with its own rules. A program like FAIT plants that understanding when a student is 15 or 16, not 25.

You do not have to want to be an FBI agent for it to pay off, either. The same exposure helps a future analyst, a future prosecutor, a future cybersecurity specialist, or a student who ends up somewhere no one predicted. The value is seeing real federal work up close, early enough to aim for it.

For homeschool families especially

If you homeschool, opportunities that formally recognize your program are worth grabbing when they appear. FAIT is one of them. It puts your student in the same room, doing the same work, as any other applicant, and it gives them a real federal experience to point to later, in an application, an interview, or a scholarship essay. That kind of first-hand experience is hard to manufacture and easy to remember.

When the resume part starts

The resume comes later, and it comes fast once a student has something real to say. A day inside an FBI field office, an early internship, a first campus job, these are the raw material of a strong early-career story, and most students have no idea how to tell it in a way a federal or corporate reviewer takes seriously.

That is the part we handle. When a student in your family is ready to turn experiences like FAIT into an application that actually competes, our early-career and federal writers help them tell it straight, in plain language a hiring manager respects. No fluff, no filler, just the real story of what they have done and where they are headed.

If you want to talk through where a student is headed and how to build toward it, you can book a free 15-minute career guidance call here:

https://calendly.com/resumeyourway/career-guidance-call-complimentary-15-minute-s-clone

No pitch. Just a straight conversation about the path.

For now, though, the move is simple. If you have a high schooler in central Arkansas who is even a little curious, get the FAIT application in before August 21. Some doors only open on a schedule, and this one is open right now.