REU’s and summer research programs can be kind of mysterious. They don’t really say how to look good or get into them and in my case, I only heard of them through a few friends. Now, your school may have informational meetings on REU’s, but if its like the one I had at my university, it only told me what I had to do to apply, not what they were looking for. Today I’m going to be walking you through the application itself AND what these universities look for in an applicant. These strategies got me accepted to multiple research programs including the AMGEN program at Washington University in St. Louis.
Haven’t picked your field of research? Start here.
Research experiences are crucial for just about everyone wanting to attend any graduate school, especially M.D., M.D/Ph.D., and Ph.D. programs. One of the more substantial and important experiences that can be had is a research summer. You can work full time, get paid, and they almost always cover housing. Even better, you now will have an “in” with admissions to this school because you know their campus, have built connections with their faculty, and may have even come away with a publication and faculty reference.
Research experiences for undergraduates, REU’s for short, are usually summer programs where you get paid somewhere between 3-7 thousand dollars to do full time research for between 8-12 weeks. They’re spectacular because housing is covered and you get to spend a lot of time figuring out a research project.
For me, I used the REU to figure out if I wanted a research career or wanted to stick with a clinical career. Additionally, my college was what is considered under the Carnegie ranking system as an R2 institution. This means we have high research activity. The REU’s I applied to were R1’s which meant very high research activity. Examples include Duke, Emory, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Harvard, and others of this level. The difference is immense and I consider it a must to spend some time in an R1 research environment to make an educated decision on your career.
So, you’re probably thinking “how do I get into an REU If they’re so important?”
Well the first thing to do is to self evaluate. What kind of research do you want to do? Do you have a field of research you’re interested in or want to do with your career? Where are you comfortable traveling to and how far from family?
Once you get these settled, now you can look for the right program for you!
In my experience, I chose my programs based on research fit. I previously had research experience in nephrology and I knew that I was interested in continuing this potentially. So, I picked about 5 programs that were kidney focused and would show favoritism to applicants with kidney experience. You can do the same! The other programs I applied to I specifically chose because I wanted to go to their medical school. They either had a strong MD program or had a strong presence in the research field that I would do my PHD portion of my MD/PHD in. The reason I did this is because when it comes time to do your medical school applications, each medical school will ask you “why us?”. It sounds a lot stronger to say something along the lines of “I spent a summer here and loved the culture, the faculty mentorship, and felt at home with X Y and Z offerings from the school and could easily spend my next 4 years here” than it does to say “I like the mission and this volunteer clinic I found in your website”. There’s nothing wrong with the latter, but the former is stronger.
Now comes the essay for the program. This is usually some sort of short personal statement or goals statement. Treat it like a why this program and how are you a fit for it based on your goals. Since I was thinking I wanted a research career as an MD/PHD at the time, I told them that my university did not have a PHD or MD/PHD program and I would love to be able to get to be immersed in a setting with these types of programs and faculty. Additionally, my school was an R2 school and seeing an R1 school’s research abilities and technology were important to me in deciding if I wanted a research career. My last point was some sort of way I liked the school, the program matched my prior research, or had 1-2 professors I really wanted.
The most important thing you can do is point out that research is a heavy interest for your career and that this program or institution offers an experience or technology or shadowing of professionals that your institution fails to offer.
If you can convince them of this and locate programs that relate to your prior experience or future goals, you should experience much greater success!
One last tip, pick reference writers who you have researched with or worked with closely in an academic or clinical setting and they can speak to your likelihood of a RESEARCH career or interest.
Also, once you are in the program, they will want you to pick your mentor/project. Learn how to find the best mentor and what to look for here.