<p>Where can you find a listing of them? Chances? Which university is good to go to to get one? What do they consider for giving it out? Will it greatly improve chances of getting into top 5 med school if you get one?</p>
<p>Good luck finding research funding as an undergrad. Join a lab and let your PI take care of the grant proposals.</p>
<p>I remember Emory saying that they fund undergrads. Look more into it, but I think you have to come up with a pretty good proposal to get funding.</p>
<p>You can always find things like Howard Hughes fellowships if you're really top notch (I never was). The NIH might also be interested in funding you.</p>
<p>Is the HH fellowship offered at any undergrad school? I'm already in the HHMI/NIH/MCPS internship now during HS. Will that give me a good advantage at getting this fellowship? Does the school I go to affect my chances at one?</p>
<p>Yeah, I know: I'm aiming way too high.</p>
<p>EDIT: UMD, my state school and safety, has a good HH fellowship program, but it's for juniors and seniors.
<a href="http://www.chemlife.umd.edu/hhmi/%5B/url%5D">http://www.chemlife.umd.edu/hhmi/</a></p>
<p>WSUTL also has a good program:
<a href="http://www.nslc.wustl.edu/Research/HHMI/surf.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.nslc.wustl.edu/Research/HHMI/surf.html</a></p>
<p>Is it really that prestigious, because the WUSTL link says that 50-60% of applicants receive funding.</p>
<p>What other undergrad colleges offer something similar? My list: UPenn, Stanford, and JHU.</p>
<p>1.) Remember, I never was remotely competitive enough to even want to apply for one, so I have no idea what I'm talking about here.</p>
<p>2.) Yes (unless by "any" you mean "every"), I'd imagine so, probably, and definitely.</p>
<p>Would it help significantly for getting into a good med school? I mean after good GPA and MCAT and LORs.</p>
<p>Research definitely helps (basically a requirement if you want to go to the top schools). GPA/MCAT >>> Clinical experience >>> research experience.</p>
<p>I disagree with ASMAJ's hierarchy but that's neither here nor there. (I think it's basically impossible to form such a hierarchy, and any explanation I give of one is absurdly complicated. See below discussion. I was going to call it an appendix but even I'm not that nerdy.)</p>
<p>If you want to go to research schools, then, duh, research matters. If you want to go to top primary care schools, than many of them (notice the DO program included) probably won't care in the least. There are some schools in fact which dislike the ivory-tower nature of research and will frown upon it, although obviously this list is very, very small.</p>
<p>You have to tell us what you mean by a "top" medical school before we can tell you whether it's the sort of medical school that cares about research. If you mean a top research school, then I would think it's basically tautological.</p>
<p>*Imagine that there are nine criteria for admission to medical school:
1.) Application process
2.) GPA, mainly BCPM
3.) MCAT score, including balance
4.) LORs, especially advisor letters
5.) Essays, especially AMCAS
6.) Research
7.) Clinical Experience
8.) Community Service
9.) Interviews</p>
<p>There are certainly more, including legacy status, race, and in-state status, but we'll ignore those.</p>
<p>Now, you rank each of these students into a percentile score and assign them 1-100 in each of the eight categories. Here's how I imagine the admissions process at an extremely selective medical school:</p>
<p>Step 1: Any student with less than an 85 in any two of those categories is immediately eliminated from consideration. You're permitted one area in which you may be only average, provided that that area is not MCAT, GPA, or Clinical Experience.</p>
<p>Step 2: Any student which does not have at least three areas scoring as a 95+ is eliminated.</p>
<p>Step 3: Any student who scores 95+ in six areas is automatically admitted.</p>
<p>Now and only now do I feel comfortable assigning a hierarchy. Notice that students must be excellent in all fields first -- the only question is, in which field are they really stellar? In other words, when I tell you that criterion X is more important than Y, it doesn't mean that an excellent X will make up for a poor Y. It means than an excellent X and a good Y trumps the other way around.</p>
<p>Step 4: Separate students based on the categories in which they have a 95+. For example, if Bob has a 95+ in GPA and EC's but only a 91 in MCAT scores, he goes into the GPA pile and the EC's pile, but not the MCAT pile.</p>
<p>Here's, finally, where I feel comfortable listing a hierarchy:</p>
<p>1.) Research/Clinical experience/Community Service
---> These among themselves vary from school to school, but I would feel comfortable always labelling them as the top three.
2.) Advisor Letter
3.) MCAT Score
4.) Interview
5.) Application Process</p>
<p>Large Gap.</p>
<p>6.) Essays
7.) GPA
8.) Other LOR's.</p>
<p>Blue, what i meant by it is that if you have to cut out something then that is the order you should do it. You will not get into med school if you have a low gpa but an extraordinary amount of clinical experience. On the other hand you can get into a school get high enough gpa (3.4>) and a good amount of clinical experience. And research experience is not as important as the others, but it hard to get into the top schools without it. Just my personal beliefs.</p>
<p>By top medical school, I mean JHU, Harvard, penn, WUSTL, and UCSF.</p>
<p>1.) <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=213924%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=213924</a></p>
<p>2.) Yup. You'll need research, since (apparently) your career plans involve research. You'll need high-quality research, a project of your own, significant responsibility, and I'm betting that four years from now kids are going to need pubs for those schools. And that can't come at the expense of clinical experience, grades, MCATs, or a well-managed application process.</p>
<p>I know some med students are now taking a year off between 2nd and 3rd year so they can do real high quality research, get some pubs, and presentations, so they can get into more competitive residencies (rads onco, integrated plastics, derma, etc).</p>
<p>Rad/Onc? I'm surprised to hear that that's considered an especially competitive residency. Diagnostic radiology is the one everybody wants.</p>
<p>Many students take a year off after third year, as well, because (frankly) they're tired and they want the break then. Before third year is a little bit better career-path-wise, but not an awful lot unless it gets to be a long break.</p>
<p>Fellowships are very easy for medical students to get. No problems there -- the NIH will throw money at you.</p>
<p>Yeah radiation oncology is significantly harder to get into than radiology (diagnostic). Here is list commonly used over at SDN with the most competitive specialties.</p>
<ol>
<li>Integrated Plastics</li>
</ol>
<p>2a. Derm
2b. Rad Onc</p>
<ol>
<li>Ortho</li>
</ol>
<p>4a. Urology
4b. ENT
4c. Ophtho
4d. Radiology
4e. Neurosurgery</p>
<p>5a. EM
5b. Anesthesiology
5c. General Surgery</p>
<p>6a. PM&R
6b. OBGYN</p>
<p>7a. Neurology
7b. Pathology</p>
<p>8a. IM
8b. Psych
8c. FM
8d. Pediatrics</p>
<p>My career path is not research. It is practice. I just want to go to a good medical school to get a residency (ophth.) and was wondering if I a research grant would help my chances at those top medical schools I mentioned earlier.</p>
<p>But you seem to be selecting schools that are at the top of the research rankings. For those schools, yes, you need research.</p>
<p>^^^Agreed. Many physicians do research just to set themselves apart from the rest. Most that continue research into practice are MD/PhD. For you, you might not like, but it a must to get into the schools you are listing. Just try to find a project that you are interested in.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Most that continue research into practice are MD/PhD.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know that I'd say this. Every single attending physician at my school has a lab. Sure, the neurosurgeons only spend like 15 min./day there, but it's their name that goes out on all the grant applications.</p>
<p>Certainly if you're trying for ophtho you're going to be doing a lot of research as an undergrad, talking a lot about research during the application process, hearing a lot about research as a preclinical student, doing research during your summers in medical school, doing research during your residency, and being asked extensively about other people's research when other physicians are talking to you.</p>
<p>Yeah I meant MD's that did > ~15-40% research are MD/PhD. The good thing is that you can get research in practice since you can just see how you patients reacted to different treatments. Different than pure bench research.</p>