<p>I'm a high school Junior currently and I'm really interested in studying Chemistry in college, although I'm not sure what I want to do exactly. I have an internship this summer at Stony Brook University (and last summer after 10th grade) as not only a lab assistant, but actually conduct experiments. I am on a research paper that is going to be published in the next few months.</p>
<p>My absolute favorite school is UVA and after visiting the campus and taking a tour, learned that only ~1/18 OOS get accepted.</p>
<p>My question is how common are these research/lab internships among HS students and will it make a big difference in making an application with sufficient academics and EC's stand out?</p>
<p>Well, im purely using statistics from my school. about 4 total people in my class of 400 did research/internships. All 4 had posters. 1 was published in an actual medical journal. Now this is just some random public school that doesn’t even focus on science that much… it could vary!</p>
<p>But personally, I think my published research paper was the the thing that really set me apart in my applications and got me my scholarship. There isn’t really a way to know though, besides asking the admissions department. I doubt they would even tell me! </p>
<p>But besides how much it helped me in getting into college, I think it was an invaluable experience and that you shouldn’t pass it up. It taught me numerous things I would not have learned in a class room setting including ways of thinking, responsibility and applied problem-solving skills. Don’t worry if this will help your application or not because in the end you will gain so much more than you have ever expected.</p>