<p>No, but say each school asks for four - and each school has different requirements. In a hypothetical example, it might turn out that Stanford wants a work boss, a character reference, and two science professors; Hopkins wants a research mentor, a professor from your major, an English professor, and a biology professor. You thus see that each school wants four, but in sum you need six or seven. Etc.</p>
<p>oh so we can't just pick which professros to write out letters? Med schools have guidelines? I guess it's different from applying to colleges.</p>
<p>Right, medical schools have specific requirements. They will waive the requirements if your premedical advisors have a different system in place (I only needed four), but the UC's don't have any such system.</p>
<p>And, as an aside, I was pretty sure that undergrad did, in fact, have guidelines for letters... but I could be wrong about that.</p>
<p>Hey, at my college where I'll be attending, Notre Dame, the research program is absolutely amazing. There are about 25 research projects during the year where students can submit a resume to begin working (usually projects begin sophmore or junior year) and you can even work during the summer. </p>
<p>In addition, there is a NSF (national science foundation) program during the summer where there are an additional 15 research projects where you can work for about $4000 plus room and board. And whats awesome is that you can do this for about 4 credits for the whole year.
I hope that these are some of the research activities that your universities have as well.</p>
<p>I guess my question is, if I wanted to start early during say my freshman SPRING...do you think if I go to my professor and say that you have a solid 3.9 GPA overall and a 3.9 in both my General Bio and Chem classes. Plus, you're an avid reader of National Geographic, Scientific American, and love doing the labwork. Would they view your passion and and academic excellence early in freshman year and give you a position in doing "research" not cleaning glassware?</p>