<p>I was speaking with a friend who has plans to pursue med school after a gap year, during which he will do research at NIH under a one-year post-bacc fellowship.</p>
<p>Since i'm rather on the fence between med and grad school, I thought it might be a plausible option, so i looked it up and read about it. I was wondering if anybody knew anything about this fellowship- how difficult it is to get? I've heard alot regarding the importance of "connections" to the NIH- can anyone attest to how much truth there is in that? I have a somewhat distant connection that might work in my favor, but i'd like to think my research experience will play a more significant role. Obviously, graduate schools will look very favorably on something like this, given the importance of research experience, what about med schools?</p>
<p>I submitted an application for this program and before my recs were even uploaded, I received 3 quick replies from PI's for interviews. Within a couple of weeks, I had secured myself a position in a lab without connections. </p>
<p>There were others who had to email lots and lots of PI's before getting an interview. It depends on the strength of your resume. If you have a weak resume, you will have to rely on connections.</p>
<p>Acceptance rate is under 10% according to the website.</p>
<p>ie, a fancy term for the person in charge of the lab. Seeing as how the acceptance rate is at or below 10%, I would assume past experience is essentially required. Otherwise, it would be pretty difficult to distinguish applicants from one another, seeing as how no exams such as the GRE/MCAT are required for admission. </p>
<p>What year are you? You should look for a lab position as your university.</p>
<p>Hadn't heard of this program before, I should look into it. Unfortunately, I can't really answer your questions.</p>
<p>I hope undergraduate biomedical research, specifically, is not unofficially required. As in, I will have a couple years of research experience upon graduation, but it is not biomedical in nature.</p>
<p>Aren't these sorts of things (post-bacc work) meant for people who don't have their stats up to snuff for med school? I'm not trying to insult anyone here if that's not the case.</p>
<p>Post-bac simply means post-bac (after you've received your bachelor's). I can eat a banana after graduation and it'd be a post-bac banana. This fellowship is a post-bac fellowship because it's only open to recent college graduates.</p>
<p>The SMP/post-bac courses are what you are thinking about. They are for people to remedy less than idea undergrad grades. But, that has nothing to do with research.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I would assume past experience is essentially required. Otherwise, it would be pretty difficult to distinguish applicants from one another, seeing as how no exams such as the GRE/MCAT are required for admission.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think GPA and undergrad are probably more important. One NIH PI even told me that she prefers her fellows not to have too much previous research experience (so that she can teach them to do things her way). I certainly didn't have a lot of great undergrad research experience but I did have a high GPA from an Ivy League university and bio coursework up through 600 (graduate) level. In my case, I had taken graduate biophysics courses and I ended up doing patch clamping for my research. Patch clamping is to biophysics what PCR and western blotting is to molecular biology.</p>
<p>it's so difficult to define these various sub-fields of biology, but the way things are headed, it's better to NOT be a bio major and then go into biology. therefore, i think it's useful to avoid using buzz-words like "biophysics" and "bioinformatics" when they are essentially the same field of study.</p>