I was recently looking online for programs to improve my research skills, etc. and was wondering if anyone knew of any stellar, selective programs to put me on top. I have seen some useful programs however I want to know what the CC community would recommend. Thank you ahead of time!
If these existed, they would be overwhelmed with students.
@WayOutWestMom has the best information on how to get in. You should heed her advice.
Other things:
I don’t think the med schools would really consider a student who did online programs.
Going to med school means you see patients. You need to demonstrate a “people” history where you show how you work and deal with people.
Your history, since high school, needs to show your thousands of hours of extra curricular activities, including volunteering at clinics, assisted living facilities, working part time jobs, being the member of a team, etc. They want to see experiences with your “people” skills. Letters of recommendations from those facilities, your professors, your sports coaches, and sometimes “peers” need to show and confirm those skills.
Top MCAT scores. Top grades.
NIH Internship program, AMGEN (for those interested in pursuing PhD or MD/PhD–straight MD applicants not considered), Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), Rockefeller Scholars, some REUs at research intensive biomedical programs.
However, all of these are enormously competitive programs. (AMGEN’s acceptance rate is in the 3-5% range)
These program also typically expect applicants to already have developed solid lab skills and strong academics. They’re not for learning basic research skills. Those are best developed at your home university.
@auntbea is right, though merely attending one of these programs won’t give you a leg up if you plan on applying to top medical schools. All applicants at research-intensive medical schools have very strong research portfolios, that typically includes a senior independent research thesis (or other project for which the student is responsible for the success or failure) and sometimes publications.
Plus the rest–top grades with challenging UL/graduate academic coursework, exceptional MCAT score, strong recommendations, leadership, clinical exposure and a strong demonstrated commitment to serving the disadvantaged. Most matriculants at top medical school have several hundred or even thousands of volunteer hours.
You have to have it all. You need to be rockstar.
Add to #2–Goldwater Scholars.
But as I mentioned above–these programs are only open to students who have already developed excellent basic lab skills and usually some type of specialized expertise, along with a defined area of research interest. It’s not something open to freshmen-sophomores (and especially not open to high school students or anyone under age 18 due to insurance, liability and HIPAA concerns). These programs are primarily open to college juniors & seniors who want to become researcher-physicians.
D2 was an AMGEN fellow and NIH intern. If you have specific questions about these programs, I’ll try to answer.
I am already experienced in basic research skills such as aseptic technique, the Gram Stain being among them. I know many other microbiological tests and have performed them in lab. Here is a brief list of these laboratory tests:
Gelatinase test
Blood agar
MacConkey agar
EMB agar
MR test
VP test
Oxidase test
Testing for fecal coliforms through the MPN technique
Endospore stain
Flagellar stain
Capsule stain
Simple stain
SIM test
You are in high school. Shouldn’t you be working about how to get into college rather than how to get into med school?
Those aren’t the kinds of skills those programs are looking for…
You also need a detailed letter of recommendation from your current research lab supervisor (PI, not lab manager) and a college transcript to apply.
Also, being under age 18 will put a hard stop on your application.
I am sure that these are the skills being looked for. If you are familiar with these lab tests, you would surely know of their great importance in the lab setting, especially for research. By the way, these skills are just a brief list. Are you referring to personal instructor by “PI”?
If you are still skeptical concerning my skills, do not worry. Do not regard your skepticism. Thank you for your response to my question!
Following.
PI = principal investigator (i.e. the person who oversees & directs the entire research program and who wrote the research grant that funds the program the student is working on.)
I am aware of the tests you mention, but those are technician-type skills–not necessarily what researchers are looking for. You can always hire a tech to run testing equipment. To be successful in a research lab you need the technical skills, (which your supervising grad student, lab manager or PI will teach you because learning those are fairly trivial) but you also need higher level research & thinking skills like data analysis, computer skills w/ specialized software packages (SPSS, MATLab , etc), time management, record management, literature research skills, understanding of the scientific method and how to apply it in specific situations, sufficient experience with the research protocols and and having the experiential judgment to recognize which outcomes are expected and which are fluky, if they’re fluky what errors led to the outcome and how to fix them, or if fluky outcomes represent something novel, unexpected & potentially valuable or just a waste of time.
The OP is in High School, 9th grade I believe. His questions and aspirations are all premature.
You’ve really done your “research”.
You’re going about this all wrong. Get through high school, first. Learn to mature and develop friendships.
Then consider applying to colleges that may accept you.
If you come across to the schools, like you are coming to across us now, you will someone to teach you some serious people skills.
Not knowing what PI means in the research world clearly shows how much you know about research…lol
Michael, I intern at a lab in a UC school, I can tell you firsthand that labs hire outside technicians to run analysis on experiments, you don’t do it yourself.
Those are microbiology tests that are used in some clinical labs still but the vast vast majority of research labs won’t use any of those. They are old school and are not experimental. They are used for identifying organisms.
@nomood I dont know what your lab does but hiring people from outside the lab to do data analysis is def not the norm. I’m not sure if anyone else ever analyzed data I personally generated. Sure, if you’re doing high level stats you might consult a statistician and with next gen sequencing, if you’re not super familiar with it, you’ll need someone to decode the raw data into something you can work with, but I’m not sure I follow what point you are making exactly.
@iwannabe_Brown sorry, I should have clarified. what I mean is that we hire an institution (that is affiliated with the same university, we don’t just hire a random company) to run analysis on data that we collect. Its kind of confusing, and I’m not in charge of that so I don’t know all the details, but that’s usually how it goes when we need something analyzed in large amounts.
I feel like you must be talking about either next gen sequencing or complex epidemiology data. I and my classmates analyzed almost every piece of data we generated no matter how large. Some of my friends even analyze sequencing data themselves because they did it regularly. Experimental design and data analysis is basically the heart of what being skilled in research is. Anyone can learn to move liquid from one tube to another which is essentially all that conducting an experiment is.
Yeah we analyze it ourselves if the amount isnt too large. And honestly most experiments we do aren’t very large so we only hire the outside institute every other month or so.