<p>My nephew was from “back East” so for him going to Rice was the adventure. It was a wonderful place for him. Hope your D gets as much out of college as he did.</p>
<p>Yeah, yeah - I gathered he was not local to Rice from the DC research in the summers. D has loved Rice for a long time, but it’s only downside was being in the same city she grew up in. To her credit, after the deny, she chose to focus on this fact, dusted herself off and is now very excited about three places.</p>
<p>She is so excited for college - she has been ready for two years!!!</p>
<p>^My nephew wanted to go to MIT, but didn’t get in. Amusingly by the time grad school rolled around he liked Berkeley better, but the professor he was working with transferred to MIT, so he’s ended up there after all.</p>
<p>I’ve seen this “^” from time to time - what does it mean?</p>
<p>MIT good one!!! D has a friend there who loves it. D is partial to Boston and has a likely from Wellesley and waiting on BC - also considering UR and if she’s lucky, Swat will admit her.</p>
<p>She actually has a high paying summer job in an unrelated field (returning to from last summer), but I was just thinking maybe she should give that up for a no-pay gig in her desired field to become more attractive for early research opportunities once in college.</p>
<p>As someone who’s working on a PhD in a research field, I wouldn’t advise that. College sophomores and juniors who come to us looking for research opportunities rarely have a research background, so we wouldn’t expect that when comparing students in our lab. Usually our decisions are more based upon 1) whether the student has done the prerequisite classes to be useful to us in the lab and 2) the student’s level of enthusiasm and passion for the field, and whether we think there’s a good chance she’ll decide to pursue a research career. Especially if she’s interested in a more technical field she won’t know how to do anything useful in the lab yet, nor would the lab have any time to teach her before she traipses off to her college in the fall.</p>
<p>It would have to be some benevolent professor (or more likely, benevolent graduate student or postdoc) who would be willing to take her on and teach her, and not a lot of labs are willing to do that when she’s not really going to be providing them with meaningful labor.</p>
<p>And we definitely wouldn’t PAY a high school student. We don’t even pay our undergrads.</p>
<p>Contacting a lab that is doing interesting research is the best way to do it. By contacting a lab herself (whether via e-mail or phone), she’s demonstrating passion and persistence and those are qualities a PI would admire in a student, and would factor into the PI’s decision to take the kid on.</p>
<p>I think science education is so important and I like working with high school students, but I wouldn’t take one for the summer simply because the summer is the only unfettered time I have to work on my research without teaching and other responsibilities.</p>
<p>Don’t discount that summer job - it may not be as unrelated as you think, and may give her some great experience and knowledge. If nothing else, she’ll begin networking and can stack some cash to take with her to college. Personally, I would go with that. No doubt with her drive, she’ll be doing research in her freshman year in college, which is far earlier than most students begin. Then she can begin applying for REUs and similar summer research experiences.</p>
<p>Using “^” is something I’ve only seen in this Forum - it just means you are responding to the post directly above. Saves having to make a formal quote box.</p>
<p>maidenmom, my S who’s a college freshman began working in labs in NYC after his sophomore year in high school. If you google summer science research programs, you’ll find quite a bit of info. There are formal programs for students around the country…this is where & how many of the intel kids get their work done. It’s competitive to get into these programs, like the Jackson Lab discussed above, but that experience itself is worthwhile. They need to write essays about their interest in science and my S also had to interview w/ the head of labs and the post-docs w/whom he’d work. By the time he graduated HS, he worked in two labs and was asked back to the last for the summer before college (devoted 3 consecutive summers). Now that he’s a freshman, he emailed 10 profs at his school, was interviewed by 7 and offered a position by all & simultaneously applied to a HHMI program (wasn’t sure how hard it would be to find a lab willing to take him) and just got that too. Everyone told him that he was offered a position b/c of his research experience and skills. So, research before college was definitely worthwhile for gaining lab work early in college but also bc the HS experiences made clear to him that science research is something he loves to do and wants to commit to long-term. Additionally, he thinks he understands his courses in college better and performs better in his chem labs bc of this prior experience.</p>
<p>Wow, thanks for all the great advice - I will pass along to my D and see what she can dig up! If that doesn’t work (late stage of the game also), then she can stick to original plan which juillet has made me fell isn’t so bad.</p>
<p>DS1 was offered a spot in a science lab in our state university the summer before his freshman year. It was part of the admission package in a honors program. He got $1K scholarship in addition to the room and board for six weeks. In total, there were 15-20 students (boys+girls). That was the best summer he had. He made quite a few friends and had a lot of fun. His research professor and mentors were very supportive. He has been doing research in the same lab during his freshman year and will continue his research starting June for about two months.</p>