Research: How do you make yours stand out?

Graduate School
1

Hey, so I am currently a mechanical engineering undergraduate freshman with ambitions of getting into a top masters program.

From what I’ve heard, research experience and accompanying letters of recommendation are the most important factors graduate programs look at. But I don’t understand how, exactly, the “choose” which applicants have “better” research experience. Do they look at the reputation of the advisers? How fabulously you labeled the position? How well written the letter of recommendation was (that seems a product as much of the writing ability of the professor as your actual performance)? The sheer quantity of research you did?

It seems like a lot of this is very arbitrary. Does anybody have any tips on how to make sure your research stands out from the crowd’s?

2

I don’t know that you are looking at this right. It isn’t always about better, but fit with research interests and showing potential to your research supervisor so you can get a glowing letter of recommendation. They do not care about your title or how good a writer your letter writer is, don’t be silly now, it is certainly not as arbitrary as you make it when you bring in a lot of extraneous stuff. If you really want to impress with your accomplishment you can get good enough and contribute enough to new knowledge to be an author or coauthor. I think you should wait to learn about this until you get a bit of a handle on your department and university life. You will see what research is going on and where upperclassmen are going to grad school and what they were involved with.

3

Respectfully “BrownParent”, I don’t think you understand my question. An elite graduate school is presumably going to get plenty of applicants with research experience, and so they need to have some sort of mechanism for sorting these students out. If the determining factor is indeed letters of recommendation, there will probably be plenty of students who excel at their research and get good recommendation letters - so how does MIT decide whether to admit the student whose professor said “this kid is a genius” and the professor who said “this kid is the best researcher of his class”?

Waiting too long seems like a foolish idea when I only have through the end of Junior year if I want to go straight into graduate school.

4

No, @BrownParent is right - either that or your question is not worded in a way that accurately conveys what you want.

There’s no answer to the question “how, exactly, [do graduate programs] “choose” which applicants have “better” research experience.” That’s because graduate program admissions committees are made up of professors, each of which have different ideas about what’s “good.” In engineering it may be a single PI or two that picks you, so really, your admission is more dependent on how that PI judges you.

But BrownParent is right in that no one is going to care about your adviser’s writing ability, nor is it as simple as parsing the difference between “this kid is a genius” and “this kid is the best researcher in his class.” Both are glowing statements that are likely to go a long way towards convincing a committee. The name of the position also doesn’t matter - it’s almost always “research assistant” anyway.

What matters is

-What you do there. What are your tasks, and what do you know? Cleaning pipettes or rat cages is different from recruiting participants in studies or setting up experiments, and setting up experiments is different from writing literature reviews and presenting at conferences. The ideal set-up is a progressive journey of experience, where you start out doing more menial tasks and progress to doing more research-related tasks that will prepare you for graduate school. The way you showcase this is to discuss it in your personal statement and talk about it at interviews.

-Quantity/length does matter. Doing research for 2 years is better than 6 months, and doing research 15 hours a week is better than doing it 5 hours a week. Someone who volunteered 15 hours a week for 1 year still has more 50% more hours in the lab, and thus 50% more time to learn skills, than someone who volunteered 5 hours for 2 years. Five hours a week, to me, signals cage cleaning and literature searches and not the more substantial work. I think

-How your advisor talks about it in the letter. But the difference is not as trivial as the difference between “genius” and “best researcher.” It’s more like - what did YOU do in the lab that gives your adviser good things to say about you? Did you always show up on time and were you reliable? That’s basic. Did you complete all tasks as assigned and turn out good quality work? That’s good. Did you go over and above the call of duty, propose new ideas for students, present independent work at conferences (student, regional, or national), help co-author a paper, or something like that? That’s the kind of experience you WANT to have so that a PI can talk about it.

But you can’t worry about your PI’s ability to discuss it; the only thing you can do is do excellent work in the lab.

-Fit. The research that you do doesn’t have to be exactly related to what you want to do in graduate school, but your research interests should align with the department and you should have some sense about how the skills you learned in your undergrad lab will be transferable to the work you’re going to do in your graduate program.

The other thing is that depending upon the type of master’s program you want, professional experience (internships and part-time jobs) might be weighed as or more heavily than research.

5

@juillet thanks for the input. I’ll be honest; it is a little frustrating for me, because it seems somewhat nebulous as to how you are supposed to “stand out” from the other applicants with your GPAs and GREs. But I guess I’ll try to impress my supervisors as much as possible with work as substantive as I can - hopefully that works.

6

It is all about the letters of reference. If the professor can honestly write a personal, detailed, strong letter about your performance in the research group, that will help a lot. It does not matter what your research area is, it does not ahve to be in the same area as you plan for your graduate program. It is simply evidence that you are able to perform well in that environment.

About standing out. You cannot guarantee it. For the most selective graduate programs, it is always a question of competing with many applicants who are as good as you are. You can increase your odds by getting into an REU at that university because they would know you already.

Since you are a freshman, you have a lot of time to work on your grades, GRE acores and research. Just make sure you go into the research with the right attitude and work ethic and you will get the letters you need to get into the programs that you are interested in.

7

@xraymancs thanks. What worries me slightly is how much of a game of luck this seems to be.

8

If you apply to a good mix of schools (including safties where you will be happy to attend) then you will get into some and not get into others but it is a good bet that you will get in somewhere. The problem is if you aim for only the most selective programs and something is amiss with your application. One of my undergraduate advisees did this and got shut our because he did not apply to a safety and while his GRE scores (including the Physics GRE) were near perfect and he had a pubilcation, he never cared a lot about getting that "A’ but more about learning the material. I was able to get him into a very good but less selective program with a phone call to the director of the gradaute program who trusts my judgement. He is doing very well there.

This brings me to an important point. If you develop good relationships with your professors, particulary your research mentors, it is possible that they not only will write a good letter but make a phone call which will help you get noticed.

9

Developing a close mentor relationship with a professor can be absolutely fantastic for this, as xraymancs suggested. I’ve worked with a professor for 4 years, and she has written me fantastic letters of recommendation that got me a great fellowship. She also helped me figure out where I wanted to go, have me experiences to help me get there, and got me an “in” with the professor who will be my advisor in grad school. Her recommendation was strong enough that my interview with the potential advisor was “I’ve already decided to accept you, so what type of project do you want to work on?”

But also, at a certain point, there is definitely luck involved.

10

OP, I sense your frustration. I think it’s about wanting there to be some kind of “magic bullet” - if I do this or do that, then I will “stand out” and have a sure chance of getting admitted. Unfortunately, graduate admissions doesn’t work that way…you could be an excellent candidate and still not get admitted because there are 100 other excellent candidates and that year a PI needed someone who could do a specific technique that Candidate #57 can do.

The only thing you can do to stand out is do good, interesting research; be excellent at everything you do; and write a good statement of purpose.

And honestly, , it is a little bit of a game of luck. Most things in life are - job applications, college admissions, etc. You just happened to apply at the right time, and the right person read your resume, and you happened to have a skill they wanted…etc. The only thing you can do is be yourself, continue to study and do what you love and develop skills that make you marketable/desirable.

11

What makes for a good statement of purpose? And do grad school applications have additional essays like undergrad supplements?

12

A good statement of purpose

  1. discusses your preparation for the graduate program and explains why your background makes you a candidate who will be highly successful in the program, including your prior research experience;
  2. discusses your research interests and demonstrates why you want to undertake graduate study in this field, at this time;
  3. discusses why you want to go to this particular program by identifying faculty and resources that are unique to the program and will aid you in your research and career goals; and
  4. gives a broad statement about how you plan to use the training at X program in your career.

A good statement makes the committee read it and say “This person has the right kind of background to succeed in this program - we know she’s not going to flame out. And her research interests fit perfect with Professors X and Y, and she has a pretty good fit with W and Z. She’s clearly done her research about our program and knows she’s a good fit, and I think she’d do well here. In fact, I’m looking forward to working with her myself.” You want Professors X and Y to be excited about working with a prospect such as yourself, and the way to do that is to convey experience and skill while also conveying enthusiasm and passion for the work.

Most graduate schools do not have additional essays. Some might require a writing sample (usually the best is a paper that you got an A on in college, edited to ensure that it is near-perfect). Some require a statement of diversity or something like that, but most don’t. A few do allow you to attach a supplemental essay for whatever reason; many people use that to explain things like a low GPA due to medical circumstances or low GRE scores due to illness or anything else that may look bad on the application but doesn’t reflect normal performance in the person.

13

@julliet, Thank you so much for the well-detailed response! Much appreciated.

One other question: how many grad apps are typical for someone interested in a neuro phd?

14

I don’t think there’s really a typical, but in my experience usually applicants apply for between 4 and 10 schools. It depends on how popular or narrow their research interests are and how strong of a candidate they are.