I want to apply for a competitive summer research internship that my college offers. It’s a 10 week research internship that seems highly competitive, but offers a research area I’m extremely interested in: brain and behavioral neurosciences. The internship is available to students from all years of study and outside of my college, so I’d have to compete against a wide group for this internship.
However, my first semester grades weren’t that great, (Trig- C, Chem I- B), so I had a 3.3 semester GPA, that was brought up by my dual credit work to a 3.6 overall GPA. I know where I went wrong, working too many hours at the beginning of the semester and falling behind, but since these courses are science and mathematics courses, might this hurt me in the decision? I’m planning a heavy STEM semester in the spring, and I quit the job that required so many hours, but since the application is due in February, will this matter? Should I take a year and apply for next summer? I have some qualifications that I think the other applicants might not, as well as a highly respected professor I’m fairly certain will write me a letter of recommendation, so I’d really like to apply this summer, so that I can use this experience to gain other experiences in the next few years. Any recommendations?
I’m familiar with the program you’re talking about and I can say your chances of being accepted into it are poor.
But if you want to apply–apply. But do so with the knowledge that getting accepted is a very long shot.
Your dual enrollment credits really aren’t going to mitigate your weak first semester GPA because they’re not STEM credits. (I can tell by the courses you’re taking.)
Your plan to earn wonderful grades next term is not going to be considered. It’s in the future. It hasn’t happened yet. It’s very easy to say you’ll get all As; it’s much harder to actually do so. And honestly any attempt you make to explain your current weak GPA will only sound like you’re making excuses to the people who run the internship program.
If you really want the best shot at getting accepted, wait until you have a stronger hand to play. That means better STEM grades, more math classes (since trig is below the level that’s expected of applicants), some hands-on lab experience through both mandatory science labs and lab volunteering.
My recommendation: Don’t bother with the program. Reach out to professors directly about working in their labs.
@iwannabe_Brown Have 2 related questions. Thanks.
- Is it critical that students should/must do summer internship in order to strengthen their app for medical school or can avoid if their school offers a course of research with 3 credits and if it allows and if the student does for 3-5 semesters research during the fall and spring terms?
- Later, is this summer internship play any part in getting selected in good medical school for residency or residency selection is based on what students did during their 4 year medical college (and does not look at what student did during UG)?
- Research experience is not of critical importance for med school admission. 15% of matriculating med students report they have little or no research experience. The value of research experience and the importance placed on it in admission varies a great deal from school to school. Strongly research oriented medical schools value it highly; mission-oriented med schools may not value it all or rank it low on the qualities they look for in candidates.
tl;dr–no, students do not have to do summer research internships to gain a med school admission.
- Activities done during undergrad have little to no influence in residency selection. (Exception: if the undergrad research is directly applicable to specialty AND the research was continued and expanded upon during med school.) Medicine is all about "what have you done lately?"
A residency applicant’s CV lists all honors and awards a student has received so if the summer internship was a prestigious or major one (like Fulbright, Amgen, HHMI) --those get listed. How those are viewed is anyone’s guess. It depends on who’s reading the application.
Don’t have much to add beyond what wowmom wrote other than the competitiveness of getting into these summer research programs far exceeds the prestige they hold in the eyes of medical schools.