<p>Anyone know anything about this/want to give their thoughts about it? Is it worth doing, and does is it a good opportunity to put on medical school applications?</p>
<p>And if so, which schools are the best to apply to?</p>
<p>Do you think you need that? Wouldn’t you rather be PAID to do research? I did research at a top cancer center the summer after freshman year. It resulted in a first author published paper. Work hard your first semester, impress your professors, get a couple great LORs and apply to several programs. If you have any questions you can PM me.
<em>fear the turtle</em></p>
<p>Well, I’m currently undecided about med school so I feel like this is a great experience to really shadow people, get clinical experience, and take pre-med courses all for free! And also, everyone who’s posted in forums have said that it was an awesome opportunity not only to learn but to meet new people and visit new places.</p>
<p>But I understand what you’re saying. Research is probably better than this summer program, but how do you start? Do you just ask a professor that likes you? It seems weird to just go up to some random professor and say “Uh… hi, could I do research with you”?</p>
<p>D1 did SMDEP for the reason you stated, to try to get a better idea of whether or not she wanted to become a physician. She had clinical experiences and shadowed a doctor in the field she is interested in and decided to definitely take premed coursework. </p>
<p>Depending on your HS and college coursework, the classes you take at SMDEP may not be particularly advanced, and I don’t think any of them actually count as taking premed requirements.</p>
<p>I would really consider doing SMDEP as a first choice. SMDEP is specifically designed to give minority students and edge when applying to medical school. I applied to the UW site and I want to get in more than anything. Some say research is better, but research doesn’t help you meet the people that are going to get you into med school. People at SMDEP get to meet some members of the board of admissions at their college site’s med school. You can’t put a value on knowing people on the board of admissions to the med school you really want to go to.</p>
<p>D1 attended SMDEP at UW. One of the perks is that out of region SMDEP participants receive an automatic Secondary when applying to UW Med school. That’s pretty big when you consider that only about 2% of OOR applicants receive a Secondary.</p>