<p>My son is a sophomore in college, with a pre-med focus. He was just rejected for all of his summer internship applications for the summer. With a 4.0 gpa, and 10hrs/wk of research at college, I was a little surprised. Just looking for opinions on how important/competitive these types of internships are?</p>
<p>It depends on which internship he applied to. Some can be extremely competitive. Certain nationally known internships (Amgen, SSP, SURP, etc) can have acceptance rates as low as 5%. NIH accepts about 15% of its applicants. (Though it will likely be lower this year due fewer positions available with the budget cuts that NIH has experienced during the last 2 funding cycles)</p>
<p>Acceptance rates at REUs depend on the site and have acceptance rates all over the place. (In the 5-30% range is pretty typical) Again funding to NSF, the principal sponsor of all REUs, has been severely cut during the past 2 funding cycles so the number of REU slots may be reduced this summer.</p>
<p>PIs at a good many of these internships are looking for relevant lab experience or specialize skills (not necessarily top grades) when they select summer students. 10-12 weeks just isn’t enough time to train a student from scratch and still have the student produce enough meaningful data for poster or presentation by the end of the session.</p>
<p>As for how important it is to have a summer internship? It’s hard to quantify. It depends on what the rest of his CV looks like and the type and competitiveness of the medical schools he’ll be applying to. </p>
<p>Has he asked his current PI at his home college if he can volunteer in that lab over the summer? It’ll probably be his best chance for a summer position.</p>
<p>Thanks for the response mom - that was very helpful. The last question you asked is very interesting. He’s currently doing research at his school, and was offered summer research there months ago. He told us that he heard that it isn’t looked upon that well to do summer research at your year round school. Obviously, it’s better than coming home and working at the mall. Have you ever heard of that premise?</p>
<p>D1 (currently a MS3) never applied for any national summer internships, spent summers either waitressing to help pay her college expenses or worked as paid research asst for her PI. It didn’t seem to hurt her ability to get into medical school. But she didn’t apply to top research-oriented schools either. (Interestingly, when she was interviewing, several of interviewers had worked as waiters/waitresses and this became a conversational topic. No one made more than a passing mention of her research.)</p>
<p>D2 will be applying to top research-oriented schools during the next cycle. She has a extensive research CV and has done all 3 summer options: prestigious, highly competitive national internship; paid summer intern for her undergrad PI; summer job (albeit at a national park and not the mall). Whether anyone cares where she spent her summers remains to be seen. (IIRC, only one secondary at all of the schools she’ll apply to specifically asks about summer internships.)</p>
<p>I think one thing that people (students & parents alike) tend to overlook in the rush towards getting the “right credentials” for med school is work experience. Adcomms are looking for maturity and ‘real world life experience’ in applicants, not a just a checklist of activities. There are several studies which support the notion that real world experience (including dealing with bosses and coworkers, punching time clocks, dealing with changing shift schedules and job responsibilities, earning a wage) helps produce doctors who relate better to their patients and have better communications skills.</p>
<p>Not saying your son should plan to spend the summer folding sweaters at The Gap, but there is value to a mall job too.</p>
<p>BRM always used to comment on how similar waiting tables was to working in a clinical care setting, and in particular to the juggling required in an ED. He has a great discussion of this; I’ll see sometime if I can find it.</p>
<p>absolutely no one looks down upon doing summer research in the lab you do research in during the school year. Who told you that nonsense? In fact, that’s the best way to produce something meaningful.</p>
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<p>Also see a multiple very good posts from others here:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1111027-do-doctors-deal-almost-same-thing-every-day.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1111027-do-doctors-deal-almost-same-thing-every-day.html</a></p>
<p>I concur what what BRM says. </p>
<p>D1 has found the skills honed during years waiting tables extremely useful in her clinical experiences.</p>
<p>It’s important to remember that in some ways a physician’s job is more similiar to other service-types jobs like retail sales or food service than it is to research-type science lab jobs.</p>
<p>^while I fully agree with that, I still stand by the fact that the concept that doing research at your school during the summer is “bad” is still laughably bad advice.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the feedback - this is very helpful.</p>
<p>Brown - I have no idea who told him this, but I think it was around that the fact that it would appear that you couldn’t find another job, outside of your own school. Again ,it’s good to hear feedback on that thought…</p>
<p>VHFather–what’s important for research is results—not where he obtained them.</p>
<p>and in fact I would make the case that if you were constantly taking different jobs elsewhere it’s because no one wanted you around their lab once they got a chance to actually see you at work.</p>