Anyone applying to the Young Scholars Program at UC Davis? Any past attendees care to share how their experience was? Also how competitive are the different research field choices?
I will answer for my daughter, who was in the program last year. She had a great time! Everything was very professional, and the fellow students seemed smart but not nerdy. The best part of the experience for her was probably doing college-level research and living in the dorms for 6 weeks. Both have made her confident about beginning college this fall.
As for the research choices, I believe the program assigns each student the particular research project, taking into account different interest questionnaires you fill out. I will say that the projects are far more plant based than animal-based research, so if you are looking at this to be pre-med (or even pre-vet) you will likely be disappointed. She was just accepted to UC Davis for Plant Biology major, still waiting for other colleges to make decisions.
As a parent, I think the program is great for college applications - looks impressive and gives you something interesting and unique to talk about in all those essays.
@dadofgrad2017 Thank you so much for replying! This definitely helped a lot. I also noticed that a lot of the past research projects on their website were plant-based… So I just put the department of the projects that seemed interesting. Thanks!
D19 attended this fabulous program the summer between her Junior and Senior year. She LOVED it and it was a great intro to university research and living on a college campus. Her research involved converting 2 substances for CO2 reduction. She loved her lab and learned a ton. She did say it was a TON of work, too, so be prepared for that. Her 6 weeks at Davis also included finally getting super comfortable on a bike–that might have been the highlight for me ; )
The program is incredibly well run, she loved the people she met and still keeps in touch with them and as dadofgrad2017 wrote, it gave her something very interesting and unique for her college essays. It fit perfectly into her lifelong love of chemistry and math. She’s currently a first year Bruin at UCLA. Good luck!
@crknwk2000 Thanks for sharing this with me! Looks like your daughter had a really great time, from working on a cool research project to mastering her biking skills! 