I’m a sophomore. I only applied to three internships. One is a more competitive reu program at my state flagship and the other two are at a medical school. These are more boutique like internships in my opinion although the reu seems more competitive.
Did I not apply to enough? I heard for finance internships people apply to 40+. These require letter of recs and I didn’t feel comfortable asking my professors too many times to upload something or filling out too many forms (can you ask them many times?).
If this affects the answer, I have good stats at a top school, a research internship for experience and I recently found a lab to work in (which I’m currently trying to update these programs on)
Summer medical research internships are highly competitive with acceptances rates that range from 3% to 30%.
How many is reasonable will depend on the competitiveness of the specific programs you apply to and the strength of your qualifications for the position. Due to the short duration of summer programs, many PIs will chose those applicants who already possess specific lab/analytic skills needed for the project and don’t require extensive training to get started.
@wayoutwestmom Is there a place to find the acceptance rate? I looked on the websites of the program and it is not listed there (although I didn’t really expect it to be)
Also I have had a research internship for one summer and have recently begun working as a research assistant in a lab. Do you think that fits the experience criteria or do they want something more?
(D2 was an Amgen Scholar; they were told at orientation that between 3 and 5% of applicants were accepted into the program, depending on the specific site. NIH accepts about 12-15% of applicants–per their own website, though this was several years ago and that information may not be available there now. The 30% is the number I’ve heard kicked around by several PIs who run REUs–most of which are not at popular/high demand sites).
One thing to remember–NSF & NIH funding for REUs has been negatively impacted by Congressional budget cuts over the last 5 years and there are fewer sites (and positions) than there used to be.
Having a previous research internship–this has little bearing on whether you will be accepted into a specific summer program. Each program has its own criteria for accepting students. The research assistant position will help only if you’ve already learned those lab/analytic skills that a specific PI is looking for.
In her summer experiences, D2’s cohorts were drawn from a wide variety of colleges–HYPSM to second tier you-probably-haven’t-heard-of-them LACs. The commonality–all these kids were smart and ambitious and they all had significant previous research experience–typically at least a full year as a research assistant as their home school.