| Reu's are fairly competitive. I am a current sophomore (entering junior) and applied to 6 REUs at various places in material science and chemistry fields and got turned down in all six (even my home state). I am definitely above average (GPA-wise) and therefore asked for a reason why I was rejected. The answers that I got for most of the programs were: 1. either the program was under-funded this year (the reason my home state university gave) and therefore reserved spots for seniority. 2. The program tends to give acceptances to students who come from schools with less research opportunities (therefore when you look at past participants, you see they mostly come from no-name universities, for a lack of a better term, or 3. Seniority matters. Most of the REU's are geared towards recruiting rising seniors who are considering applying to graduate schools later that year. Schools want the participants to come to their school for grad school. When schools say that they accept qualified sophomores and freshmen, they mean exceptionally well qualified sophomores and freshmen (unless their applicant pool sucks that year). hope this helps. |