<p>I don’t want to bother them but I really want to know ahhh</p>
<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>let me start of by saying that I thought i was neurotic and a little OCD, but you all take it to a new level; its exciting to consider the incredible things that you will no doubt be doing in the coming years.</p>
<p>I’m currently a sophomore at Notre Dame, and received my acceptance to JAX on wednesday. My GPA (3.2) and GRE scores (85%) aren’t all that great (probably bc I spend most of my time in lab rather than studying), but I have had significant research experiences including a high school internship at La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology and and REU program at WashU St. Louis last summer (after my freshman year). I study the immunobiology of leishmania infections, specifically the modulation of IL-12 transcription, here in a lab at Notre Dame. I applied to JAX last year as well and was wait-listed, so having been through this process twice, I thought I might share some insights and encouragement.</p>
<p>The chances of getting into programs like this increase with the more research experiences you have, not only because it shows that you have the drive and stick-to-itiveness to succeed in a laboratory environment, but also because through these experiences you learn how to think, talk, and WRITE like a scientist. The JAX SSP app is very writing heavy, so the ability to write well (with clarity, concision, and depth) is clearly a priority for them. Some tips to writing an application like this one: link what you’ve done or read to reasons why you’d like to work with particular scientists; do not recount experimental detail, but focus on why what you did was significant/important; if you can SHOW that you are really excited about the science, this is much more powerful than saying why you want to go to JAX in general.</p>
<p>Another JAX specific thing that caught my attention was the question about failure; this is incredibly relevant as Failures happen regularly and often in biological research; experiments have to be trouble-shooted, protocols must be optimized; the pretty published papers are the result of a lot of hard work often carried out over a couple years. As a high school or college student, they want to see that you can handle failure in the workplace, but more importantly that you can learn from it and move past it without getting frustrated or discouraged. </p>
<p>I realize that this is not necessarily immediately pertinent advice since the application period for this year is over, but in the future, I would suggest applying broadly (6-10 programs), and if you’ve had research experiences, look to apply to places where your mentors have collaborators; this ups your chances immensely. The number of programs available to you also increases every year. Not many places take high school kids or college freshman, but there are tons of opportunities for college juniors and seniors. At the universities that you will ultimately attend, assuming most of you on this thread are high school students, don’t be afraid to just email professors asking to work in their labs; people can be surprisingly accommodating when you are willing to do the work. </p>
<p>If any of you talked about wanting to work with Dr. Derry Roopenian in your application, I would keep your eye out for emails in the next few days. I was accepted by his lab, but have declined as I already committed to a lab at NIH for this summer. Im sure you’re aware but it is the mentors who ultimately select participants from a recommended pool.</p>
<p>Best of luck to all of you! I hope you will stay involved/get involved with scientific research into college and your careers! feel free to contact me by email <a href=“mailto:rcotton1@nd.edu”>rcotton1@nd.edu</a></p>
<p>And for those of you who have already been accepted at JAX, congratulations and I’m sorry that I won’t be joining you this summer.</p>
<p>I GOT IN! I can’t believe it. I just read the email about ten minutes ago and I am freaking out. Check your emails, everyone. Mine was sent at 10:30 AM.</p>
<p>@greys_fan91 thanks for the post! Lol I am pretty neurotic and OCD. I’m not like this in real life I swear! It all just come out on this site aha. Thanks for taking the time to let us know a little about you, and for the advice. I did apply to 7 programs. I heard back from one (rejected), and am waiting on 6 more, including jax (which is lookin unlikely). You really deserved your acceptance, so it makes me feel a little better that the people accepted really deserve it. Nevertheless, congrats on the NIH internship and I hope you have a great summer!</p>
<p>@tawarren95 So jelly 
congrats!! Care to post stats?</p>
<p>My stats are honestly nothing to brag about. I’m top 5% of my class, African American female, all A’s in my science courses, and heavily active in my school. My SAT score sucks but it will most likely be great by June, so trust me when I say that I barely scraped the minimum requirements in terms of academics. I also hold a full-time job at my library working with teens and teaching technology courses. Of course, the essays were most likely what carried my average application. I feel like they showed my passion and need to spend my summer doing something incredible. My essay wasn’t unique, but I suppose it was strong enough.</p>
<p>so if we haven’t received anything yet, are we rejected?</p>
<p>@tawarren95 that’s awesome! You deserve it! </p>
<p>@brking I suppose so. I’m trying to expect a rejection at this point. I’m incredibly frustrated with the way they are treating us. I’ll get over it. I just want to go soo bad.</p>
<p>Congrats to the two who have gotten in!</p>
<p>Hah, I’m actually fairly obsessive in real life, but I suppose it comes out even worse on the internet. :P</p>
<p>I listed Dr. Yun (cancer and developmental biology), as I was interested in her research into pluripotency and carcinogenesis.</p>
<p>Kay well I mean I am but I feel like it comes out here more because that’s the point of this place! That said, I’m probably more upset than I should be… lol. I honestly don’t remember who I put down. I did one about mapping the mice genome (which I thought was incredibly cool) and another about the immune system, which I am also interested in and have past research experience in. </p>
<p>I will be applying next year. Que sera sera, I guess. Again, congrats to those accepted! </p>
<p>Just reread that. I guess I’m more obsessive than I thought. Ahh well<3</p>
<p>My research sponsor is Dr. Ackerman. She does really neat things that I’m not going to attempt to sum up, because they touch on three different areas of science I mentioned I wanted to explore in my essay. [Dr</a>. Susan Ackerman’s Alzheimer’s research - The Jackson Laboratory](<a href=“http://genetichealth.jax.org/research-in-action/neurological-disorders/neurodegeneration/ackerman.html]Dr”>http://genetichealth.jax.org/research-in-action/neurological-disorders/neurodegeneration/ackerman.html)
I’m 95% sure she was my first or second choice.
If you guys haven’t received anything yet, I would just hold on 'til the end of March. Picking such a small number of researchers out of a large pool of applicants takes time and lots of collaboration. Your application may be in a mentor’s hand right now.</p>
<p>@alwaysleah It would be better to get a flat-out rejection than have to wait, but they are pretty busy with all the applications.
@tawarren95 We can only hope :P</p>
<p>Just curious, did anyone receive an actual rejection yet?</p>
<p>I agree that they’re busy. I really can’t blame them. I just want the waiting to be over! I have not receive a rejection yet, and I expect that no one will until at least Monday. </p>
<p>@tawarren95 that sounds really cool! Best of luck with this summer and with everything in the future!</p>
<p>Same here the wait is the bad part. Don’t know whether to apply to even more programs (only have two possibilities for acceptance left) or not.</p>
<p>@tawarren95 Out of curiosity when did you receive your acceptance email?</p>
<p>Tawarren got the acceptance at 10:30 AM yesterday. </p>
<p>I’m waiting on six, including this. I know of two more programs still accepting applications and I’m debating sending in apps. I’m not sure if I will. I don’t really want to bother my recommenders more.</p>
<p>I don’t think the JAX lab will be sending/responding to any emails on weekends, so be patient during the upcoming weekday. </p>
<p>Kettering’s AIM program, UT Dallas, Magee- Womens Research Institute, and UT Austin’s College of Natural Sciences still has applications open, although I think Magee’s is coming up pretty soon. Thus far I’ve been rejected to LEDA Scholars, MDIBL, and IU Simon. I applied to many, so I’m sure to have a couple more rejections coming my way. I know a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington who is willing to take a couple high school (and probably older) researchers, but I’m sure the location would be a problem if you’re not in the area. Email your local professors in an area you’re interested in (biochemistry, chemistry, biology, ect.), and bonus points if there’s a professor currently involved in research.
Please message me if you’d like any help finding open programs. I missed a lot of deadlines back in January and I’d hate for you guys to, also.</p>
<p>And @alwaysleah, my AP Chem and AP Bio teachers wrote me recommendation letters, and they didn’t mind me coming back to ask for another sealed copy twelve times. And if an app requires them to fill out a recommendation form, I’m 50% sure teachers prefer that to writing a letter from scratch, so please don’t be afraid to ask them! You’re probably not bothering them, and they want to see their students pursuing programs outside of school in their fields.</p>
<p>Thanks for the kind words, tawarren. I am hoping that one of these programs will come through. I’m still letting myself hope a little bit that it will be Jackson, because it is by far my first choice.</p>
<p>One of my recommenders is my research mentor from last summer. She is in a different country and thus far it has been difficult for her to make time to do them. My AP Bio teacher hasn’t had a problem. Maybe I’ll ask my math teacher to be the 2nd for these other programs. </p>
<p>Has anyone received an acceptance/rejection in the last few days?</p>
<p>Turned down by Rockefeller and Simons. Still waiting on this, SIMR, CoH, HSHSP (which I just sent in three days ago), and BU.</p>
<p>No emails yet. Hopefully they’ll send something out this week.</p>
<p>This wait is killing me.</p>
<p>They said by the end of March. This is the last week of March. I can’t imagine they’ll make is wait much longer.</p>
<p>Had anyone heard in the last couple days? I still haven’t.</p>