<p>What are the most prestigious programs for undergraduate summer research or clinical experience?</p>
<p>Research is research. Whether you do it at the NIH or your local college, adcoms are going to care more about what you did rather than where you did it at.</p>
<p>haha…well said norcalguy…i’ll exactly second that.
just find the right mentor for your interest…no employers/grad school has a master list with ranks in terms of where is the most ‘prestigious research’…there’s no such thing.</p>
<p>There is prestigous research…if you’re applying to be an assistant professor at MIT.</p>
<p>But, at the undergrad level, running a gel is running a gel.</p>
<p>^well, unless you can stick on to whatever you are doing passionately and do more than just pipetting…(i’m hinting to getting published as sole/co-authors and such).</p>
<p>As an undergrad, there is no way you’re going to be able to do research that allows you to publish as a sole author. You simply don’t know enough about anything - lab techniques, analysis, statistics, theory - to be able to find a topic of interest, design experiments, run the experiments, analyze the results, consider the implications and relevance, and write an entire paper. </p>
<p>Co-authorship is still pushing it. The likelihood that you’ll be working with one other person who can make up for all your deficiencies in the areas I’ve listed above is slim - that’s a lot of work for a single person. (If you already had a significant background in research, that would be another story.)</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>incorrect. just submitted to mol sys bio (npg) as first author. </p>
<p>of course there will most likely be coauthors…very few people in the biomedical sciences work by themselves. however, i wrote the paper along with my PI. several undergrads have first authored papers. several undergrads have first authored nature papers. the argument that one can’t do this is simply incorrect.</p>
<p>Where did I use the phrase “first author”? I was talking about “sole” authorship, which is what post #5 is referring to.</p>
<p>By the way, congratulations on the paper, MolSysBio.</p>
<p>thanks…to appear in december? something like that.</p>
<p>i got the feeling that #5 confused sole authorship with first authorship. papers with one author usually happen in mathematically intensive fields. you will almost always have to list collaborators on a paper (obviously).</p>
<p>well, i’m sorry for making some confusion…i meant first author technically. haha. yeah, i meant first authorship.
nowadays there r HS which r focusing SOO MUCH on research…that even as young as sophomore…u can get started with some lab…and then when you gain enough knowledge/techniques…u might actually end up as conducting your own research…although getting published (here i’m talking abt sole author! this time for real! haha) as before college is kind of very rare…so, if that student continues…i think it is very possible for him/her to make the progress enough to be first author or sole author.</p>