Well i wont say it wont be a plus, since i have done a summer research program and will be doing another one this summer. However, it is not the Prestige of the program that helps you, it's the chance to conduct your own independent project and doing research on interesting things that your own school may not have.
you write awesome personal statments and have strong LORs. Everything else, you leave it to the comittee.
I find it funny how you guy are looking at everything as formula- how many hours should i do research, what ecs should i be doing, will this be enough for a goldwater, and etc.
I agree completely!!!!! geez people, the point of doing research as an undergraduate is to gain research experience, to learn what research is like, and to see if you're interested in a career in research. it's also to teach your problem solving skills. if you work in a prestigious lab, that's nice, but it's exactly the same as working in an obscure lab with a PI that nobody has heard of as long as you work just as hard and work independently.
as a matter of fact, undergraduates who work for really well-known people are rarely able to learn from those people for two reasons:
1. well-known people usually have big labs-->PI isn't as hands on in the research--->undergrads don't get as much exposure to research as they would in a smaller lab
2. The things that make a PI well-known will not be evident to most undergrads. Most undergrads will still be learning how to think creatively and think in a way that is needed for successful research. Virtually any PI at any university can teach this. The things you learn from a well-known PI are things like how to manage large lab groups, how to take basic levels of creativity and make them extraordinary, etc. Phenomenal undergrads are ready to start learning these things by the middle of their 3rd year or so, but are still developing scientifically. So, even for these phenomenal undergrads, it is much more worthwhile to develop a strong relationship with a PI who has time to devote to you, so that when you graduate and enter a PhD or MD/PhD program, you can enter a high-level program that exposes you to these incredibly successful people when you're ready to learn from them.
So instead of worrying about the prestige of a SURP, worry about learning what you need to learn. That's how this works, seriously. It's part of growing up, to learn that the world is not just a sea of awards and prestige and such. Once you graduate from college, all of that disappears, for the most part. You can have a 4.0 in college, a 40 on the MCAT, win Goldwater, be an Amgen scholars alumnus, and everything, but when you graduate, all that becomes meaningless. No one cares about your grades or your awards in the real world. If you're going into science, you have to be productive, creative, innovative, and quick on your feet.
It seems like a lot of you are very competitive and really really want to win. That doesn't have to be a bad trait if you use it well. Be competitive in the sense that you want to be as good as you can possibly be at what you plan to do. Be competitive so that, when you see that someone is more productive or more creative than you, it drives you to improve so that you can be better than them. That's the kind of competitiveness that will take you so far in your career. Worrying about stupid awards and prestige of programs will take you
nowhere.
Note that I don't mean that, when you look for graduate programs, to ignore prestige. It's just that, prestige tends to follow good programs, and so really, look for the best program that will best prepare you for your career.
