Hello! I just completed my Chief Resident year for a large genetics and genomics department at an academic hospital. I'm not an LGG fellow - but as chief I have had the pleasure to support and befriend several current and previous LGG fellows. I noticed your question, and on your behalf I posed it to a current LGG fellow who took time out of their busy schedule to graciously composed the following anonymous reply for me to share with you:
"There is a serious lack of information surrounding the LGG fellowship, but I will give you my experience getting accepted and advise what would make you standout as an applicant.
When I first heard about the ABMGG fellowships, I was in my second year of grad school for molecular biology and genomics. I didn't know anyone with the certification and had never stepped into a CLIA-approved lab. I emailed every program director whose email I could find and asked them what I should do to make myself a better applicant, and they all said the same thing: "make sure you do a postdoc to make yourself well-rounded." At that time, the programs were still separate with cytogenetics as one program and molecular as another. I wasn't working on human, but all molecular techniques are translatable, so I made an effort to learn and utilize all of the molecular techniques I could in my research. In addition, I did a lot of bioinformatics, analyzing data from many different sequencing platforms. I did some work with chromosomes at the time, but when the programs merged officially to be LGG, I made sure to incorporate cytogenetic methods in my work as well. I also taught bioinformatics to graduate students and postdocs for 4/5 years of my PhD. I took courses outside my University and attended a lot of conferences in order to network. I published 4 first author papers during my PhD in addition to being on several other papers. Following my PhD, I did a postdoc in cytogenetics, still not in human, but I think that would've been a better choice. During my postdoc, I carried on side projects working on newer sequencing platforms, which I presented at several conferences, and I published a decent cytogenetics paper.
The application process was truly miserable, as there is no streamlined process. You must curate a list of all of those programs' coordinators (and keep track of who replies because some of them are not updated on the website, and your letter writers will be very annoyed when they have to send 50 emails- use BCC!). They all ask for different combinations of things- a CV, 3 letters emailed directly from your letter writers, transcripts, test scores, pictures of you, personal statement, cover letter, etc. Some will also want independent applications, and sometimes you have to pay to fill them out. Many of them only take a fellow every other year, so you will get a lot of "Sorry, we aren't taking a fellow this year" replies even if you pay to apply.
The year that I applied, there were 11 places accepting fellows, and I began to lose hope in November/December when I hadn't heard from most of them, but I interviewed at 7 of the programs in February/March. I was offered a position at every location I interviewed, and I was told this was because I gave a great talk, was personable in the interview, and had a solid knowledge base and skill set. While I was told that my publication record stood out to them, most programs do not urge their fellows to publish more than a single paper during fellowship because of time, so I'm not sure how important that is to the directors.
The main ways to get into these programs include:
1) networking- connect with people in the program or program directors
2) having skills in molecular and/or cytogenetics (both is best)- prove it by publishing your work and/or teach lab courses that cover these
3) having experience in a CLIA-approved lab
4) working with human genetics- show this by publishing or presenting at a conference
5) authoring papers- like I said, I only included this because they claim it stood out to them, but I don't know how important they really find it.
6) learning independently- show this through your letters of rec
7) taking leadership roles- examples I can give from my experience: I was a graduate student association leader, organized a couple of symposiums during my PhD and postdoc, and I mentored many undergrads/grads.
A really strong applicant would have a PhD in human genetics or molecular biology and at least a short postdoc to prove their ability to be an independent scientist. A real bonus would be experience validating genetic tests for humans and/or helping write interpretations from genetic tests.
I hope this helps! I wish I had known even one person who had done this fellowship before I started.
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I hope that helps a little bit.
Best of luck,
vc7777
