How much does research at a top university help?

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toiletbowl

toiletbowl

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If I am a research assistant at a #3 school (guess which 😉) and get published, will this significantly help my application? I mean, as opposed to doing research at a less known university?
 
It will help your application. Probably no more significantly than doing productive research at a lesser known school
 
Getting published, your authorship position, journal it is published in can all help. The fact that your lab is at Yale instead of University of Connecticut? I'd be pretty surprised if anyone cared about that
 
I just took a random guess. I can't believe there's people out there who actually care about what a school is ranked.
 
Not nearly as much as if you got published from a T2.
 
I suppose it may matter whether the PI is some famous dude who writes you a glowing reference letter. That's about it
 
efle said:
Third for undergraduate colleges. If they meant a well ranked med school, it would be UCSF, Hopkins or Penn
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I meant third for medical schools


Hospitalized said:
I just took a random guess. I can't believe there's people out there who actually care about what a school is ranked.
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I don't care, I am just wondering if it matters at all to adcoms. For example, it obviously an advantage to have gone to Yale for undergrad when applying to medical school. I am wondering if it is more advantageous to do research at a top school as well.

bearintraining said:
On an unrelated note. Toilet bowl? Really? Now I feel dirty just responding
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Every other name I could think of was taken. I gave up and was just desperate to create an account and then the name toilet bowl came to me :idea:
 
toiletbowl said:
I meant third for medical schools




I don't care, I am just wondering if it matters at all to adcoms. For example, it obviously an advantage to have gone to Yale for undergrad when applying to medical school. I am wondering if it is more advantageous to do research at a top school as well.



Every other name I could think of was taken. I gave up and was just desperate to create an account and then the name toilet bowl came to me :idea:
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There's a pretty clear logic to being impressed by a student who did well at Yale undergrad though - they were able to perform against a very tough student body. But doing your research at a lab in place X vs place Y? No similar logic I can see, no competition involved.

As mentioned above, a PI who is very experienced and/or a big name in their field might be able to write a letter that carries extra weight, but by no means are such PIs restricted to high ranking universities. Publication, authorship position, journal, and how established the PI is will all be >> the location of the lab.
 
Just curious, so based on the responses on this thread is it safe to assume that getting into a summer internship program at an Ivy League school is not much of an app booster, despite the relatively low (3%) acceptance rate of the program?

I understand what elfe is saying regarding performing against a student body is admirable, but it seems peculiar that getting into a competitive program against other strong applicants is not regarded very highly.
 
Chromium Surfer said:
Just curious, so based on the responses on this thread is it safe to assume that getting into a summer internship program at an Ivy League school is not much of an app booster, despite the relatively low (3%) acceptance rate of the program?

I understand what elfe is saying regarding performing against a student body is admirable, but it seems peculiar that getting into a competitive program against other strong applicants is not regarded very highly.
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A summer internship program is different than a regular research spot. Regardless, It may still not be doing much in your favor.
 
bearintraining said:
A summer internship program is different than a regular research spot. Regardless, It may still not be doing much in your favor.
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Oh okay. The summer internship has a research element along with field work and classroom studies. But thankfully I am applying for it, because I'm genuinley interested in what the program has to offer! Any app boost is just icing on the cake!🙂

We'll see if I get to eat cake( get accepted) later today:ninja:
 
I did research at a second tier public school. I think my LOR from the Associated Professor PI really helped me in my cycle. I think it is more about what you do than who you do it for, and where you do it.
 
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Rainbow Zebra said:
I did research at a second tier public school. I think my LOR from the PI really helped me in my cycle. I think it is more about what you do than who do it for, and where you do it.
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This. Unlike college, there is no inherent value in the exclusivity of a program (I would say that doesn't affect undergrad either but USNWR seems to care about how many people get into a school). What you do, can produce, get out of it and what your PI can write about you are more important
 
I guess I'm the dissenting opinion but...

I would think there is probably some small value in doing research at a very high ranked school vs a VERY low ranked school. Im talking bottom of the barrel, one step up from CC school vs a place like Penn. Shy of a spread that wide I doubt there will be a noticeable effect.

EDIT: *At the end of the day though none of these things happen in a vacuum and the med school where your lab is housed is probably one of the least impactful components of an application.*
 
It only helps in terms of the breadth of opportunities and resources and potentially a bigger shot PI. The name itself does nothing.
 
I would lean towards The Knife & Gun Club's opinion.

Of course, there's a self-selection process going on in that the best med candidates come from top undergrads, so they're likely to get accepted to top programs if they desire, but I have a hunch that it is disproportionally so. Lots of incest and nepotism. At least for MD/PhD interviews, I was always on the lookout for current students and applicants from state schools or low-tiered schools. I did not meet a single applicant in all my time who came from FL, or even a southern school (non-Duke, etc.) for that matter. As for current students, those that did graduate from a low-tier/state school did multiple gap years as research assistants at places like MIT, Hopkins, NIH. In fact, at WashU MSTP, only one person in the last decade has matriculated from my alma mater (only last year and he did a gap year at Hopkins). In a whole decade. I don't think anyone in the history of Hopkins MD/PhD. At Penn, I met one girl from FAU, but she did research at MIT for a couple of years. Of course all these people worked extremely hard, and given the large population of state schools (mine has 30k undergrads and ~760 med school applications each year), I don't think there's any shortage of qualified applications that warrants one person per decade, or only a handful each cycle that matriculate to T10 programs - MD or MD/PhD. Of course there's going to be people like me or Rainbow Zebra who have absolutely no affiliation with a highly regarded name brand who also get into a highly regarded med school, but on a population basis, I am sure it's not common.

So in my absolute humble opinion, name brand can mean a lot - if you want to go to another name brand institution. I don't agree that there's only a small value. The weight is pretty large.

At least for IIs, I've met candidates at interviews where I've gotten into very open discussions about ECs, stats, publications, etc. who also go to Hopkins or other similarly regarded undergrads, and I'm just like how are you here with your record (didn't say that, and absolutely not to be rude). They had awkward/off-putting personalities (in that I woulnd't want them to be my mother's doctor or give me a prostate exam) and can't imagine they may have had some back story up their sleeve. Maybe they did. Of course, this part is anecdotal from my application experience, but I worked my butt off to even get an II at these unbelievable programs - so this explains why I may think this way.

Again, this is just my experience/bias. And I know some coming from similar backgrounds have had the same experience.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around all this - the nepotism and incest at these institutions. How palpable is it, truly? We'd of course have to normalize for the self-selection bias.
 
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