I have spent this month reading applications for a highly
selective college, and many students have done research at a university or
internships with a company. That’s terrific and impressive!
Unfortunately, these great experiences are often poorly explained
in the application.
I want to know what
you did and what your role was. For example, I might see an entry that says “Intern,
Dr. Ko’s neuroscience lab at UCLA”. I am interested, but I don’t know how to
consider this without more information. Is Dr Ko your uncle? Does he have 20
high school interns or are you the only one amidst seven undergrads and three
grad students? Did you find this internship on your own or was it an advertised
opportunity and you competed for a spot through an application and interview
process? What is Dr. Ko’s lab researching? (Sure, I can look that up on the
internet, but if I only have 20-30 minutes to spend on your application do you
want me to use some of my time on internet research?) What was your specific
task? Did you review hundreds of journal articles and decide which ones his
research group actually needs to read? Did you code recorded life narratives
that were compared with MRI brain activity? Did you learn to use some
specialized equipment or software?
I realize that there are limited characters allowed in the
activities list. Use the “additional information” space to give me a few
sentences that help me understand how you spent your research/internship time. Leaving
the reader confused or wondering doesn’t work in your favor.
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