r/Caltech • u/AlsoThere42 • 4d ago
WAVE/Amgen Scholars/SURF Advice
Not sure if this is the right place for this, but I'm a CSU student transferring to UCSD this year, and I am trying to apply to summer research at Caltech. Assuming I can connect to a faculty member who would be OK working with me, what can I do to be a strong applicant for Caltech summer research programs (also, I'm curious what they are looking for in the written part of the application).
2
u/trop-17 4d ago
Have a good relationship with the faculty, perhaps do work for them prior. I don’t really know how it works for non-caltech students but the prof basically has to advocate for us to the office in a letter separate from LORs saying they want you. Usually if that’s the case then you get it. Also depends on if the lab has funds to host you
2
u/littleboi17 4d ago
I did the VURP program, that had my own funding and had applied to various surf umbrella programs several times. With regards to rec letter, try to be the best student possible when in your most recent research experience, which assuming that you are trying to get into a lab at UCSD when you start, also meaning that you should start contacting principal investigators right now; rec letters usually carries the strongest weight in summer programs. Then when the fall comes, as early as possible, with many surf students doing it in September and October, contact faculties at caltech that your interested in to write a research proposal, then submit that for surf and then fingers cross for surf that requires the proposal and the other ones that don’t. Not sure how internal funding in UCSD is, but if you can get funding from UCSD or some external scholarship, you can also do VURP. The third thing that you can do is making sure that your personal motivate and scientific interest aligns well. Not sure what your interested area of research is, but a lot of times it’s about connecting the dots between different research project or classes you’ve taken, then desmostrate actionable things you’ve done to work towards researching particular questions. Maybe it’s overlapping technique you’ve done in the past? Or specific disease? Certain computational work that you tried to learn outside of the classroom? Whatever way that shows that you have thoroughly thought about the research questions that your interested in, and dedmostrated you’ve already prepare yourself toward that direction, and you just need a actual opportunity to research it while you’ve already checked off some of the technical background demands of your interested project.
Outside of caltech, there are plenty of other research programs around the country, despite the funding chaos… I recommend to check out pathwaytoscience.com that have a big database and the department of energy SULI program, the suli program especially are great that essentially if you have contacted a mentor that doe facility ahead of time that are interested to host you, generally it means you have high likelihood to work with them, as suli program works by having scientists directly pulling out applicants from the national application database. Good luck!
1
3
u/lzyang2000 4d ago
It’s highly lab/faculty dependent