Dear colleagues, 
 
The Bridges to Stem Cell Research (BSCR) and Creating Opportunities through Mentorship and Partnership Across Stem cell Science (COMPASS) programs are jointly evaluating candidate applications. You only need to complete this form once for a student, even if they are applying to both programs.  Both programs provide CSUF undergraduates a unique opportunity to become stem cell researchers and advocates for biomedical research. BSCR is a more intensive and immersive research capstone program, where COMPASS is a more exploratory balance of research and coursework.  This evaluation form asks you to evaluate the prospective applicant on the following topics:
 
  1. Academics: Students accepted into the BSCR program are trained through five courses at CSUF prior to starting their internships. Their coursework will include analyzing over 20 research articles in cell/molecular biology, many of which will be self-selected articles based on their research interests. Students accepted into the COMPASS program are trained over a longer period, four academic semesters, taking between 7-10 units of COMPASS courses each term. Both sets of students will learn many cell/molecular biology lab skills in two lab courses and independent research in one of the CSUF labs.
  2. Tenacity: While this is an important characteristic for both programs, it is a higher priority for BSCR. The BSCR scholars/interns will interview with prospective PIs in the next 5 months. They will engage in a year-long, full-time, paid stem cell research internship at one of our partnering institutions (Stanford, UCLA, UCI, USC, etc.). During their internship, the interns may work side-by-side with technicians, Ph.D. candidates, post-doctoral fellows, senior scientists, and experts in the field. In the past, some of our interns had poor mentor-mentee relationships, in part due to a lack of tenacity.
  3. Soft-skills: Both sets of students will present to high school students as part of community outreach activities and work for a few hours a month with patients or elderly citizens as part of patient engagement activities. Thus, the BSCR interns and COMPASS scholars in effect become CSUF ambassadors.
  4. Benefits to the applicant: The BSCR and COMPASS selection committee members take hardship, access to resources, lack of prior opportunities etc. into consideration; e.g., we have accepted students with GPA less than 3.0 and rejected students with GPA more than 3.5 in the same cycle for several years. Please share your knowledge of their circumstances that have allowed them to succeed and challenges that they may have faced along the way.
 
We appreciate your honest feedback about the applicant by April 11th, 2025. If you submit after 4/12 8am, please email stemcell@fullerton.edu.
 
You will receive an email confirmation for completing this form in a few days.
 
Thank you!