Well, Joe, I had never heard of this program, but I'm glad to know about it! We've sent a couple of students to Germany on a RISE fellowship, and I've sent a student to Edinburgh for a summer outside of a formal program, and those students have all had outstanding research experiences. One note I would make (which you may already be aware of) is that in general (surely many exceptions exist), rec letters in Europe tend to be much less inflated than those in the states, and are taken very literally. A "good student" for example is taken to mean one who is solidly above average, and an "excellent" one is one that really stands out from the crowd. When I write for a European eye, I try to be very sober and not overuse superlatives and phrases that might smack of overselling my student-ironically, a letter that says less flashy things can be taken more seriously. Fortunately, I've always been writing for very good students such that I can write a very strong letter and not have it sound "too American".

I had a student do the Thai REU in 2003 I think.  She found it to be a lot of fun and very interesting from a cultural perspective, but made slow progress on science, and was frustrated by that.  I don't know about the specific program you mention, but I guess I would suggest that the student look to gain more than just a science perspective from participating in this REU.

Hi Joe,

Your link led me to the ACS "Undergraduate Research in Chemistry Guide." It's got a lot of great information and I think our department should put a link to it on our research page.

I encourage you to give Jodi Weseman a call at the ACS and ask her your question. If she can't help, she'll know who you should talk to. She's great!