Kalamazoo College vs UCSD: Is spending more money for research experience and brand worth it? [biology pre-PhD]

We live in India and we’re not thinking of visiting before deciding. If Oberlin was in contention we might have visited K, Wooster and Oberlin. But Oberlin has offered ridiculously low financial aid so we are not considering it anymore.

Since my wife did her bachelors in a large school and I did MS and PhD in large schools we can give him some feel for large school atmosphere.

LACs and what experiences he will get we can’t guide him other than online, video chat discussions etc.