<p>Re research at Stanford, D began working in a genetics lab freshman year. Has had other research opportunities/offers since in other areas. She hasn’t had many TAs, but she also started taking upper and grad level courses in her freshman year, which may not be typical. On the other hand, the ability to take those grad level courses is one advantage that universities have over LACs for students who are advanced in their areas of interest. S attended a LAC and loved it - but he did ‘max out’ on the courses in his dept. and had some difficulty getting into the courses that he wanted in his senior year. (Since he wasn’t PhD bound, this wasn’t a big deal - but he did decide to graduate a semester early as a result.) D has a different problem: Too many courses that she wants to take in her field and not enough time to take them all. And, of course, SLE gave her that liberal arts college experience in freshman year, as I mentioned earlier.</p>