<p>^I second looking at LACs with a strong cell bio program and where research is a given.
At large universities, graduate students get first pick (well, are picked first, it’s not really a matter of “choosing” on which project you’ll work, but to which prof you proved you mettle and who will want to have you in their lab). Then, Honors students (often, juniors and seniors but it can be earlier than that depending on the university).
One of the question you’ll want to ask the Dept’s Chair is what percentage students participate in research, present at undergrad conferences, are cited authors on published papers (or number of students / total number of majors - raw numbers mean little, if it’s 40 out of 600 your odds are lower than if it’s 30 out of 38. :p)</p>