<p>Do any freshmen at Princeton do science research to buff up their resumes for, say, a summer internship? Do professors take on freshmen in the first place?</p>
<p>I can’t answer whether profs take on freshmen, but I did read on a Q & A on the Princeton website that they encourage students not to overload too much, especially their first semester. The transition to college life and particularly the Princeton course load is challenging enough without considering the option to do research right away and there is lots of time to pursue this opportunity later on.</p>
<p>I know in a lot of fields you can get a job at a lab the summer after freshman year and keep working at a lab after that. I don’t think people generally start doing research during freshman year, as professors generally at least want you to have taken the basic courses in their area first and it takes a while to get the hang of college life.</p>