<p>What is a college that allows undergrads to do a good amount of research? If you know one that lets you start freshman year, that would be great</p>
<p>Over half of the undergrad students at UC Berkeley are involved with research, mostly collaborative works with grad students, full-time researchers and faculty. UC Berkeley is a powerhouse for research and is known world-wide for that. I surmise the ff schools are almost the same:</p>
<p>MIT
Stanford
Caltech
Harvard
Hopkins
Northwestern
Michigan
UPenn
CMU
Georgia Tech</p>
<p>and to some extent,</p>
<p>Brown
Duke
Chicago
Columbia
UCLA
Rice
UCSD
and
NYU</p>
<p>
A quick glimpse over the PhD production lists shows that excellent research can be done at many colleges across the nation, most of whom are not on RML’s decidedly incomplete and misleading list. (Research is, after all, the number one prerequisite for graduate admissions.)</p>
<p>I suggest you draw up a list of colleges you like and then evaluate their research offerings. Among other things, I would examine the following:</p>
<p>– Is a thesis required? (Princeton and Reed, for example, require one.) If not, how popular is doing a thesis? (At Duke and Berkeley, for example, very few do one.)</p>
<p>– How much funding is available to students for research, and how competitive is it to secure such funding?</p>
<p>– Is funding available for students in the humanities and social sciences as well? Certain universities allocate all research funding to the sciences.</p>
<p>– Are independent studies available for course credit?</p>
<p>– Are work-study jobs menial labor or actual lab work?</p>
<p>– Are research seminars required or at least available?</p>
<p>– Does the college offer a poster session or undergraduate conference?</p>
<p>– Does the college sponsor any undergraduate journals?</p>
<p>I would admit that my list is incomplete (who amongst us on CC can complete that list), but to say that it is misleading is objectionable. Why is my list misleading, huh?</p>
<p>Rice has significant research opportunities for undergrads, with a lot of funding opportunities. This is as true with regard to humanities research as it is with science and engineering research.</p>
<p>I’d like to see responses to this too… I saw a link on cc a while back but now I can’t find it. It gave research expenditures and bachelors to phd rank for Us and LACs?</p>
<p>^ I saw that one too, but I’m not sure if I can agree with the data.
When measured on a per student basis, large schools wouldn’t do too well. Somehow, that doesn’t picture the true strength and nature of the department. It also doesn’t provide information about the research done, as well as, the level of research done at those schools.</p>
<p>True, but the bachelors to phd rank seems useful - students who become phds tend to go to undergrad programs that emphasize research. Or maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know so much about this.</p>
<p>
Phrases like “almost the same” and “to some extent” are far more objectionable than me taking you to task for such absurd generalizations.</p>
<p>You’re measuring the output of faculty research, not undergraduate research. The reality of the matter is that you have no idea how much research support for undergraduates is available at any of those universities. I certainly don’t either, nor do the vast majority of posters on this forum, which is why I provided a list of criteria rather than colleges.</p>
<p>Incidentally, your 50% figure for Berkeley is incorrect if you factor in all undergraduates. Berkeley makes no claim that 50% of its undergraduates are participating in undergraduate research at any given time; rather, it claims that 50% have done at least some research by graduation. The two are quite different, as having 50% participate all along is very different from having 50% do some research during senior year. I don’t know which is the case at Berkeley.</p>
<p>How about Wisconsin? As i know, it is a top research university in many scientific areas; but does Wisconsin offer plenty of research opportunities for undergrads?</p>