<p>Those schools are all reaches for everyone, but you have a shot. Also it depends what LAC you go to. Often the top LACs (Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Wesleyan, etc) have top-notch professors that conduct research. Of course breadth and depth of research and available facilities would not be as great as they would be at say Stanford, but the strong education and immense focus on undergrads probably makes up for it. If you work well in large environments though and are really interested in research, I would choose a university over a LAC</p>