@motherofdragons You can dig around the website and ask faculty questions. If the faculty don’t publish their research or present research at conferences, they likely aren’t doing hypothesis-driven research. If the department has no research facilities outside of those used in lab courses attached to lecture courses, there is likely no hypothesis-driven research being performed.
Just to give an example Dragon lady… a college near me has perfectly adequate departments of biology, chemistry and physics. BUT- they are “service departments”-- kids major in bio or chem because they want to be HS teachers in those subjects, or kids take classes in those departments because they need to fulfill the distribution requirements. The faculty is fine- and in fact, some of them are considered fantastic teachers and mentors. But a kid truly interested in the why of science is going to have a much steeper hill to climb at a research university.
My neighbors don’t want to understand this distinction- pointing out the that chairman of the bio department got his PhD at “the same university as many of the big guns”. Quite true. But his career as a researcher ended after his post-doc and his job at the university is to be administrator for a department which employs LOTS of part timers teaching undergrads how to become bio teachers.
Not a knock. Just reality.
Thank you, @dadof1.
@motherofdragons As you are visiting science buildings during your college visits, look to see whether student’s “posters” (large sheets of paper describing a specific scientific experiment and its results) are displayed in the hallways. These all have a uniform look, and you will recognize them once you start seeing them. We saw these at Kenyon, Union, Sewanee, Earlham and several other LACs. Many tourguides will refer to specific posters, and indicate that “this student presented her work at such-and-such national conference last year along with her mentor.”
If you visit colleges during junior or senior open house days, many will have dept heads on hand to discuss. At Kenyon, a biology prof introduced us to summer research students at work in the lab who took a few minutes to describe their various research projects (this was during a special science open house). In one of the “My Sewanee Story” videos on Youtube, a student describes her research into parasitic isopods. On our visit to Sewanee, the Psych Dept head discussed departmental students who spend time off campus working with researchers at Yale. The College of Wooster is known nationally for its mandatory full-year senior research program (in all disciplines BTW, not just science).
By doing a little digging, it is very possible to determine if a particular LAC that you might be interested in appropriately prioritizes scientific research.
@dadof1 Great post. Copying it for my D, as well.
BTW, I made a stand-alone thread on this same topic a few days ago. If interested, you might find the discussion there informative too.