<p>Quote didn’t work, but I am responding to “Well, let’s dig a little deeper. ND is a great school beloved by many. But if i were applying (and not my son)… Choice… ND or Cornell? Well Cornell has a better science curriculum… Probably more research opportunities, so the prudent choice, if one had one and wanted to do scientific research, would be Cornell.”</p>
<p>I am very late replying to this, but I have to disagree. I am a doctoral candidate and was involved in research going back to my undergrad days at Notre Dame. I would say Notre Dame is FAR better for getting experience in research for an undergrad. The main reason, although it sounds crazy, is because Cornell has a much better grad program than ND. The graduate students will be the focus and will be doing the real research, the undergrads will help wherever they can, they won’t often be initiating their own projects. However, at ND, the grad program is weaker and some professors actually prefer to work with undergrads over the grad students. Because of this I was not only able to run my own research project as an undergrad but I also received $1,000 in funding from the school to do it. </p>
<p>I argue that often the reputation of the grad program is an inverse of the quality of the undergraduate education, and vice versa. At Notre Dame the grad program is weaker, and therefore the undergrads get more of the professors attention. Further, the grad students really don’t teach classes. On the flip side, at other universities (speaking from experience) the grad students are the focus of attention and teach almost all of the undergraduate courses. If you do research, you work with a graduate student, not a professor. I am currently mentoring one honors thesis and three other undergraduates doing research.</p>