<p>Does a public university like UCSB have more accessible research opportunities for math/Econ or a college like Whitman with a smaller enrollment ?</p>
<p>there are internal and external sources of research opps. combining large school with large population center is usually the best way to go, altho large school often but not always means competition ugs have with grad students for research. However, most freshmen are going to struggle anywhere for research opps. Some large schools like UPitt guarantee their honors students research opps, and this presumably opens up more opps for the non-honors students. Still, the higher up the LAC tree you go, the better the research opps should be. We found, for instance, excellent research opps at URichmond, which is not a nationally known LAC necessarily. A lot depends at either kind of school on faculty willingness and administrative encouragement in the way of hiring, resources, rewards, etc.</p>
<p>Depends. Yes, it can be hard for an underclassman, particularly a Freshman, to land a research opportunity. But it isn’t impossible. Lake Jr. has been involved with campus ChE research from early on, largely because he immediately was able to connect with and establish a solid rapport with a professor, who happened to need researchers. It also helped that Lake Jr. did very well in that particular course.</p>
<p>It is often easier for undergrads to find research positions at a smaller school where they are not competing against grad students or large numbers of other undergrads for limited positions. On the negative side, research projects might not be as “flashy” at a smaller school, and bigger research universities will usually have larger and more impressive research facilities with all of the latest, expensive equipment.</p>
<p>Coincidentally, I have 2 daughters attending the University of Richmond majoring in Biochemistry. D1, a junior, has had paid summer internships and started on-going research in a lab during her freshman year. D2, a freshman, will have a paid internship this summer also. UR and other LACs often have well supported research opportunities across all departments, not just in the sciences.</p>
<p>It depends on the schools. You can’t really make a blanket statement that National Universities provide more researching opportunities than smaller LACs, because each school is different.</p>