I want to be a medical researcher in the future (hoping to do MD/PhD).
Would a research uni be better in providing better research opportunities or would a LAC be better? By research unis, I’m referring to some of the smaller ones such as CWRU. By LAC, I mean those with strong STEM programs and well-funded science buildings/labs.
Both would work.
A research university might be more likely to have a professor specializing in your area of particular interest, because there are more professors so more diversity of research specializations. And there might be some cool, high-impact research going on.
At a small college, you might have fantastic opportunities to work with professors on their research, as there are no graduate students to compete with for those roles. That may be one reason why so many small colleges lead the “undergraduate origins of PhD’s” lists in the sciences.
I think you could pick by overall college atmosphere and where you think you will thrive, and then seek out research opportunities at either.
@TheGreyKing
Thank you for your speedy response,
I have an additional question. How high ranked should the LACs on my list, that will provide me ample research, be? I am applying to mostly matches / safeties, with some reaches. I have a 3.97 UW but a 1400 SAT, so I’ll likely not get into any top 10-20 LACs (or unis)
This list from U.S. News will give you an idea as to the range of colleges that offer good research opportunities:
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/undergrad-research-programs
Note that the schools vary by both type and selectivity.
IMO the trick is to find the environment where you feel you will thrive.
In terms of LACs a few I know of offhand that are strong in STEM are Lafayette(for full disclosure my D went there and loved it-- she did do research there which was published), Union, Franklin & Marshall, Bucknell. There are many more. Other mid-size universities that come to mind with strong STEM are URochester and Lehigh if you want to consider those as well. I’d suggest you get your hands on a good college guide book such as Fiske, Princeton Review, Insiders Guide (probably in your guidance office or library) and start reading up on different schools.
@happy1 What about Trinity in San Antonio?
Additional question: If I shy away from the MD/PHD path and just focus on a normal MD program, most LACs will provide me with sufficient research as an extracurricular for applications, I assume?
Also, if you do know any more smaller research universities, please let me know, since my college list has 75 percent LACs and 25 percent universities.
I’m also applying to the UCs (in state), but I know that the research positions there will be basic as there’ll be graduate competition, so I’m looking into such schools.
Thank you.
Check out Wake Forest, a match with your stats. With 5100 undergrads, it’s one of the smallest of the national universities but has good offerings in the sciences (no engineering) and a pretty decent medical school.
Only 1% of classes at Wake have more than 50 students – fewer large classes than quite a few liberal arts colleges, including Middlebury (1.3%), Williams (2%), Bowdoin (2.2%), Swarthmore (2.7%), Amherst (2.8%), Wesleyan (3%), and Harvey Mudd (4%).
Here are some smaller research universities:
Cal Tech (961 undergrads; 2,238 students total)
Clark University (2,301 undergrads; 3,395 total students)
Brandeis University (~3,600 undergraduates; ~6,000 students total)
Catholic University of America (3,241 undergrads; 6,076 total students)
Rice University (4,001 undergrads; 7,022 total students)
Lehigh University (5,080 undergrads; 7,059 total students)
Princeton University (5,400 undergrads; 8,181 total students)
College of William & Mary (6,301 undergrads; 8,484 total students)
And here are some medium-sized ones:
Brown University (6,580 undergrads; 9,380 students total)
Howard University (10,300 total students, most are undergrads)
Duquesne University (5,858 undergrads; 10,363 total students)
Southern Methodist University (6,452 undergrads; 11,789 total students)
Marquette University (8,387 undergrads; 12,002 total students)
Carnegie Mellon University (6,533 undergrads; 13,869 students total)
Boston College (~9,500 undergraduates; ~14,500 students total)
Duke University (6,449 undergrads; 14,832 total students)
Most top LACs will provide you with sufficient research even if you wanted an MD/PhD, so yes, they would if you wanted an MD alone. I went to an LAC and I have a PhD. Per capita, LACs are some of the top PhD-producing baccalaureate institutions.
@conflictedkang: RE: your post #2 above. With a 3.97 uwGPA & a 1400 SAT, you should be competitive for admission to all top 10 LACs. Much less so, however, for top 10 national universities.
Research opportunities should be more plentiful at national universities than at LACs.
^By the same token, unless there is specific grant money earmarked for undergraduate participation, it’s hard to imagine that a 1400 SAT prospect would be first in line for a position in a star research university professor’s lab. They’d have to be awfully pro-active and the bigger the university, the more graduate students they would have to push aside.
My D found that research opportunities were plentiful at her LAC – in fact she stayed on campus for two summers doing research work (she was paid and got free summer housing) and during her last semester she only needed 2 classes to graduate and worked (and was paid) for a second professor as the lead researcher on another study. The results of one of the research projects was published in a peer reviewed journal and the professor she worked with wrote a grad school recommendation (which I’m guessing was excellent as she had great success in terms of grad school admissions). A positive is that undergrad students do not have to compete with grad students for research positions.at LACs.
Profs won’t know what the student’s SAT scores were. Students pursue research on campus typically withinnthe dept where they are majoring and with professors they have taken classes with or by asking for their recommendations. SAT scores do not necessarily correlate with the best students with the strongest work ethic or even the best at seeking out opportunities outside the classroom.
@conflictedkang Focus on schools where you think you will excel and where you can receive professorial support. Or on schools with programs designed for UG research, etc. For example, Bama has a program, RRS, specifically for UG research. One of the students from that program is now in Harvard-MIT’s MD-PhD program.
Yeah, professors looking for undergraduate RAs could care less what your SAT score is. They won’t ask.
You asked about smaller research universities.You might look into Brandeis or University of Rochester. Brandeis is a top research university which is only slightly larger than a typical liberal arts college. @juillet named some others above.
Also, you asked about strength of research programs compared to rankings. I agree that you can go a lot deeper into the national university list and still have top resources (as you noted, “well funded labs”) than you can into the national small liberal arts colleges list. There are a ton of state universities that have top research rankings and are not as competitive for admission. Less competitive liberal arts colleges may start to lack for resources, and course choices, too. However, I think that you would be a competitive candidate for the small colleges @happy1 named in post #4, which have good resources.
I do not think you should sell yourself short. There is nothing wrong with your grades and scores. To the contrary, you can take pride in these achievements. And @Mom2aphysicsgeek is quite right; once you are on campus, nobody knows or cares about your scores or anything else from high school. You will be on equal footing with everybody else. Those who seek out opportunities will be likely to get them!
One plus to the little colleges is that professors really get to know you and your interests and thus may be more likely to let you know about opportunities, unsolicited, that may be of interest to you. This, though, of course, is not guaranteed! But you can seek our opportunities anywhere, large or small.
Based on my experience and observation, getting a place on a research team as an undergraduate probably has little to do with your high school GPA and test scores and much more to do with how you perform in class at college (and resultant recommendations), how you present yourself, and, most importantly, how determined and proactive you are in your search.