<p>In Stanford's effort to enroll its admits, what was most impressive and exciting was the wide opportunity for undergraduates to initiate and obtain funding for research and to establish close working relationships with faculty in doing so. The five year campaign ending last December raised over $1 billion devoted entirely to undergraduate education, much of it earmarked specifically to fund undergraduate research. I agree that this is a much better approach than the President's Scholar program that has been described. My daughter was selected to be a Woodrow Wilson Research Fellow at Hopkins with a $10,000 award for a research project she proposed in conjunction with her freshman application, but in the final analysis, this was not a decisive factor in her choice of college. It makes sense that the President's Scholar program probably repelled more propspective freshman than it attracted; why start their relationship with the school with a rejection experience and suggest to your admits that the opportunity for research is limited and restricted? The impression that is created with the current Undergraduate Research Programs (URP) is that any student with a sound research idea and a faculty sponsor can get funding. Does anyone know if this is actually the case?</p>