Hi, I’m an undergrad at ASU and I’m thinking of applying for grad school at MIT. I always hear about the importance of engaging in research before grad school, sometimes even taking a year off after getting your bachelors to work on research before applying. Can anyone talk in detail about the role research played in their own admissions and their recommendations on how to get started? As much info as possible would be great, like please swamp me with your knowledge 
Research experience can be very valuable for admission to graduate school. You can get this research experience as an undergraduate student. However, you can also get this experience as a job after getting your bachelor’s degree.
Personally I took two years off between undergrad and graduate school, and worked at a research facility. I think that his was a lot of what got me admitted to a strong master’s program (not MIT, but one that is similarly highly ranked and competitive).
You might want to see if connections that you have made as a student at ASU can help you find out about research opportunities. There might be opportunities on campus. However, it is also likely that professors at ASU will know about other work being done in the area, or even in other parts of the US.
It is my opinion that working for two years made me a much better student when I went to graduate school. One issue is that I had a better idea of why I wanted to be in graduate school. I also had a better idea of what I wanted to study. The result was that my experience as a master’s degree student was very positive.
By the way, when applying to graduate schools I was turned down by my first choice. I went to my second choice and LOVED it. There are lots of very good universities.
It depends on the field. Research experience is absolutely necessary in some red hot fields like machine learning, because acceptance to the graduate school in one of those fields is much more competitive even than acceptance to a school like MIT as an undergraduate. In fields that are not as competitive, research is certainly desirable but not necessary. Graduate school knows that not all colleges can provide their undergraduate students meaningful research opportunities.