<p>Which top universities extend the most research opportunities to their undergraduates? What are the best places that combine stellar faculty and facilities with an openess to let undergrads do research? I know LACs are great for UG research opportunities, but I'm wondering about top universities as well. I'd be very interested in comments about research at Brown, Dartmouth, Penn, Northwestern and Wash U. Thank you very much.</p>
<p>I don't know about those schools, but Harvard certainly does. My daughter is a freshman and already has two research positions including one with Harvard medical school.</p>
<p>One rough indication of research opportunities in science/math is the number of Goldwater Scholars produced. </p>
<ol>
<li>Princeton University 64</li>
<li>Harvard University 60</li>
<li>Duke University 58</li>
<li>Kansas State 57</li>
<li>University of Chicago 53</li>
<li>Penn State University 52</li>
<li>University of Illinois-Urbana 51</li>
<li>California Institute of Technology 51</li>
<li>Stanford 49</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins University 46</li>
<li>University of Virginia 45
11. Washington University (St. Louis) 45</li>
<li>Montana State University 45</li>
<li>Cornell University 43</li>
<li>University of Michigan 43
14. Brown 43</li>
<li>Northwestern University 41</li>
<li>University of Tulsa 41</li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology 41</li>
<li>University of Kansas 41</li>
<li>Yale 41</li>
</ol>
<p>Penn and Dartmouth do not appear on this list, but they offer excellent research opportunities as well. Penn offers the Vagelos Scholars program, for example.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info so far. Is that list of Goldwater scholarships a list of the total number given to each school or the total number given in the last 10 years or what?</p>
<p>Total thus far (from 1986 to 2006).</p>
<p>You may want to look into Caltech's Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship(SURF) Program. Almost 28% of the living Caltech undergraduate alumni have been SURF participants.</p>
<p>Rice is great for this. It's the smallest "research university." My interviewer told me that if you ask for research, they will always say yes.</p>
<p>Among the UCs, UCSC is the best for undergrad research.</p>
<p>Notice that 6 Ivies, Stanford, Duke, CIT, and MIT are all on that list - typically the best all around schools along with Penn and Dartmouth. These are deceiving in some ways - for example, PSU blatantly favors its honors college when granting research opportunties. </p>
<p>If you are looking for more schools similar to Penn, Dartmouth, and Brown in terms of undergrad research opportunities and similar selectivity look at Duke and Chicago.</p>