My son’s gf at Bama has been doing engineering research since at lease 2nd year. My daughter has been offered.
I think if you ask, you shall receive. I know Bama sends out opportunities too but my son isn’t interested.
But while I don’t know about LACs, I think the opportunities are likely most anywhere. But they don’t necessarily find you. You may need to find them.
Let me try to make myself clearer. In our experience, our student was asked to be the research assistant for their chemistry professor during the second semester of freshman year at the LAC. This class was a gen ed Chem 201 for a student who was planning on majoring in Economics. Because of this prof and and the research ended up not only majoring in Chemistry but pursuing it as a career. Our Junior at a University has not had the same type of opportunity.
Yes, but this is just based on two examples. This is why I wanted to get other input. outside of the chance to do research, we have found the mid-size University offered everything we were looking for and beyond the LAC.
Just a reminder that students are not limited to research opps on their home campus, which is relevant for students at both LACs and national unis. Our current PhD kid went to a small / not famous for STEM LAC and did research on campus for 3 years- but also did REUs at different National Labs during the summers. They were as important to her figuring out what she wanted to do as they were to her PhD program acceptances.
That is a good point, it may be size-dependent. Neither of mine were interested in large universities so we only toured one with over 10k undergrads—the rest of my assessment is based on mostly universities with 5k-8k undergraduates.
When students are interested in doing research it means they should have an additional facet of looking at colleges. Check out what professors are doing to see if it interests them. Those with multiple interesting projects going on should get bonus points in the pro column because projects can be full, profs can retire/move, etc.
Then they should check with students to see how easy it was to get involved - not one student, but a few to see what the trend is.
There’s no blanket answer at all as to which type or size of school is best.
And to add to Creekland’s fine post- check out the U’s infrastructure for supporting undergrad research. Is there a database that every student has access to which lists all roles? (some do, some don’t). Are there University provided stipends for research roles so that a student who needs to work for money can opt for a research position vs. a food service job? Is there an established system for housing over the summer for kids who stay on campus for a research job- and is it priced appropriately (i.e. won’t use up their entire stipend just paying for rent).
A U which has these things is both talking the talk AND walking the walk. It’s not enough that professors encourage students, it’s not enough that other students say “yeah, it’s easy to get a research position”. There needs to be infrastructure in place to allow students – and not just wealthy students- to participate.
One of my kids had the option in one of the research roles to choose cash or credits. During the semester- credits. It was “another class”, took it seriously, and got credit. During the summer- cash. Paid for housing and food, enough left over to fund what needed funding during the next school year.
My daughter had a research position at her university starting her freshman year, as did all of her friends who wanted one.
These rankings are even more meaningless than others. The ranking is 100% based on what administrators are saying about the programs, rather than based on any actual data regarding the number of projects, the creativity of projects, how easy it is for a student to do a project etc. It’s just a bunch of university administrators patting their buddies on the back.
They asked the opinions of “College presidents, provosts and admissions deans”. They did not ask the opinions of the deans of students, of the deans of colleges, nor did they ask the faculty who mentor the students. No, they asked the people who have the least knowledge and understanding of undergraduate research.
It is shocking that the good people at USNews seem to not understand what “College presidents, provosts and admissions deans” actually do. Not a single one has, in their job description, anything to do with the programs about which USNews takes their opinions as facts.
So these rankings can be tossed in the trash.
My personal experience - my daughter at Midd has done an internship with an international nonprofit, has worked in a lab on campus, and for two summers she interned at one of the top labs in her field.
PS. I don’t trust editors who do not use the Oxford Comma.
I generally have a low opinion of rankings so I’m not going to die on this hill. However, I do think the fact that there are some surprises on here (like Wooster, Agnes Scott and Hope) suggests that it’s not as simple as the usual group of elite schools patting each other on the back. The Hope College website claims that: “Hope is consistently awarded more National Science Foundation grants for undergraduate research than any other liberal arts college in the country” which presumably helps explain why they fare surprisingly well on the undergrad research ranking (#22) compared to their overall ranking. Maybe the people filling out these surveys know that certain schools punch above their weight in this area.
I will say that both my son and my future dil had great research opportunities at Kansas State and future dil won some large awards for her work in cancer research there starting her sophomore year. There were lots of opportunities and great work going on. They both really enjoyed it and felt like they were very supported. Son is now in his third year of veterinary school and has been in the Veterinary Research Scholars Program and has had several papers published already so the undergrad programs helped a lot. Point being that a small state university that likes to focus on undergrad research can be great!
I wonder if there’s a more objective way to find out if there really are more opportunities at different types of schools.
Perhaps consult the per capita rankings for PhD generation? NSF gathers the data but certain colleges like Swarthmore have good summaries on their websites. Undergrad research is strongly considered by PhD admission comittees.