<p>I have a sort of quick question I was hoping someone could help me out with (it's regarding a college decision I need to make by tomorrow). Right now I"m deciding between Williams and Brandeis, and both are great in regards to doing research. However, I am not particularly keen to spend summers out in Williamstown, but at Brandeis I could commute there over the summer from my home to do research (I've already been promised research for two summers). So for this I'm asking, in regards to getting into grad school, how important is research? Will having such a continuous time at Brandeis help me a lot, or will research here and there at Williams and a thesis (maybe one summer) be fine?
I am aiming to go to top grad schools (MIT, Chicago, Harvard, etc.) for physics or neuroscience (not sure yet, probably one of the two), so I am wondering if the research will make a big difference, or even the prestige of the schools, etc. Thanks for your help.</p>
<p>From what I can tell, research can play a very large role in graduate admissions, and it’s also useful in that you’ll get great LORs from your PIs, so doing lots of research is undoubtedly a very good thing. I’m inclined to think doing research for long stretches is a much better idea than doing it “here and there”. To get something meaningful out of research, it usually takes a long time (a year of more). So if you work on a topic for just a semester here and there, you’re probably not going to get very much out of it.</p>
<p>But why does going to Williams have to mean doing research “here and there”? Research doesn’t just happen in the summertime; you’ll probably be able to devote a lot of spring/fall time to research. And about summers: if you’re engrossed in a project, are you really going to be worried about how crappy the city is?</p>
<p>EDIT: My advice would be to go to Williams and do continuous research there.</p>
<p>Research is basically the single most important factor in science graduate school admissions.</p>
<p>When interviewing for biology/neuroscience graduate programs, I met a single person who had only one summer of research experience. Everybody else had two or three summers, and generally also had significant experience during the school term of sophomore through senior year.</p>
<p>So if during the year for most of my junior/senior years if I could do research, + one summer, would that probably be enough?</p>
<p>Williams is a better choice. Not many would compare it to Brandeis which is however a great school. If your choice was an Ivy or Williams I think it would be harder. Williams has a better record in grad school admission according to the few studies in the subject.</p>
<p>
It’s possible that it might be, but I wouldn’t count on it. Very few applicants to top science graduate schools have only one summer of research, and having only one summer is likely to put an applicant at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>Again, research and letters of recommendation (which are usually obtained from professors for whom you’ve done research) are the most important factors in graduate school admissions. Do you really want to do the absolute minimum in the most important categories of your graduate school application?</p>
<p>EDIT: As ec1234 says below, you don’t have to do research at your undergraduate institution, and it would be fine to do research somewhere else for the summer. But doing only one summer of research in total is different from doing one summer at each of three exotic locales.</p>
<p>I think it;s actually helpful to have lots of different research activities- most people applying to grad schools do not have papers. It’s useful to explore different areas to figure out what topics you might be interested and to be exposed to a broad range of skills, and also to be exposed to different lab environments so that you can decide what kind of lab you want to be in. It also gives you more to talk about at interviews- you can talk about the project that might be the most interesting to your interviewer. I do think it is useful to have at least one longer term project (ie a thesis), but I think spending your freshman and junior summers off-campus doing research at another university or institute is useful. It also gives you connections at more places, and connections matter.</p>
<p>Does research experience play as big a part for master programs’ admissions (either non-thesis or thesis)?</p>
<p>is it better to do research at 3 different places during the 3 places? or the same place for all three summers?</p>
<p>I think research at 3 different places would be slightly better than at the same place. This gives you opportunities to meet different people, evaluate different environments, and maybe chances to see different viewpoints and different ways of thinking. Also, you can experiment with various topics and find one you really like, plus get a lot of connections with people in various fields and institutions. Don’t get me wrong; researching for 3 summers at the same place is not bad either.</p>
<p>I disagree a little – friends of mine who had lab-hopped during undergrad were asked pointedly during grad school interviews about whether they’d be able to commit to a thesis lab.</p>
<p>If you like a lab, then by all means stay there – in terms of grad school admissions, that level of commitment is valuable. If you’re not happy in the lab, it’s better to switch, of course.</p>
<p>I think that you need atleast one longer term stint in a lab so that you can actually start to get something done, but you’re not going to get anything done in 3 summers at the same place either. I figure you might as well experience different lab setups and different universities to get a feel for what you are looking for. But almost everyone going to graduate school has done a thesis of some sort.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your help everyone, and I just have one last question. Could anyone tell me how hard it is to get physics research in the Boston area for summers? Thanks.</p>
<p>Are you going to read Physics? then Williams seems to be a much better choice</p>
<p>I think there’s a difference between “lap hopping” as mentioned by Mollieb and getting three different experiences over 3 summers. I was in 2 different summer undergrad research programs and then the 3rd summer got a position independently in a lab at columbia, and all 3 were in different bio-related fields and @ different schools. But since they were summer programs (and you could only be accepted once), you couldn’t possibly work in the same lab all 3 summers. Now, if you bounced around a lot at your undergrad institution during the academic year, I do think that could raise suspicions of non-committment.</p>
<p>^ or simply diverse interests.</p>