<p>You are very welcome, Faline. So glad it worked out well for him. Perhaps we should mention that the groups can now be co-ed. They didn’t have that selling point when my son was putting his group together.</p>
<p>enzymeman–I like your screen name. I have a PhD in biochem, but I don’t think I had any idea what an enzyme was when I was a high school senior. Of course, I went to school centuries ago. I see that you are in a special Scholars program at Penn. Does that include a guaranteed research component? I was just wondering if you asked about that kind of opportunity when you visited Vanderbilt. My son was not in CAS, but he did have a lot of research opps, including a competitive summer grant, called VUSRP or something like that (VU Summer Research Program?). It is designed mostly for students who have completed junior year, but some (incl. my son) have enough research under their belts to apply during their sophomore years. A less formal opportunity was also available to him the summer after freshman year. I’m just guessing, but probably the same kind of thing will be available to ambitious (aggressive?) students in CAS.</p>