<p>Obviously the original poster has decided on a school already, but I want to add this for future CCers who come across this thread:</p>
<p>Medical school admission is very different from graduate school admission. If you are interested in med school, it’s volunteering at clinics, doing internships at hospitals, etc, that help your case–not laboratory research. Research, however pertinent to your field, is not the same as clinical experience, and as far as med school selection goes, they want to see that you have demonstrated passion for medicine–lab research they could really care less about. On the other hand, if you are considering graduate school, which is not a professional school (unlike Medicine, Business, or Law school), lab research is certainly very appropriate. </p>
<p>Back to the Duke v. Williams topic: I don’t know much about Duke, but I am planning to enroll at Williams this fall, and I will affirm that any student who wants to do research, may. The resources are really unparalleled, and since the focus is on undergraduates, you will naturally have more opportunities to do hands-on work in your desired field. On the other hand, because Williams is not a university, fields like engineering and applied science (i.e. materials, chemical, etc) are a bit less fleshed out than research-oriented schools like a UC or, in this instance, Duke. The fruit depends on the picker!</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>