For those of you attending major large research universities, you really see a significant number of undergrads doing meaningful research with profs their at the university?..by the way this is not rhetorical. For example, they do research over the summer. There always are a handful of happy stories where a students starts working for a prof their senior year and becomes a PhD student with that same prof…sure, but I’m talking about widespread programs (i.e. more than 10-15 students in a larger dept over the summer).
I went to a LAC and a major research university for a PhD. I’m proud of both, but I question the opportunities that undergrads at a large research university have to get to know their profs. This is the basic thing that is needed for a student to get a letter of recommendation. At umich many of the summer opportunities for undergrads actually went to students from other universities…I thought it was bizarre. There was little push to recruit undergrads at have meaningful research opportunities at the university they were attending, but lots of push to recruit from other colleges.