@Cue7 Have you reviewed the undergraduate research opportunities listed in the CURF Research Directory to which I linked? Select a category and hit the “Submit” button. You’ll see that there are many, many undergraduate research positions currently listed in every category. And these are positions listed by the professors/researchers themselves specifically for undergraduates because they genuinely need assistance with research, and not some make-work positions created by Penn’s College to create the illusion of undergraduate research opportunities. Certainly, the experiences and substance of these positions will be quite a mixed bag, ranging from busy work to substantive research (I’ve heard of several Penn undergrads who’ve actually been listed as co-authors, or otherwise been given credit, in published articles and research). But the point is that there are NUMEROUS opportunities for Penn undergrads–and I’m sure undergrads at other highly selective research universities–to participate in and be exposed to leading-edge research in the sciences, engineering, business, social sciences, and humanities. And that breadth and depth of opportunities will simply not be available at a LAC, no matter how highly-ranked or selective it is. Not to say that the LAC experience is somehow inferior because of that, but just that the opportunities for undergraduate participation in significant leading-edge research–regardless of how substantive or significant that participation is–will be MUCH more numerous and varied at a research university like Penn than they will be at a LAC.