Originally I was going to talk about MIT's undergraduate research opportunities program and how well it prepared me for graduate school, but I decided it was more important to let you know the problems faced by women at research universities.
People often talk about having special programs to encourage women in science.
One should not conclude from this that the educational needs of women are different from those of men. The fact is we are not treated the same as men in coed settings, and special programs are needed to make up for this mistreatment and not for any deficiency in women. Study after study has found bias against females at every level of the education process. I assume you are familiar with the reports from the American Association of University Women and the Association of American Colleges. These biases exist not just in reports, of course, but in actual student life.