My advice: 1. Work with the professors at your current school to build academic/professional relationships. 2. That work is a way to demonstrate your ability

My advice: 1. Work with the professors at your current school to build academic/professional relationships. 2. That work is a way to demonstrate your ability and more importantly a commitment. It also builds a network of people in the field who can recommend you. 3. When you have an undergraduate apply to graduate schools doing research in areas you are interested, because in the US graduate students are typically used for serious research (exceptional undergraduates might be involved at senior year, but otherwise if they work in a lab it is doing repetitive grunt work). To put it another way, be committed and demonstrate that commitment. Being interested is very unlikely to be enough statistically. Anyway you are looking to commit to research and you don’t need permission to do it. Good luck.