SA GoonsコミュのAnyone know anything about 東大, or University of Tokyo?

I was just looking through my options after I get my undergrad degree from my university back in the US.

It seems University of Tokyo has some wacky kind of admission called "undergraduate research student." Info here:
http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/res03/i13_e.html

Anyone know anything about this kind of thing? Is this common?

It sounds like it would be a good way for me to waste a year of my life, spend a shitload of money in a short period of time, and get "東京大学" on my resume. Tuition is obviously out of the question unless I somehow get a scholarship, but hopefully I'll be able to break even on living expenses; I work online, so there are no visa issues.

I could probably also do some freelance translation, since I'm doing an internship at a translation place now, and they seem to like me. A college student visa allows 28 hours of work per week (with permission), right?

I'd rather live/work in the USA than do one of those "teach English in Japan" programs (no offense to anyone in the field, it just isn't my cup of tea), so I'm just seeing what options exist for me to go to Japan immediately after I graduate.

I've been to a few Japan-related career fairs, interviewed with a couple Japanese companies (got one job offer thus far) and have a bunch of contacts who can hopefully pull something up for me, but I was just trying to gather some more information before I made any decisions. Google came up with nothing, so I just thought I'd ask.

Thanks!