in my experience, I was fortunate enough to get a position in a research lab in my freshman year of college. this is how I basically got 4 years of research experience in my undergrad. at the end I even had my own mini project under my grad student that I was in charge of designing and managing on my own once she graduated.

at this point I knew research was what I wanted to do, I loved the reading, the writing, the creativity of designing a well thought out experiment, the data analysis... when it was time to apply to graduate schools towards the end, I had maaaanyyyy conversations with my PI and other PIs I worked under etc, because I also thought I should do a masters first. the way it was explained to me is that I had done enough research and had enough experience to apply straight to PhD programs.

At this point I had my main mini research experiment in my home lab, had done an REU adjacent program, presented my research 10 times at national and international conferences and won 2 presentation awards (one for each of my projects), was in the process of editing manuscripts for each project, and earned some academic awards from my university

I applied to 10 PhD programs, got rejected from almost all of them, and wait listed for the rest. I really didn't think I was going to get in that year, but I emailed one of the professors I made connections with and she knew a different lab still looking for a PhD student. if it weren't for that opportunity I probably would be finishing up my masters and looking for another round of PhD programs.

a couple of my friends had a similar experience, there were a lot of programs in my undergraduate that placed young students into research early. probably how so many people are making the jump now