Barnard or stony brook ?!?!

<p>I need help deciding between the two =/. I plan on pre-med. Thanks!</p>

<p>No contest. Barnard. Stony Brook weeds out kids, trying to whittle down the premeds. Barnard will give you support in getting through the premed requirements and much more help in applying to med school. I am assuming that finances are not playing a big role. If they are, then Stony Brook is obviously much less expensive than Barnard.</p>

<p>Thank you for your response ! i will be paying a little more at Barnard after financial aid but i think it shouldn"t be an issue considering the schools. I just honestly like the location of stony brook for some reason & i keep on hearing that stony brook is extremely good for sciences. I guess Barnard is more prestigious and will help me in the long run when i apply to med school.</p>

<p>I think the attention and small classes will help you. I live right near Stony Brook (and have taught there) and some of the intro classes are huge lectures, and many students have complained that some of the TAs (and sometimes even the lecturers) are hard to understand because of foreign accents.</p>

<p>Stony Brook is a great place (and has reasonable tuition) for Med School. </p>

<p>I <em>do</em> love the area, so I know what you mean.</p>

<p>“some of the intro classes are huge lectures”</p>

<p>They’re kinda gimongous at Barnard too. I’m in the intro bio course (for pre-meds, because the for-non-majors bio course is awful beyond belief), and numbers over 200 students. That being said, the TAs are fantastic and definitely speak English, which is basically my #1 reason to always take an intro Barnard class over an intro Columbia one.</p>

<p>Normally I would to say go to Barnard, hands down, but by all accounts I’ve heard, Stony Brook is excellent for pre-med, so go where you think you’d be happier. Barnard does have a (possibly significant) edge on prestige, but I really doubt Stony Brook is so far behind that you’d be handicapped in the applicant pool when its time to apply for med school.</p>

<p>Yeah, but large I meant 500. And as I said, SB weeds kids out. The killer course is organic chem.</p>

<p>However, I love Stony Brook for my own reasons. I just think it’s a tough place to be pre-med.</p>

<p>I would pick Barnard, but that’s because I’d prefer a small liberal arts school over a large state university. I think you should visit both again and see which one you “fit” in better, because I don’t think one vs. the other will make a HUGE difference in med school apps.</p>

<p>Just a side note, a lot of kids at SBU tend to go home on the weekends. I went to one of the main (or THE main, idk) dining hall at Stony Brook on a Friday night and almost no one was there and most kids were sitting alone or MAYBE with one other person. I think the social-scene would be much better at Barnard.</p>