I understand that Bates is a fantastic liberal arts college and WPI is a great engineering but I am interested in studying biology and I’m think about applying to both Bates and WPI and I was wondering if anyone had any information on which biology program is considered better or well respected. Thanks in advance!
What do you want to do with your bio degree - go to med school? conduct research? work in industry? Finding a good fit with the dept.'s faculty is huge - where do your interests lie? do they mesh with the faculty research at each school? You can find information on how many students graduate from a school with a certain degree by googling their common data set. http://www.bates.edu/research/files/2010/03/cds1718.pdf - shows 10% of a recent graduating class were biological science majors at Bates. Just under 7% of grads were in the biological science for WPI - https://www.wpi.edu/sites/default/files/inline-image/Offices/Institutional-Research/WPI%20CDS%202017-2018_1.pdf
WPI is at the top of my daughter’s list - they have a biology/biotechnology major that leads to diverse outcomes including pre-med, grad school research track. and industry (she’s not interested in being a doctor). The school has a biotech incubator on campus - Gateway Park. Lots of local internship/research possibilities - UMASS Medical is in Worcester and Greater Boston’s booming biotech sector is on your doorstep. Check out their faculty research page - https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/biology-biotechnology/research. WPI is a STEM school - with several distinctive programs - https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/wpi-plan. They have 2 fall open houses - one on Oct. 8 and the other on Nov. 12 (both are holidays, but I believe class is in session - the school’s calendar is based on 7 week quarters). Visit and ask questions - there will be dept. presentations.
I don’t know much about Bates, except it is a well-respected LAC. http://www.bates.edu/biology/academics/for-prospective-majors/ Check out its faculty research pages https://www.bates.edu/biology/research/ Have you visited the campus?
Yes I have visited both Campuses! I know that I want to do a researched based job and I’m striving to get my PhD. Thank you so much for the helpful links! I’ll look into them and decide which program would be more respected among grad schools!
In terms of your interest in biology in combination with indicated selectivity and geographical aspects, Mt. Holyoke would seem to fit your mix. Brandeis too might be worth a look.
If you like all three (even for different reasons), no reason you can’t apply to all of them.
I have! But i guess if i am accepted to all 3, Im concerned on where I should choose…
Don’t spin your wheels by getting too far ahead of yourself. First see where you get in then look at the finances. If you are still stuck between a couple of schools you can try to revisit during accepted students day.
Picking up on job/graduate school placement data in related areas at WPI, see https://www.wpi.edu/student-experience/career-development/outcomes They put it all right out there.
Biochemistry: 7 took jobs, 11 to grad school including Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Tufts Med School, and UMass Med School. Average starting salary for the 7 who took jobs was $42,500 at Harvard University, Pfizer, Mass General Amgen and Scribe America. 87.5% reporting
Bioinformatics & Computational Biology (a very new field): 1BS & 1 MS employed at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and The Broad Institute. One student continued graduate school at WPI. See https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/bioinformatics-computational-biology. Salaries are not reported for privacy reasons as the sample is too small. Two out of three reporting
Biology & Biotechnology: 27 employed at 23 different places with average salary of $41,591. Seventeen to graduate schools (but 18 are listed) including BC, CMU, Dartmouth, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Tufts, U of Mich, U of PA, U of Pitts burgh, URI, VPI, Wash U in St Louis, Yale and WPI. 90% reporting.
Biomedical Engineering: with 95.7% reporting, 61 took jobs at 60 different companies at an average salary of $57,168. Nineteen went to graduate school at ten different schools including BC, Brown, Cornell, Tufts, U of Colorado, U of Denver, U of Delaware, U of MA, U of Utah, and WPI.
Note: As average salaries in a field rise, many graduates start with jobs directly out of university and pick up graduate degrees with corporate funding a few years later in their careers.
Good luck! Do your research.
WPI '67
Attended WPI Open House today with our daughter. Very impressed by presentations from biology/biotechnology and the chemistry/biochemistry departments. We were given a tour of Goddard Building with labs as well as Gateway Park - lots of undergrad research opportunities!
Thank you so much!
In case you hadn’t heard, Bates is in the process of building a new science center which will house Chem, Bio and Neuroscience.