<p>Which colleges have the best undergraduate chemistry departments? What about chemical engineering?</p>
<p>Cal =P</p>
<p>I also hear Minnesota Twin Cities is spectacular.</p>
<p>Be prepared to work your butt off.</p>
<p>Gourman Report undergrad chemistry ranking:
Caltech
UC Berkeley
Harvard
MIT
Columbia
Stanford
Illimois Urbana Champaign
U Chicago
UCLA
Wisconsin Madison
Cornell
Northwestern
Princeton
Yale
Purdue
UNC Chapel Hill
Ohio State
Texas Austin
Iowa State
Indiana Bloomington
UC San Diego
Minnesota
Notre Dame
Penn State
Brown
U Rochester
Carnegie Mellon
U Penn
Rice
Michigan Ann Arbor
U Washington
Colorado Boulder
Texas A&M
USC
U Pittsburgh
U Florida
UC Riverside
dartmouth
UC Santa Barbara
UC Irvine
Johns Hopkins
UC Davis
U Utah
U Oregon
Duke
Michigan State
RPI
UVA
Florida State
Vanderbilt
Case Western
u Iowa
Georgia Tech</p>
<p>Rugg’s Recommendations – LACs for chemistry</p>
<p>Amherst
Barnard
Bates
Bowdoin
Bryn Mawr
Bucknell
Carleton
Centre
Colgate
Davidson
Drew
Franklin and Marshall
Grinnell
Hamilton
Harvey Mudd
Haverford
Kalamazoo
Kenyon
Lafayette
Lawrence
Mount Holyoke
New College
Oberlin
Occidental
Pomona
Reed
St Olaf
Trinity (TX)
Union
Wellesley
Wheaton
Whitman
Willamette
Williams</p>
<p>Gourman Report rankings for undergraduate chemical engineering</p>
<p>U Minnesota
U Wisconsin
UC Berkeley
Cal Tech
Stanford
U Delaware
MIT
U Illinois U-C
Princeton U Houston
Purdue
Notre Dame
Northwestern
Cornell
U Texas Austin
Stevens Institute of Tech
U Penn
Carnegie Mellon
U Michigan
Rice
U Washington
U Mass Amherst
Iowa State
U Florida
U Rochester
SUNY Buffalo
Penn State U-P
Case Western
U Colorado Boulder
Washington U St Louis
Lehigh
Texas A&M
CUNY City C
Ohio State
Georgia Tech
NC State
Yale
RPI
Virginia tech
U Tennessee Knoxville
UVA
Columbia
U Arizona
Syracuse
U Utah
UCLA
U Oklahoma
U Maryland College park
Oregon State
Louisiana State Baton rouge
U Pittsburgh
U Iowa
Clarkson</p>
<p>If you're interested in research or academia, the top ten undergraduate producers (by percentage) of future chemistry PhD earners in one timeframe were:</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd, Reed, CalTech, Wabash, Carleton, Grinnell, Wooster, Kalamazoo, Texas Lutheran, Bowdoin.</p>
<p>Source: Weighted Baccalaureate Origins Study, Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium, PhDs granted from 1992 to 2001.</p>
<p>If you want to get the best chemistry education, look at smaller schools. Chemistry is a hands-on science (unless you are into quantum theory), and at bigger schools labs and seminars tend to be huge and are taught by TAs, ususally first-year graduate students with terrible foreign accents, who only do it to get their tuition paid by the school. Very few of such TAs are into teaching; in fact, teaching is the thing that interferes with their own research projects. If you want small class size and interaction with your professors, trust me, you would not want to get your chemistry degree from a school like University of Washington (one big school I'm very familiar with). Their chem engineering department seems to be much better!</p>
<p>^I agree with ultra cali. If you're deciding between Chemistry and Chem E then MIT, Stanford, Caltech and Berkeley</p>
<p>Hardly anyone gets into MIT, Stanford, Harvard or CalTech; chances at Berkeley are better. LACs are generally easier to get into, have small classes, personal prof attention, no TAs, undergrads do all the research, and have better statistical outcomes. Save the big names for grad school; they are indeed world class at that level.</p>
<p>Yes, definitely. I echo ultra cali.</p>
<p>
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Hardly anyone gets into MIT, Stanford, Harvard or CalTech; chances at Berkeley are better. LACs are generally easier to get into, have small classes, personal prof attention, no TAs, undergrads do all the research, and have better statistical outcomes. Save the big names for grad school; they are indeed world class at that level.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>Just because they're hard to get into doesn't mean that you shouldn't apply there. Have a good list that includes matches, reaches and safeties and realise that there is a good chance you will not get into your reaches but still do apply to these schools if you see them as a fit!</p>
<p>I'll agree that LACs and smaller universities are usually best for those who want to advance in chemistry. More individual opportunity.</p>