Best Schools for Cognitive or Neuro Science

<p>My daughter has been accepted to Brandeis, University of Rochester & Boston University and is still waiting to hear from NYU, McGill and Lehigh. She is interested in studying either neuroscience or cognitive science. U of Rochester offered her $10K per year, but so far none of the others have offered any merit aid. Any input/opinions on these schools for these majors would be greatly appreciated.</p>

<p>U of Rochester hands down</p>

<p>I know Rochester gives her the option of either neuro or cognitive, and they can be pretty different majors. Pretty sure Brandeis, BU, and NYU do not have cognitive science. Not sure about the other two. I personally like having my options open :)</p>

<p>D is graduating from UR in neuro (but has many friends who did the cognitive route)–she’s been very pleased with her education. Dept (BCS and neuro–there’s a ton of overlap between the two. Courses are often cross-listed.) has excellent grad school contacts and placement. Students often end up in top 5 grad programs. Plenty of excellent research opportunities for a motivated student.</p>

<p>About the only weakness of UR’s neuro/cog program–computational neuro. (Only 1 course on the topic–and it’s a grad course not typically open to undergrads.)</p>

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<p>Not necessarily. College offerings at the undergrad level tend to focus on one of three areas: bio, comp sci/math; or, psych. But few undergrads do all three well.</p>

<p>A quick read of Rochester’s program appears to indicate that it is more bio-focused, which is great if that is of interest to the student. But if the student was more math-y, then BU might be the better pick. (With an Eng school, BU has plenty of comp sci an computational learning courses.) </p>

<p>NYU also has an interesting program. </p>

<p>My point is that while Rochester maybe considered the “better” school, neuro and cog sci is specialized enough that not everyone offers the full range to undergrads.</p>

<p>Thanks everyone for your input. Today she also got an acceptance to Lehigh, so now we’re waiting on NYU and McGill. Her interests are mainly in the Bio and Psych arenas, not so much math. It looks to me like the two majors (Cog Sci & Neurosci) are very similar, but I’m sure there are numerous differences. I don’t think she’s sure yet which way she wants to go, but if a school only had a Neuroscience major I think she’d be ok with that. I need to do some more research on Lehigh to see where it fits into the mix…</p>

<p>Did your daughter adapt well to the Rochester climate? That’s my biggest concern, coming from California, though my daughter definitely wants to be on the east coast and is aware that the weather will be a far cry from California weather. I’m leaning toward Brandeis at the moment, partly because of its proximity to Boston, which I’m sure she would like. She’d also love to be in NYC. She’s definitely a city girl :)</p>