Which schools have amazing science, and particular, biology programs? I am most interested in genetics, and have done college level research projects, and want to continue with work like that.
Choate has the Science Research Program. In the winter of your sophmore year you apply (it’s really competitive apparently). If accepted, you take specialized courses and eventually you do work with a professor on a certain science topic (of your choosing) over the summer. You end with a high-quality written analyzation of your research.
Choate has a nice program. There is also some scholarship support for students taking the summer to do research.
Berkshire is probably best known for its math and science programs. We have a whole brand new 3 story building just dedicated to to math and science. The school has a program called AMSR, which stands for Advanced Math Science Reasearch. You can apply to be accepted into the program. You take it during the school year and during the year you are paired with a proffesor from a college science department at a well respected university. For example, this past year students had proffesor mentors from University of Albany–SUNY, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, Albany Medical Center, Union College, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Arizona, Bucknell University, Williams College, etc. A proffersor is chosen for them based off of what they want to study. Students work of college level studies and at the end of the year, write a reasearch/ analyst paper, and submit them to national science journals and competitions like INTEL. In the past 10 years, we have had semi finalists, and his year we had a student who got accepted to Colombia as their number 1 pick as a Rabi Science Scholar, meaning they wanted him for his scientific abilities after what they saw him do in AMSR. Here is the link to the page explaining AMSR on the schools website. Scroll down and you will see it.
http://www.berkshireschool.org/academics/signature-programs
I’m a current student at Berkshire so if you have any more questions about the science department or school in general, feel free to pm me:)
Oh sorry I just looked and saw you were interested in gene therapy: the guy that got picked by colombias science department studied a novel gene therapy technique to counteract why heart arrhythmias happen. Just thought I might mention that because I can’t find the link on the school website about his work.
Something similar was happening at Andover in an advanced bio course this year. It’s amazing the talents of some of these young minds! He was working with Colombia as well!
From what I know, Choate has a pretty amazing science program, and you have the opportunity to deeply explore an area of your interest.
You will find solid science programs at all the schools, and there are definitely a few names that stand out (i.e. Choate) because said schools’ programs are terrific (and obviously, some of those schools are very well represented on this board). That said, I’ll add that Kent has an excellent natural sciences program as well, assisted and influenced in part by a highly regarded US medical technology company for many years. In addition to strong natural sciences, Kent’s Wentz Pre-Engineering Program is quite outstanding.
During visits and interviews, I like science at Choate for all the reasons already stated. Science at Andover offers huge variety of courses, extremely challenging courses (even for someone who has previously done APs or college work in science) and great flexibility for scheduling. More than any other department, science offers freedom of choice so that some 9th graders do biology and others do chemistry or physics. There are second or third year courses in all the major sciences and research seems to be well-supported.
If you’re into environmental science, there’s also the Kohler Environmental Center at Choate.
^ yeah, you get to live in the environmental center in the woods and learn a specialized curriculum.
And, the KEC has its own dining facilities/chef. Lucky kids.
All top boarding school offers stellar science program.
I agree that many schools will have excellent science programs. Peddie has a great research science program and also has a genetics lab used for classes such as Molecular Genetics.