<p>What's the best undergraduate school for Biology or Biochem? Or the top 5?</p>
<p>I don't know about these being the best, but I know they're good at Biology/Biochemistry.</p>
<p>Univ of AZ, Case Western Reserve University, UC Berkley, Lehigh, John Hopkins</p>
<p>to start off with some</p>
<p>Statistically, you might decide to measure that by Ph.D. productivity, after factoring out selectivity (in other words, measuring the SCHOOL rather than the quality of the students who enter it - or, in other words, what the school did for the students, as opposed to what they brought in.). If you did that, you'd quickly find that the top 6 schools (not necessarily in order), are, without any question:</p>
<p>Kalamazoo, Earlham, Wabash, Grinnell, Hope, and Reed. </p>
<p>If you are female, you would likely add in Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Bryn Mawr.</p>
<p>Stanford, Berkeley, Wisconsin, Hopkins, UCSD.</p>
<p>In future Ph.D. productivity of undergrads in chemistry and biology, and even without adjusting for incoming selectivity, none of those break the top 10.</p>
<p>In quality of faculty, facilities, depth of offerings, and overall campus attractiveness all of those are Top 10.</p>
<p>Nice places all. Statistically not particularly successful ones.</p>
<p>By what measure? Many successful students don't go on to PhD's.</p>
<p>very true. but say you are interested in biochem but not necessarily interested in doing your own research or teaching at a university . So you are planning on stopping your education with your BA degree. However you still are very interested in the field and want to work in it. Will you be better prepared if you attend a university that puts out a good deal of biochem majors that equally feel satisfied by stopping with a BA, or will you get more out of an education that spurs many on to doctorates?
Incidentally Reed is #1 in biology graduates who attain a phd. ( :) )</p>
<p>I know of no other accurate way of evaluating the quality of a program than by measuring its outputs.</p>
<p>The rest is just talk.</p>
<p>There is a just big difference between programs with 5 grads per year and those with 100. There are many other output measures than just PhD's which even at the tiny programs are only a small minority of the grads. What happens to the other 90%??</p>
<p>Duke as well????</p>
<p>PhD productivity. Now there's an oxymoron for you.</p>
<p>Phd rates for schools in life sciences with absolute numbers also.</p>
<p>Beyond PHD rates, also look at opportunities for undergrad research. And, I mean opportunities where you can actually run your own research show, not just be a test tube washer in a PHD student's lab. It usually surprises people to find out that schools like Hope College in Michigan and St. Olaf in Minn. have very, very strong undergrad research programs. And, I'd take Reed's biology program over Hopkins any day.</p>
<p>I think the phd production at least as I have seen it for bio majors is 71% attain a pHD. ( from Reed) graduate degrees for all majors is slightly lower.
But everyone has a different idea of what they are looking for.
At Reed fr instance they have about 11 bio profs not counting emertris. So for a school of about 1300 that is a good sized dept. This is about 30 of the senior theses for 2004, I don't think that is quite all but I haven't compared list of grads to list.
Still if you really want to study with someone and they are on sabbatical then you are SOL for that year ( but I guess that would apply to big Us too)
It is more limited in course selection than a larger school but the courses are all very good. I use a Mac and have never felt the need to switch to Windows cause the mac platform supports everything I use. Similar reasoning perhaps for students who choose small schools. It has every thing they need, why get more than you need?
<a href="http://academic.reed.edu/biology/Theses04.html%5B/url%5D">http://academic.reed.edu/biology/Theses04.html</a>
and on undergrad research
<a href="http://web.reed.edu/nsfaire/%5B/url%5D">http://web.reed.edu/nsfaire/</a>
along with
Coastal Carolina University
Colby College
Grinnel College
Harvey Mudd
Hope College
Oberlin
Occidental
Union College
Wellesley</p>
<p>The figure is more like 5% of Reed bio majors get PhD's. 5 % is very good but a small number in deed--2 out of 30 say per class. </p>
<p>11 profs is nice but what about 800??</p>
<p>Although I agree the schools listed above are good in the field of biology and biochemistry, if you do not want to teach or get a PhD after graduation they may not be the best place to go. For instance, if you wanted to work for a biotech company, these companies recruit the heaviest at the better known schools. Not every company that you may want to work for will measure the PhD productivity, most will go by name recognition.</p>
<p>However many of those biotech companies are on the west coast where local schools like Reed and Oxy are liable to have as many graduates as Wisconsin will.
after you read the article on science reasearch in LACs where all students have research experience, read one on how they are taking a look at reserach at unis where perhaps 10% have research experience including summer work</p>
<p>if you do not want to teach or get a PhD after graduation they may not be the best place to go. For instance, if you wanted to work for a biotech company>></p>
<p>Jcas, Unfortunately many, if not most, biotech firms now want people with at least a masters. With only a B.S., you're not going to be recruited except for low-level positions. So, if you want a career in biotech, choosing a school that sends lots of folks on to masters and/or doctorate programs is a good idea.</p>