<p>hello.
First of all, I am a CC student from California, and I'm going to transfer next Fall.
My major is bioinformatics, but will continue on to med school. My top choices for transfer are: UCLA, Cal, UCSan Diego and Wisconsin-Madison.</p>
<p>Since this is the college selection forum, can I get input from you guys on where should I go?
I am going to apply to all schools but just in case there will come a time that I may need to choose, I need a heads up.</p>
<p>I heard that SD is one of the best places to get undergrad research because of the abundance in R&D companies, but on the other hand, Cal or LA has a tad bit of prestige than SD or Wisconsin. But upon talking with a counselor, he said that where you did your undergrad does not matter if you are going to grad school. All that matters are your grades and how much have you done during your undergrad years.
But I also talked to several students who transferred out of SD because of the lack of communication and support by the professors. </p>
<p>As of now, SD is my best choice. But am I limiting my options here? Or do you think that one school is better than SD? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Check out the University of Michigan's Informatics program (informatics.umich.edu). It's a brand new major. There is a Life Science track that may interest you.</p>
<p>I am going to assume that SD is University of California San Diego. The abundance of research opportunities there is not related to the number of biotechs (though it is one of half a dozen places in the world with that kind of concentration of biotech companies). The research opportunities are related to the large number of academic labs on campus. If you plan on going to medical school, or even if you plan on going to graduate school, stick with an academic lab. An internship with a company is going to be tedious and you won't have access to people who have reputations that would make for strong letters of recommendation. Also a publication would certainly help your chances in a med school application but companies rarely publish papers, and when they do, they don't give authorships to interns.</p>
<p>If I were in your position, I would stay in California. San Diego would be great but so would Los Angeles or Cal (I am assuming this is Cal Tech). I went to Madison for my undergrad and while the research opportunities were amazing they wouldn't make up for paying out of state tuition. In addition, the computer science area in Madison is difficult to break into, I wasn't able to even register for a comp sci course until I had senior status. Enjoy the nice weather and don't forget to get legitimate clinical exposure and give serious consideration to spending a couple of years after undergrad building up a respectable application for med school (or grad school if you find that physicians are really just customer service representatives for science like I did)</p>
<p>Here are some schools that are pretty good in Bioinformatics... This might give you a head start. I suggest you do further research into each of these schools and see whether or they actually offer an undergraduate degree or major in bioinformatics.</p>
<p>Chronicle</a> Facts & Figures: Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index</p>
<p>interesting. I did not know that biotech companies didnt publish that often. I know that academic publications are a big boost to your application to med school. Well, very nice suggestions by everyone, thank you.</p>
<p>You might also consider UC Santa Cruz as there is a well-respected bioinformatics program there.</p>
<p>Bioinformatics</a> (Computational Biology) at UC Santa Cruz</p>