<p>Is Brown even worth considering (compared to HYPS) in areas of neuroinformatics and biology?</p>
<p>No. P maybe. But HYS is far and away better for biology. Brown isnt bad at neuro, though. I dunno enough about neuroinformatics.</p>
<p>Besides, if your moniker is accurate you can Geass your way into any college you want.</p>
<p>Brown’s neuro is top-rate, and the CS department is excellent here. There is an entire computational biology major, which could probably be angled to encompass neuroinformatics.</p>
<p>That being said, go talk to the Brown CS and neuro departments because they could tell you more than I.</p>
<p>One other thing: in most fields (especially most popular/emerging field), HYP is probably going to have a better program than Brown. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but those schools do have more money, which is likely to attract better professors, develop better research programs, and, consequently, rake in more grants. Of course there’s phenomenal research at Brown, but you’ll need to look at the specific characteristics of each program, the size of the departments and availability of undergrad research (assuming those things matter to you), etc. in your decision.</p>
<p>Actually this is one of those few times where money doesn’t quite make the deal for professors. I went to Brown’s, Yale’s, and Princeton’s open houses and two of my close friends went to Harvard’s. It turns out Brown arguably has the best Neuroscience and Cognitive science departments and hence programs in the country. Quite a few of the Brown Neuroscience professors are the one’s who wrote the book on neuroscience. Almost every school offering neuroscience uses the ones written by Brown professors. Brown’s neuroscience department includes the professors who invented Brain Gate, early prion treatments, and so on. Also you will never be taught by a TA at any neuroscience course at Brown. Whereas for Harvard and Princeton at least you will have quite a few labs and courses where a TA will be doing most of the teaching. I didn’t get enough information about Yale on the TA’s. Brown’s biology department is insane and also one of the best. The head of that department wrote the textbook used in every high school biology course in America (well almost every), I’ve met him and he’s so much more approachable and friendly than HYP’s professors. At HYP you, as an undergrad, will likely get pushed aside for the Graduate students who are those university’s main priority. At Brown you get to do quite a bit of the research and work with the professors and the Graduate students. This is because their graduate school is pretty small. Most Brown Graduate students go on to HYPS to do their graduate work because that’s the focus at those schools.
After seeing YP, their programs for undergraduates in neuroscience and biology don’t compare at all. Unless you are very very amazing and you are already doing graduate level work and have the authorization to do so, then go to HYPS. But if you’re an undergrad you will learn so much more and get so much more experience at Brown. </p>
<p>Another good link for this discussion is right here, </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-2015/1115659-brown-penn.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-2015/1115659-brown-penn.html</a></p>
<p>it’s between Brown and Penn but the arguments are interesting for both sides.</p>