I’m going to sell Emory (or replace Rice, WashU, JHU, places liken that) and Carnegie Mellon for science (I can’t sell the social environment, but I can sell them academically versus your interests and I think Emory and CMU are most similar):To be blunt, while I would keep Carnegie Mellon, and like Vandy for some things, I do not think they are better than Emory or Carnegie at chemistry or anything biochemistry related (maybe try somewhere else…Rice or something). I actually compared many of the courses and talked to a friend currently attending there and Emory generally seemed superior in many of the chemistry classes (especially the pre-med ones) in terms of the way they are taught and the level at which professors are expected to perform (gen chem/ochem instructors and exams perceived as difficult there were nowhere near the level of those considered so here which suggests a difference in quality because Vandy students are much better on paper when they enter. I would actually say gen. chem is generally the same level, but Emory students didn’t complain as much claiming that it was “very hard”. Also theirs is standardized whereas our instructors write different tests so I guess we have “tiers”. But either way, with exception of Mulford, there isn’t as much complaining about the difficulty). Many of the biology courses are much better as well. I think Emory and Carnegie Mellon try much harder to have innovative and strong teaching across the science curriculum (I’ve also seen Carnegie’s material).
Carnegie is traditionally known to be strong and Emory has a Center for Science Education (this only exists at some top privates including WashU which is also unusually strong and rigorous in the fields I am referring to) which results in lots of grants to change teaching in the sciences and has also been used to recruit some of the strongest teachers for many courses, and the also the chemistry curriculum is being completely revamped at Emory. Vanderbilt has an amazing social environment (education in the social sciences is excellent as well) and I think they are, in general, better in physics, but Emory seems to beat it hands down in education in the natural science oriented “physical sciences” (any major requiring physics). I just have to warn you about that…hopefully you are attracted by the experience of Vandy, but I don’t think they are that strong (compared to other top privates) or unique in terms of undergraduate science education if that is important to you. Is it good enough for pre-med, of course?It is still stronger than most normal caliber school, but among the schools that you could more easily get into ED or RD (okay, RD for Vandy is near impossible), they are not among the stronger ones. If it were anything else, I would say, “go for it!”, but I don’t particularly like their sciences…too traditional.
Chemistry, for example: large lecture, instructors primarily use powerpoint/transparancy whereas at other schools I mention it is more interactive with use of the board (which implies that it is less spoon fed and less geared toward memorization). Exams don’t really demand higher ordered or multi-concept thinking/not as tied to applications (even with the “best” instructors). Biology courses: I actually think the intros. have rigor, but the wrong type. Like most (I found one instructor who didn’t and they are avoided and trashed like the plague) focus on memorization of specific details instead of experimental data analysis, case studies, context based stuff like most of our instructors. And unfortunately, this persists in many advanced courses where it is the same instructors every semester/year with not much choice and they teach the same every single year (the best class I’ve seen is their genetics class). In general, seems that Carnegie Mellon (many of their course materials are somewhat accessible on Google) and Emory (and similar science oriented privates) are trying much harder to get away from the traditional and it shows in the course offerings and who whole suites of courses are taught. For example, at Emory, the “evolutionary suite” (organismal form and function, ecology, and evolutionary biology) of courses is, by most instructors is taught and tested based upon data analysis/experiments. There isn’t as much lecture, and the instructors focus on activities in class that get students to learn the content in terms of data (which is more similar to the MCAT). Also, many of the major intermediate and advanced courses have “discussion sections” which are not equivalent to the “recitation” you hear of in intro. courses at other schools, but focuses on analysis of primary literature in each field (we have them for genetics, immunology, evolutionary, advanced molecular genetics). All of this is good if you’re a science minded person and pay off despite them seeming like another hoop to jump through at first. I do not see the equivalent at Vanderbilt. Furthermore, Carnegie Mellon and Emory (but much moreso CMU currently. At Emory, it is growing) have more expansive offerings that make the life sciences and physical/quantitative/computational sciences cross over.
I know at Emory, there is a whole suite of classes in biology that are typically offered each year that are much more computational and quantitative in nature (such as Advanced molecular genetics, immunology, physical biology, computational neuroscience, advanced population biology, computational modeling for science and engineering and all of these are taught completely differently than most courses, usually beinhg pbl or inquiry based learning in nature) which is weird since we don’t have engineering (I don’t see these in their biology or chemistry offerings). In fact, if you were going to do engineering, I would say definitely do them ED, but if it is mostly physical/natural then elsewhere, including Emory (I used to not care much for Emory’s, but it has gotten a bit better and when compared to many other places, was already a bit better, though I didn’t realize it before). Anyway, this was long-winded, but if you care about the academics as much as the social or more, I recommend looking at the course offerings and finding syllabi if you can (Vandy makes many biology syllabi public. Even though they are generally old, the same folks are still teaching). For chemistry, you can just look at the offerings or rmp (for how students claim teachers instruct). I have just learned that perception of schools’ strengths can be deceptive and should be researched further because it is hard to see these differences when every school is claiming to be “great” at x, y, and z. Either way, just go through a course atlas (in Emory’s case), Vandy’s course schedule, and CMU’s equivalent. These places are not the same for that sort of stuff. Like even though Emory doesn’t offer a specific concentration in biochemistry, I think it is still stronger because of the offerings and the folks teaching (and how and what they teach).
As for other schools: Emory would be your target (by that, I mean, your chances are as high as most people not in the 75%) I guess. Safeties? Is Urbana-Champagne a safety for you (I don’t know their stats-I just know it is a really good school for sciences)? Also, are you willing to consider out of state publics or are you looking for safety privates that are solid at science?