<p>Basically, I am looking to apply to either of these schools for EDII. I want to apply EDII because I think it will help my chances of getting in. </p>
<p>I am having a lot of trouble picking between the two and was wondering if I could have a little help weighing the pros and cons between the two. </p>
<p>I would be more than happy if I attended either of the two, which is why I am set on EDII, but of course, would like to pick the one best for me.</p>
<p>What’s your prospective major?</p>
<p>Personality/interests/extracurriculars/stats?</p>
<p>I can help a lot; I’ve researched both a fair amount and am applying to both.</p>
<p>What’s your prospective major?</p>
<p>Personality/interests/extracurriculars/stats?</p>
<p>I can help a lot; I’ve researched both a fair amount and am applying to both. </p>
<p>ah hey, </p>
<p>umm, I guess personality wise im a little quiet but once I know everyone I am really loud and get along with everyone generally. I am looking for a school with a good balance of academics and social life (parties but also activities). I take academics fairly seriously, im in the IB program and I try to take the most challenging and interesting classes I can take. Im looking at Neuroscience as a major. As for extracurics and interests, I play baseball, I play guitar, I am the editor in charge of photography and images for my school newspaper, and I am into community service. </p>
<p>as for stats, they may be a little low, but I have been going through some family problems throughout my high school career which my guidance councilor said she’d “explain, but not use as an excuse” which she also said would help for my case.</p>
<p>Gpa: about 3.9 weighted
SAT: M-700 R-720 W-730</p>
<p>My D1 goes to Bucknell but D2 is applying to both Colgate and Bucknell. But of course I know more about Bucknell thru D1. I know that Bucknell has alot of campus sponsered activities outside of frat parties with a wide range of appeal to all different types. The students are friendly, smart and form great friendships but not in a cliquey way. I have known kids who have gone to Colgate and can say the same about friendships and bonds but say there may be less to do than when my D describes what she does at Bucknell. As far as Neuro science, I hear Bucknell is great for that, especially with the ape house and activities thru that dept. in animal behavior, etc. They are both great schools and I see why it is hard to choose. Just depends are location, size and college life, what suits you best. Education at both are comparable. Colgate alums are very supportive about their school as are Bucknellians, so you can’t go wrong. Good luck.</p>
<p>Neuroscience???</p>
<p>Your personality and interests clearly fit both schools, so you have definitely done your research :)</p>
<p>I think both schools are relatively on par for this. Generally, though, Colgate is more business and law-focused and Bucknell will have more pre-meds.</p>
<p>So, you should probably do another visit to each and get a real feel for both. Otherwise, just spend some time on here in each school’s forum to get an idea of their own unique personalities, and watch for the final price of each school.</p>
<p>I’ve done what the previous poster suggested. I would also like to pose some questions and make some observations which will point in favor of Colgate.</p>
<p>Colgate and Bucknell do share many characteristics. But Colgate is more selective admissions-wise and more highly ranked in terms of the publications I have seen in recent years. Publications in 2009 ranked Colgate with the most beautiful campus in the country, a top ten college library (and beer), and top 20 for best study groups programs, accessible professors, most happy students and best classroom experience. Colgate is also a wealthier institution and apparently more generous with financial aid according to posters.</p>
<p>I don’t know that Colgate is more law/business and less science oriented students and programs and would like to learn where this generalization comes from. Colgate’s neuroscience offering is top-flight.</p>
<p>I have heard that Bucknell has superior indoor athletic facilities and has won the Patriot League standings cup for most of the years that it has been awarded. Colgate, with Notre Dame, is the leading Division 1 university in terms of graduating its student-athletes.</p>
<p>Of course the most important thing in determining the fit is what the applicant thinks. Campus visits and engagement with faculty, staff and students may make all the difference in her selection.</p>
<p>Hey, I just saw this thread and I thought I could provide an inside perspective. Sorry if this post is too late, I see that the last post was nearly 2 months ago. </p>
<p>I am a Cellular and Mollecular Neuroscience BS at Bucknell. I faced this same question when I was applying to college a while back. I obviously chose Bucknell. However, I will try to give as unbiased a comparison as one can between the two.</p>
<p>With respects to Colgate, it has one of the oldest Neuroscience programs in the country and is well known and respected across the entire United states. It is also superb for people who want to go into Neuroscientific research (aka PhD bound). Their curriculum is one of a much more specific approach and tends to treat Neuroscience as a separate field from the rest of the scientific community. Profs there tend to be a little too stuck up and thus it is harder to get them to help you or get into research unless you are the cream of the crop. I would compare Colgate to a mini Cornell, with hills. Lots of hills… So you might want to start working on your cardio!</p>
<p>Bucknell is almost a complete antonym of Colgate’s program. Bucknell’s neuroscience program is brand new. This is both good and bad. It is good in the sense that everyone works hard to prove themselves. However, it is still developing and lacks some of the essential lower-level courses for anyone who wants to seriously pursue Neuroscience as a career like Neuroanatomy, Neuropharmacology, Neuroendocronology, and Neuroimmunology. That being said, you are still expected to know these things to survive the upper-level courses. However, this is not as bad as it sounds as profs are more than willing to help you at any reasonable time, which is extremely rare at almost all other universities.
The fundamental approach to Neuroscience is also different in that, at Bucknell, Neuroscience is viewed more as Biological psychology, (actually I’m kind of surprised they didn’t just call it that) meaning that it is viewed more as a study of how biology influences behavior and vice-versa. If I had to call it anything, I’d say it’s a glorified Psychology degree with a ton of pre-med courses thrown in. That brings me to my next point, as Bucknell’s approach is more eclectic, it is excellent prep for success in Med-school</p>
<p>Why I chose Bucknell:</p>
<p>I basically chose Bucknell for two reasons:
<p>The bad side to Bucknell:
1.Bucknell does have a bit of a party streak to it on the weekends which can get annoying However, it gets better with time as most of the people who cause trouble are Freshman and Sophomores who either promptly flunk out or are asked to leave.
2. Even though Bucknell students strongly believe in working together to further one another, the environment is still what you would expect from a highly competitive school. CUT THROAT. If your professors and peers don’t think you can make the cut academically, you won’t last long. However, anyone who is legitimately trying hard and shows enough mental competence will be helped and will make it.</p>
<p>In summation:
Colgate is strict Neuroscience, good for PhD
Bucknell is very broad and personalized, good for Med-school
Both are cut throat but in different ways
Both are GREAT SCHOOLS!</p>
<p>Hope this helps!</p>
<p>Yikes!</p>
<p>Mollecular and antonym?</p>
<p>It’s always a good idea to revise and repair unsent messages, especially those tapped into casual forums such as this one!</p>
<p>Ha! Ya sorry about that. As it was an informal message, I did not really bother to proofread it very carefully. However, grammatical errors and typos aside, I still mean what I said about both schools.</p>
<p>Sorry to come in on a negative note, but markham, do you really have to bite the hand of neurosciguy? He wrote a detailed, thoughtful response to your post and you’re criticizing, possibly diminishing the value of his comments by your snippy response about 2 minor typos! I noticed in your post (#6) above that when you mentioned Colgate was ranked a top 10 school for it’s library, you introduced had a grammatically incorrect non-parallel construction about beer in parentheses after it. My advice is don’t throw stones when you’re asking for help!</p>
<p>lol! Now let’s not get at each others throats about something as trivial as grammar. The purpose of this forum seems to be mainly to compare the qualities between these two excellent universities and, to some extent, different neuroscience programs.</p>
<p>With respect to both Colgate and Bucknell, they are both excellent school for neuroscience and many other fields. The main point I was trying to get out is that the key difference between the two schools lie in their philosophy of teaching neural sciences. As neuroscience is a very broad field, the methods for teaching it, as with any other multidisciplinary field, vary widely! So if one is interested between several different schools for such a major, it is best to know how different schools teach so that you can pick wisely and hopefully get the most out of your educational experience.</p>
<p>If there are any questions anyone has about Bucknell or just Neuroscience in general, I would be more than happy to help.</p>
<p>I think it’s pretty much impossible for anyone to really be fair (each having only attended one school), but I do have to disagree with a few points.</p>
<p>“almost all the profs there are there to teach, not for research funding.”</p>
<p>The exact same thing can be (and often is) said about Colgate (sorry, it’s not unique to one school - it’s true of most good LACs). Not having taken any Neuroscience courses, I can’t tell you about the professors in that department, but in nearly every department I took classes in the professors were all incredibly helpful, accommodating, down-to-earth, friendly and sincerely cared about helping you learn. There are no TAs at all, so all the professors teach full course loads - they can’t not like it! </p>
<p>Cornell is significantly bigger, while Colgate provides a much more personalized experience. You never feel like just a number. I’ve been to the houses of 3 of my professors and been to dinner with half a dozen more. I’ve spent significant time outside of class discussing topics that are tangentially related but completely outside the scope of the class. I had a professor from a sophomore year intro class recognize me walking up the hill one day my senior year and compliment me on the paper I’d written for his class 2 years before.</p>
<p>Seniors are encouraged and even required in some departments to do significant and original senior research projects, and often have to present before a panel in order to complete the class or earn honors. One student in my year continued the research he’d been doing as a senior through a Fulbright to somewhere in Europe for a year. I’d say that’s pretty good in-depth knowledge…</p>
<p>CatPB,</p>
<p>Who bit then and who is biting now? Surely not me.</p>
<p>All I suggested is that posters do what we can to correct inadvertent mistakes before submitting. The previous poster accepted my point. That’s really all there is to this, don’t you agree? </p>
<p>And what’s with the use of “it’s” when you most likely meant “its”? </p>
<p>The error is of course minor and fully avoidable.</p>
<p>Firstly, may I request we not start any bickering on this forum. The purpose of this forum is to create a place to discuss our difference of opinions on different universities in the hope that we might help guide those who have not yet had the fortune of finding a school they can be proud to call their Alma Mater. The purpose of this forum is not for one school to attempt to assert dominance over one another.</p>
<p>Secondly, I would like to state that I fully agree with lydia08 with respects to how no one who has attended either school can be completely unbiased in this matter. Such is the nature of primary sources. In actuality, any posts by either of us should probably be taken with that in mind.</p>
<p>I would also like to state that I did not mean to be insulting in any way to Colgate and apologize if my early posts were perceived by anyone as being such. In actuality, I have immense respect for the institute and its students. I obviously chose Bucknell over Colgate because I believed it had the better neuroscience program for me. As I said before, they are immensely different and so I hesitate to even compare them to a great degree. Further more, I would like to repeat that any of my posts are only concerning NEUROSCIENCE PROGRAMS, and not the school as a whole! I believe in that I am most likely a qualified judge, or at least as much of one as a biased source. However, I would not dare to compare the two schools as a whole as their is no way anyone could do that except to the most superficial degree, and even then, as one might guess, opinions would vary wildly! I do not know what lydia08’s field is, but, unless it were Neuroscience, which it does not seem to be, I would not dare to comment on it as I probably don’t know the first thing about it! :p</p>
<p>Finally, with respects to lydia08’s comment about how close interactions between profs and students are “common to most good LACs”, I must sharply disagree. Unfortunately, most people do not have that experience in college, even at “Libral Arts” institutions. I am glad that both her and I have enjoyed such experiences, as it is the best way to learn. However, it is not universal. I chose Bucknell because that is something I felt would be more amply supplied there than at Colgate with respects to my field. I also found that students at Bucknell get into Neuroscience undergraduate research much quicker than at Colgate, as early as the summer after freshman year if they are well qualified.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that anyone who has attended either university will have different opinions. I chose Bucknell for my reasons and based off of my research. I would make the same choice a thousand fold if need be.</p>
<p>You’re right that most people don’t have that experience in college, because statistically most people attend large public universities, but I’m not talking about all colleges or even all so-called liberal arts schools, and I’m well aware that it’s not universal. However, it’s also certainly not that unique either. The top liberal arts schools (Amherst, Middlebury, Hamilton, Williams, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Reed, etc. as well as Colgate and Bucknell) are all known for not having TAs, having small classes, doing original research with professors from freshman year on, getting to know your professors, and so on.</p>
<p>That being said, everyone’s experiences are different. If you go to a school like those mentioned above but just sit in the back of the class, don’t participate, don’t go to office hours or reach out in any way, the professors will not track you down and beg you to do their research. It’s up to the student to take the initiative, to stand out and to show a real interest in the research, even somewhere that makes it easy.</p>
<p>This thread feels like when you are sitting with group of friends. However, there is a couple there and they are arguing unabashedly right in front of you. Its awkward.</p>
<p>What a self-righteous jerk. Was that clear enough for you? Any errors you’d like to point out?</p>