Colleges for a Neuroscience Major

College Search & Selection
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<p>So after a really long time, I’ve settled on neuroscience. Nothing medical-wise, if I tried to do surgery I’d kill someone ^^; More of a research scientist. It was between that, art, and computer science, but art would be hard and terrible on my eyes and body (I’m pretty weak ^^; ) and my dad doesn’t want me doing computers. So yeah. </p>

<p>Anyways, I’ve been looking around at colleges and universities, but I thought asking here would be helpful too. Not trying to shoot for Ivy League or anything, but nothing too bad.</p>

<p>The main problem is that technically speaking, I’m an international student to the US. My family also isn’t the richest family in the world, only my dad works and he’s just some computer guy. So my choices are limited to either Canadian universities (yup, I’m just from up north) or universities that provide financial aid to international students. Also, they have to be like, within the top fifty. My mum kinda has it worked into her head that I have to get into at least one of the top fifty in the nation if I go to school in the US o^o Though I’m gonna shoot more for about top 30 or so :3 I think I can do it. </p>

<p>I was looking at Emory before, their whole financial aid for international students thing is quite confusing though ^^; My mum also looked at Vanderbilt which financially speaking is pretty good. </p>

<p>Any others I should look at? As my mum said we’re basically trying to find the "best school for the smallest amount of money." </p>

<p>Thanks in advanced for any help! </p>

<p>(I’m hoping this is in the right place, I’m new here (kinda obviously too I’d think)...)</p>

2

<p>Sounds like you should be planning for Canadian U’s, and throwing in some to US just to see. It is hard for international students to get aid. Only 6 US colleges are need-blind for internationals. That doesn’t mean that you won’t get some aid at others. You have to wait and see. You can’t rely on merit aid either, at colleges that give it, unless you are the top of the applicant pool, which is difficult to attain for the top 30. Vanderbilt for instance, gives 250 merit scholarships but say those go to the top 1% of students (I don’t know if available to Int’ls).</p>

<p>Unfortunately the Net Price Calculators are no good to you. What is your family income range?</p>

<p>Vanderbilt says:</p>

<p>“For the 2012 - 2013 academic year, Vanderbilt received 690 applications for international need-based financial aid. From this pool, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions met 100% of demonstrated financial need for 33 students from 26 countries. The range of awards included $36,000 per year to $63,500 per year for four years of undergraduate study. All students demonstrated exceptional academic and co-curricular talent in the admissions process.”</p>

<p>Not that many undergrads have neuroscience as a major and you don’t have to major in it as an undergrad to work in that area because you can specialize in grad school. Brown has one, and you can sneak in some of their awesome CS courses. They also offer a major in Computational Biology in the CS dept, which may combine a couple of your interests. Very difficult admit rate, though. Need aware.</p>

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<p>Proof’s in the pudding, OP. What are your GPA, SAT/ACT, and ECs suggesting about your possibility of admission at schools like Vandy and the other limited number who offer FA to internationals? And could you clear up that business of “technically speaking” you’re a canadian?</p>

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<p>GAH Busy sorry.</p>

<p>BrownParent: I guess, though when it comes to Canadian universities my mum only has three she’s willing to let me go two: Queen’s, Toronto UN, and McGill. I don’t think Queen’s has an undergraduate neuroscience program, my mum thinks Toronto has too much competition, so that really just leaves McGill, and I haven’t even checked if they have neuroscience or not.</p>

<p>And I’ll shall do it! >:O Sorta! Kinda! Okay, I don’t know -.-; I’m next to clueless on this really, only been looking at things for a few weeks, and these few weeks have been busy with midterms coming up and stuff.</p>

<p>Income range… I believe my dad makes about $80-90,000 a year or so. It’s somewhere in that range.</p>

<p>I know you don’t have to major in it, but the other alternative is biology and, ironically enough, it’s one of my least favourite subjects ^^; Majoring in neuroscience with some biology stuff in there, I could handle, doing biology with cells and mitosis and organ systems and other-what-not all day… um, I rather not.</p>

<p>And yeah, Brown, heard about that place a lot. I know about the difficulty though, but it won’t stop me from trying! >:O</p>

<p>jkeil911: GPA This year’s, um… hold up, lemme go calculate it… about 4.271 weighted, 3.857 unweighted. I think. I’m sorry, the whole system confuses me a bit with the whole AP being out of 5 and Honors classes being 4.5, it’s within that range though. Last year was probably about the same, can I just say English will be the death of me? e.e;</p>

<p>Haven’t taken the SAT or ACT yet since I’m in 10th grade. Though in 7th grade I did take a shortened version of the SAT for some talent search thing and got a 1600-something. It’s a really bad score and I don’t know how helpful it is, but there it is.
PSAT though was… 205? It was pretty bad honestly, I didn’t really bother to prepare when I should’ve. Went too slow on the Critical Reading and didn’t manage to answer 5 of the questions DX</p>

<p>EC? I’m assuming that means Extracurricular…? I do a lot of art, some commissioning, volunteer at the concessions for various sports games a lot (seriously, all they need to do is pay me and I’d pretty much be a regular employee XD (well, I /did/ get paid once, but it was from the guy who heads the concessions, and it wasn’t actually for the concessions, he wanted me to help him at a Craft Fair…)), used to play for band, I unfortunately don’t anymore, but I still do play my instruments on my own time and sometimes as volunteer work (there’s a club at our school), I’m in a video game making club and do a lot of programming there, I just like programming in general =w= I’ve made a couple text-based games too, I’m working with graphics now ^^ I’m sorry, I’m gonna start geeking out, I’m should stop…</p>

<p>But yeah, overall, I’m decent, but I could probably improve ^^;</p>

<p>And I mean I don’t have an American citizenship and I’m not a permanent resident even though I’ve been in America for half my life.</p>

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<p>McGill has an excellent neuroscience reputation. One of the university’s most famous researchers Wilder Penfield made his name for mapping the sensory and motor cortecies of the brain while at McGill. He also has created ground breaking treatments for epilepsy. McGill offers a major Neuroscience department (it also has a department of neurology and Neurosurgery attached to medicine). It also has the Montreal Neurological Institute (Where Penfield’s lab was) which is entirely devoted to the study and treatment of neurological diseases.</p>

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<p>McGill neuro is very good. I know a lot of people in the neuroscience field in DC and they speak highly of McGill. They’re almost certainly speaking of the graduate program. But D considered the u/g til we decided not to spend that much money on u/g.</p>

<p>[Neuroscience</a> | BSc Programs in Neuroscience - McGill University](<a href=“http://www.mcgill.ca/neuroscience/]Neuroscience”>BSc Programs in Neuroscience - McGill University)</p>

<p>It’s a program as opposed to a department. This is usu the case with neurosci. That means that it’s staffed by several departments. It seems you could do a lot worse than to attend mcgill. I hear more good things about mcgill than I do about toronto for neurosci but there could be all kinds of reasons for that that have nothing to do with toronto’s quality.</p>

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<p>Ah, well that’s good ^^ Hard to get into, but still good. I’m scared I’m not smart enough ^^; Eheh, that was the second reason for me hesitating to get into McGill. It’s like the top of the top in Canada, and I’ve always been Ms. Second Place, not first.</p>

<p>The link’s great though, thanks. A lot of these college websites confuse me >.<</p>

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<p>If any one of us measures ourselves against another, we will surely find someone who is superior to us and then another and then another ad infinitum. It is a useless exercise, and it cannot have positive outcome.</p>

<p>You seem plenty smart enough to do well in a good college. Your writing suggests a command of written English on a level that some of the people at mcgill would envy. You’re able to create in your writing a personality that readers enjoy.</p>

<p>I noticed your interest in music and the visual arts. This is not a field separate from neurosci, of course, but it hasn’t received enormous amounts of attention yet. Is anyone in canada doing neuroaesthetics? Maybe another angle to pursue, one that interests my D. The nice thing about neurosci is that it has so many angles in need of research. </p>

<p>There are a gazillion schools in the US that offer good neurosci. At some point you need to research which US schools offer aid to internationals, since you suspect you’re going to need some. Talk to their Financial Aid offices and they’ll have a bunch of questions about your dad’s income, savings, etc. that you’ll need to answer. You’ve looked at Vandy and Emory, but you’ll need to speak to people at those schools. They’ll be glad to help you, although they might be pretty busy for the next 4 months.</p>

<p>You’re in 10th grade so you have some more time, and you can leverage that time into good research and productive choices.</p>

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<p>True, but I’d disagree with the practice being useless. It can be a positive outcome depending on the person’s character; for some, it discourages them knowing that someone will always be better than them, however, for others, it motivates them to strive to get to the top. Which one I am depends greatly on what I’m doing :P</p>

<p>And haha, tell that to my English teacher XD Always get B’s on in-class essays, not really my forte honestly. Unfortunately I write the way I talk, and the way I talk is very colloquial, so much I can’t ever seem to write up a good analytical essay. Thanks anyways ^^</p>

<p>There’s a thing called neuroaesthetics? o.o <em>googles</em> … well. Did not know that XD And yeah, I like the fact that there’s so many ways you can go with neuroscience, it’s one of the reasons why I chose it. I can study something interesting in college while not completely boxing myself into one specific career yet.</p>

<p>Yes, I know, thank you. I’m just doing some low-key researching around right now, as soon as I get into 11th grade I’ll go hardcore on this thing! >:D … okay, maybe not, but I will become a bit more serious about it. I’m really not one who does well with planning and researching ^^; (It kinda makes me a really bad student, haha… I should seriously work on that…)</p>

<p>Also, slightly off topic but still somewhat related, would taking an Anatomy and Physiology class be helpful in any way, shape, or form for pursuing a neuroscience major? My school just started offering the class for next year and I have one spot left on my schedule. I was thinking of taking it if it’d look good, if it doesn’t really make a difference I might still just take it for artistic purposes- learning the skeleton and muscle structure would be very helpful. Organs, not so much, but I wouldn’t imagine learning about the digestive system or something would be helpful towards neuroscience either XD</p>

<p>Oki, I’mma go actually study APUSH for meh midterms nao… maybe… ;3</p>

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<p>There’s not a whole lot of the body for which the nervous system is not important. I think the course could not only be helpful but interesting. Expect considerable memorization, which is a really good skill to have and one that is not emphasized in American public education (don’t know about Canadian). It just cannot hurt to have knowledge of basic anatomy and physiology if you never crack a science book again. Good luck with the midterms.</p>

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<p>Alright, guess I’ll take it then. Thanks!</p>