Can folks tell me the comparision of these two schools Neuro Science program?
How many students are taken in the UVA NeuroScience under graduate program.
What are the bestcolleges for NeuroScience in the East Coast?
Why are you interested in neuroscience programs? What do you hope to do after you graduate from college? Are you perhaps pre-med? Or wanting to get a PhD?
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I struggled to find a suitable ranking of Neuroscience programs. Instead, I used Biology and Chemistry rankings as a proxy. I looked for schools that placed a high percentage of students into PhD programs.
Neuroscience programs aren’t standardized. If you review the cirriculum across different schools, you will find some programs may be biology focused, psychology focused, and/or cognitive focused. Some schools may offer multiple concentrations.
I suggest you review the curriculums of each school to determine which one suits you the best. I didn’t apply to a few schools that I was originally interested in because their neuroscience programs were simply a biology degree with three or four neuroscience electives.
Or you can simply apply to both schools and sort out these details in April after you are accepted.
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Look into Amherst.
Looking at the specific majors and coursework would undoubtedly be helpful. But looking at College Navigator (fed website using IPEDS data), U. of Virginia had 6 people earn a PhD in Neuroscience. As far as Bachelors degrees, everything was classified as biology, so you would need to reach out to UVA to see if how many do a bio degree with a concentration in neuroscience.
At Virginia Tech there were 210 students who received a Bachelors degree in neuroscience. No grad degrees in the field listed, though.
You may find this link helpful: Best Colleges for Neuroscience
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Thanks for the inputs. The out of state schools that offer NeuroScience are very expensive. How do I findout which schools give money for their undergraduate programs in NeuroScience?
The interest stems for the interesting facets of Neuro Science. At this point I am looking for a school that nurtures learning without being aggressive in academic competition and promotes a attitude of sharing and learning. That said , I also would like to know how to find schools that offer money for the undergraduate studies
What state do you live in? If you need financial aid, money will be the most important factor. You can get a good education in neuroscience at many schools. You don’t have to major in neuroscience, you can just major in biology or psychology.
So you’re interested in neuroscience, which is good. What do you want to do after you graduate from college?
This site may be helpful:
To repeat all the questions that people have asked you, and in general, the info that people need to help you:
A. What do you want to do after undergraduate - work/masters/PhD, Industry/professional/academia? This will likely change, but having a general idea will help in deciding where is the best place for you.
B. WHat part of neuroscience interests you the most, or do you not have any preference as of yet?
C. Budget?
D. What does your profile look like? It’s hard to know which colleges to recommend without knowing whether they are realistic choices. Including th egrade you are in can be helpful as well.
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After graduation, would like to pursue graduate studies in the same field or seek work opportunities in the Industry
The part that deals with finding reason for different behavioral aspects in humans interests me. Apart from this the genetics side of NeuroScience too interests me. I am a rising 12th grader and in a IB curriculum school. I am doing a regular IB and a full iB diploma. While doing regular IB program I have taken higher level courses in Chemistry, Bio and Math and Psych. I have a unweighted GPA of 4.3 and Weighted at 3.95. I live in VA. I Have a okay SAT of 1300. Part of high school team and president of high school leadership team. Choice would be first in VA state schools and next is out of state. Out of State schools are expensive. Will they offer merit scholarship
How do I find which schools offer merit based scholarship
You can find out on the website of the schools you’re interested in. There are also lists available online. Example:
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I would encourage you to not worry about which schools have the best neuroscience programs. It’s not even important that the school HAS a neuroscience program. Find the school that is the best general fit for you, including the finances.
As long as the school has decent biology and psychology departments (almost all do), you will be fine as far as getting the education you need for your goals. If they have a great neuroscience department, that’s good too.
If you are pretty sure you want a PhD in neuroscience, go ahead and do a neuro major if you want. But bio or psych are fine too (though bio is a bit better). If you think you may want to go to industry, I’d advise doing a bio or chem major with some neuro electives instead of a neuro major. There is no neuroscience industry, so you don’t want to pigeonhole yourself with a degree that is too specific. The bio or chem degrees provide more job opportunities.
There are some threads on here about which schools offer good merit aid for out of state students. ANY of them would be very good for preparing for PhD work in neuroscience. Major in something related to neuro and do the best that you can in your classes. That’s far more important than having a “neuroscience” degree. Good luck!
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I agree with others that your primary concern at this point should be finding a university that is a good fit for you and that is likely to be affordable. Both UVA and Virginia Tech look like very good options to me. UVA looks to me that it may be very competitive for admissions, which makes VA Tech important to consider as being more reliable for admissions. However, with your very good stats both may be possible, particularly if you can improve your SAT for UVA. I think that you should at a minimum apply to both of them and see what happens. What I see on-line for their neuroscience programs looks quite good also in both cases.
My understanding is that a graduate degree is likely to be useful for a career in neuroscience. Attending a very good university such as UVA or VA tech is likely to set you up very well for a very good graduate program.
Many of the really top ranked universities such as Harvard do not offer any merit based scholarships. Do you know if you would qualify for need based aid? You might want to run the NPC and see. My understanding is that Johns Hopkins does have merit scholarships, but it would be a reach for admissions, a reach again for a merit scholarship, and very competitive in classes once you were there. UVA is not very far if at all behind in terms of being an excellent university with an excellent program, and since you are in-state would be likely to be more affordable.
UVM (Vermont) has a good neuroscience program. U.Mass has a neuroscience track which appears to be in the department of psychology. Both offer some merit scholarships for out of state students. I would be mildly surprised if either ended up being preferable to VA Tech and UVA either academically or financially, and of course they are quite a drive from Virginia (and they both get plenty of snow and cold in the winter).
If you can do it, then avoiding debt for your bachelor’s and if possible saving a bit of college money for your master’s would be a good idea. This again suggests that you should carefully consider and apply to your in-state public universities. In your situation I would visit both of them also.
When we signed up for university tours (a few years back, and further to the north and east from you) our daughters were in some cases allowed to set up an interview with a professor as well as in a few cases sit in on a class. You might want to see whether you can do this for both UVA and VA Tech.
But to me it looks like you are doing very well, and have very good in-state public options.
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UVA and VT will both be competitive for admission. And they are not cheap, even for instate students. UVA meets need but it is a tough admit. The OP needs to establish a budget before going forward, find out what the family can pay for college.
Other options if wanting something in Virginia - community college to UVA, VT, Wm & Mary transfer agreements , JMU, GMU, ODU, Christopher Newport, etc. Good luck!