My DS is interested in applying for Computational Biology at CMU, a new major which started in Fall 2017. Can someone please post stats about the number of seats available for this new major. Can anyone who joined in Fall comment on the program ? Is this intense ? TIA
Computational biology is offered by the School of Computer Science. You need to apply for the Computer Science major, and will be able to chose Computational Biology if admitted for CS,
It will likely be intense, given its connection to CS.
Do you know how many seats for this major ? I think the CS Major has 200 seats for the class 2022.
The contacts listed on the page below should be able to provide better information than anyone here:
http://www.cbd.cmu.edu/education/bs-in-computational-biology/
@lovingasiandad where did you get that #? I don’t believe I’ve heard that number from anyone and that seems very high given our current space + teaching constraints.
Also apply to comp bio is effectively (to CMU) the same as applying to CS – you use the same space + professor resources. As a major it’s on par with CS and the graduates of it go to wonderful places as well – I can elaborate or ask around if you have specific questions. They have some pretty cool classes like intro comp bio, a few modeling classes (e.g. using cs to model bio processes / interactions) and also some more traditional “wet” labs.
@jwombat - I thought I got that # from the Parents forum where a parent quoted that # in response to a parent who was asking about chances for her DD. The response was that 200 was the # and half of it is allocated to females and so the person’s daughter had a fair chance or something like that. I will post the thread when i find it since it is not one of those i bookmarked. I saw this in the CMU communication " Prospective students who are interested in obtaining the B.S. degree in Computational Biology should apply to Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science via the Carnegie Mellon application page. The application website does not yet have a checkbox for the “Computational Biology” major, mention the reasons for your interest in computational biology in your essay." which made me think that going forward there is a separate bucket of #s for Computational Biology ( http://www.cbd.cmu.edu/education/bs-in-computational-biology/apply-to-undergraduate-program/ )
p.s: found the thread which quotes the number 200 ( not the parent’s forum Q&A i was thinking)
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20174649/#Comment_20174649
I don’t think it will be intense as CS. The only hard required CS course on there is 251.
Only this year did it have ~ 170 https://admission.enrollment.cmu.edu/pages/undergraduate-admission-statistics not last year…
200 is less likely - more likely 180 or so – SCS is rapidly hiring but there isn’t enough /physical room/ to teach the classes or professors to teach them. There are ~22 sections of the intro CS class (15-112) – having TAs and Profs to teach those /in addition/ to all the non-CS majors that take it is a massive undertaking!
@idkName I argue its only a bit below cs. Also you are still applying with the CS kids. Also the other (non-core-cs) classes on there are still pretty challenging if you’ve ever taken anything in the comp bio department. E.g. computational genomics w/o a more traditional math/cs background isnt that fun
At Turn Tartan Overnight, the CS faculty head (his name escapes me atm) said that they were aiming for ~190 students for the Class of 2021 and attributed this expansion to Comp Bio. Comp Bio and CS have identical freshman courses, so I would imagine that an admitted student would be qualified for either (since they still have the freedom to change within SCS).