<p>Daughter has been accepted to Georgetown, UCLA, and University of Colorado-Boulder Honors Program. She is undecided on a major, and I mean REALLY undecided.</p>
<p>We just came back from UCLA and while the campus and the academics were great, quite frankly we were less than impressed by the not-so-friendly students. Maybe we just hit a bad day; I don't know.</p>
<p>Anyway, it looks like it's down to CU-Boulder and Georgetown. We loved Georgetown when we attended the Open House in February. The only concern was that while the biology department seemed very strong, we weren't so confident about the chemistry/biochemistry departments.</p>
<p>Can anyone give me an opinion as to how strong these areas are? If she majors in this area, she would probably go on to graduate school and prepare for a career in research.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!!</p>
<p>wow um it seems your daughter is almost like me (scary, i'm a guy). before i visited gtown, i had heard that their sciences were less than stellar... but all that guide book crap was easily disproven after my visit...</p>
<p>i visited georgetown back in late march and actually took a tour with the executive academic assistant there, Dr. Hannum. everyone at the chem department was really enthusiastic that i was interesting in not only applying to georgetown, but that i was a future chem major. dr. hannum was a great guy. he gladly made time in his schedule (he was pretty busy by the way) to take me around to all the labs for all the research projects the faculty and undergrads were doing and to the classrooms and labs for p- and o-chem. there are only about 13 or 14 chem majors in 2006's ugrad class, but basically every one of them did plenty of research. when i was there, i picked up the Hoya Chimica, the chem dpt's semiannual publication. from last year's class, lots went onto Stanford to do grad work. also the acceptance rate to med school is more than twice the national average. biology apparently is bigger than chem, but that's generally true at most schools anyway.</p>
<p>here are some previous posts:</p>
<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=2110114#post2110114%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=2110114#post2110114</a></p>
<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=170529%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=170529</a></p>
<p>and by the way, georgetown's my top choice. i have a lot more to say, but i gotta go for now. i'd say there's much more in common with UC-boulder and UCLA than with georgetown. gtown is a great size (~5000 ugrad) and is a private school in a really nice place (great part of DC!). UC boulder is also much more of a party school than either ucla or gtown.</p>
<p>if i were her, i'd go to georgetown in a heartbeat! great academics... and the sciences are a lot stronger than the stereotype that floats around in the guide books. more professors have won awards in the bio department than in any other dept at gtown, so i hear.</p>
<p>hopefully daria1000 will respond to your post.</p>
<p>I know less about the Chem department then the bio deparment because it's not my major, but I have some friends in it. There aren't many chem students so they all get really tight with each other and get personal attention from professors since there aren't many chem majors. Some of the chem labs are kind of old, but they still work, and after freshman year you get to use better facilities.
I don't really know much about the Boulder Honors Program but I honestly think that a degree from Georgetown would be more impressive. I'm sure your daughter worked really hard in high school to get into good schools, and I think gtown is the best of her top choices.</p>
<p>There are other things to consider about the school which I'm sure you know. It might be nice for her to stay closer to home and go to Boulder, but most students rarely go home, so it wouldn't matter if she went to a school far away.<br>
Student body size, extracurriculars, job opportunties, cost, party scene, athletics, location and many other things need to be considered too. Since you've visited both, your daughter probably has some gut feeling of which she would prefer, and that feeling is usually right. Good luck choosing.</p>