<p>Excluding pre-med.
Excluding biomed.
Excluding engineering.</p>
<p>Is MIT a good school for Biology?
Biology is HUGE, but specifically,
I'm interested in Evolutionary Biology. Plants. Invertebrates. Ecology.</p>
<p>Would I be better off at Cornell?</p>
<p>“I’m interested in Evolutionary Biology. Plants. Invertebrates. Ecology.”</p>
<p>MIT is tied for #1 in Biology. It is great in molecular biology, neuroscience, and biomedical engineering. However, for the areas you mentioned, I think Cornell would be a better choice.</p>
<p>MIT is a fantastic school for bio, but other than evolutionary bio, it’s not really into the areas that you named. There’s definitely more of a molecular/cellular focus.</p>
<p>Oh, poor Mollie when she reads this thread title…</p>
<p>Yeah, my head might have almost exploded.</p>
<p>MIT is absolutely tops at molecular biology, cell biology, genomics, and neurobiology. There isn’t much organismal biology or evolution, though there is some ecology-type stuff in the earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences department, and there is the opportunity to do marine biology through Woods Hole.</p>
<p>For someone who was really primarily interested in evolutionary or organismal biology, another school might offer a better course selection. But MIT students can cross-register at Harvard, which does have an OEB department – I think that would be ideal for a student who was interested in OEB as well as more molecular stuff, but for someone who’s primarily interested in OEB, it’s probably not adequate.</p>
<p>Given three commonly utilized model organisms fall within the categories of invertebrates or plants, I’d say yes to those two areas if you’re not going to be more specific, too. :p</p>
<p>As for there being biology at MIT, uhh… that’s kinda the reason I chose to come here. All the most biology-savvy students I know are either here or at Harvard (more are at MIT, though).</p>
<p>Are you kidding? Ask Mollie! </p>
<p>EDIT: Oops, didn’t see her post in time.</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - MIT is easy when you study biology](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoY3IJvoZQ0]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoY3IJvoZQ0)</p>
<p>I didn’t get into MIT, but i just had to show you this :P</p>
<p>Easy my elbow. I was up past 4 earlier this week preparing a journal club critique/presentation, and I’ll probably be up past 4 again tonight to finish the results & figures section of my paper.</p>
<p>And then I’ll likely be up past 4 tomorrow morning finishing my pset for thermodynamics, which, incidentally, most other schools apparently don’t require their biology majors to take.</p>
<p>!</p>
<p>Are this thread + posts like</p>
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<p>just entirely to incur the wrath of the one and only MIT guardian angel? What good does this do? :D</p>
<p>I just wanted to give another perspective so the OP could make an informed decision =)</p>
<p>There was a point during undergrad when hearing that song made me want to punch a wall. I got over it pretty quickly when all of my engineer friends who thought the song was hilarious came begging me to help them do problem sets and study for tests in into biology.</p>
<p>Just 'cuz the song isn’t true doesn’t mean it isn’t hilarious. :)</p>
<p>I can’t believe that at MIT, when engineers would normally pick on humanities majors, they have to pick on biology students.</p>
<p>But it’s common knowledge that math is useless, physicists can’t make a valid claim, biology is all memorizing, no smarts, and humanities majors never have any work.</p>
<p>^And engineering is all plug and chug.</p>
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<p>Nah, really, they mostly pick on Sloanies. ;)</p>
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<p>People actually sang that song to you? If my friends on hall or something sang that piece of crap from another era to me, they’d be getting smacked down. The nasty sexism bothers me as much as the academic snobbery, though.</p>
<p>So depending on how long Sloan has existed (I am ignorant), and how the culture was at MIT whenever this (apparently old) song was composed, maybe the equivalent of “Sloanies” didn’t exist. </p>
<p>Oh and engineering IS all plug 'n chug 
I meant the comments before that as sarcasm though.</p>
<p>Generally, people used business as a second major. I only met one guy who only majored in business at MIT.</p>
<p>That would make sense. I can’t imagine being at MIT and not doing something mathematical/scientific, just for the thrill of doing it at MIT!</p>
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<p>That is less true these days (much as less of the population are course 6 than used to be the case, and more are course 7, and so on). According to the Registrar’s numbers, 5.7% of undergrads with declared majors have 15 as their primary major. Which is not a huge number, but it’s certainly enough that meeting someone with that primary major is not a fluke.</p>
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<p>People do “something mathematical/scientific” in any case - regardless of major, they still have to get through science requirements. And it’s not like there’s anything wrong with wanting to go to MIT because of one of its phenomenal non-science, non-engineering, programs (like, you know, architecture, or econ…programs where MIT is as much a Place To Be in those fields as it is in sci/eng fields).</p>