<p>So...
Does columbia have a good science program, specifically biology/biological sciences?</p>
<p>Better than MIT,Caltech, harvard, hopkins, washington university st louis, u chicago, stanford?</p>
<p>Dude, you just mentioned all the bio powerhouses in your post. It’s not easy to topple those.</p>
<p>also, rankings generally aren’t that important at the undergraduate level unless you’re looking to do research or something.</p>
<p>[Welcome</a> Current Students](<a href=“http://www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/pages/undergrad/cur/old_home/index.html]Welcome”>http://www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/pages/undergrad/cur/old_home/index.html)
[Biological</a> Sciences Chair Martin Chalfie Shares 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry](<a href=“http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/research/08/10/chalfie.html]Biological”>http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/research/08/10/chalfie.html)</p>
<p>1) read the website for info. cu is a top university with great faculty.
2) yes having a recent nobel laureate is more a notch for cu than it means something, but mostly lodged as a HELLO! yes, columbia has a reputable science and bioscience program. top tier. is it right for you? you should find out for yourself, visit, read the suggested threads, go to the cu website.</p>
<p>double post, oops.</p>
<p>Yeah just to bolster Adgeek, Columbia bio is both immensely difficult (weeds a lot of kids out of pre-med) and well populated with u-g majors. the department must be doing something right to attract so many top kids. The nobel prize is an indication that the dept is improving.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, it’s not. Stop talking out of your you know what.</p>
<p>Marty’s been at Columbia for almost 30 years. And he got the Prize for work he did 15 years ago. While Columbia has a strong bio faculty, Marty’s receipt of the Prize is simply not “an indication that the dept is improving” (or that it it isn’t improving).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not sure what this means.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, it does. As others mentioned, departmental rankings aren’t so important for ugrad. Go to the best overall school for you.</p>
<p>^^Columbia’s bio major is one of the most rigorous in the university. The department is fantastic, and you’re comparing apples with apples if you’d like to compare the departments with the other schools you listed (maybe with the exception of hopkins and stanford). At the end of the day, though, you’re an undergraduate, and the bio education and the research opportunities you’ll get at all those schools will be on par.</p>
<p>^^yeah, you’re right it isn’t an indication, it is prestigious honor for the dept though, and this will work towards getting the dept more credibility, prestige and top students.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, it won’t really at the ugrad level. Columbia doesn’t have trouble getting top students at the ugrad level. And ugrads generally choose a school based on its overall merit rather than departmental prestige. Yes, Columbia getting Nobel prizes year after year is probably part of what makes Columbia have a 9% acceptance rate. But Marty getting the Prize this year won’t individually change much.</p>
<p>And at the grad level, Marty had his pick of PhD students to work in his lab even before winning the Prize.</p>
<p>And Nobel Prizes don’t really get a department some sort of major credibility boost. At some non-top institutions there may be a department with one Nobel laureate, and people will say “that’s an okay ____ department overall, but ________ is on the faculty.”</p>
<p>I just think you’re totally making the Nobel Prize into something it isn’t.</p>
<p>C02 - i tried to address that, but from what you said I am guessing you didn’t parse that out.</p>
<p>from the frame of a mind of a 18 year old that may or may not be able to tell what is good or bad they have heard of things such as NSF or Nobel Prize, which may at the very least incite them to pay attention. as i even said it doesn’t mean much in reality to the quality of a department, but it is mostly to say, “yes, people at columbia have done impressive things.” i felt like pulling the number of Hughes Medical Investigators or other top grant recipients wouldn’t quite impress people, so sorry if i went for the most base concept as my response to the OP. the fact that he has been here for 30 years only adds to the fact that it is a solid department.</p>