Duke vs. Cornell vs. UPenn. vs Brown vs. Notre Dame

Are you still considering? Congrats on all the great offers, especially if your school has not sent anyone to these schools that is quite a coup. Put aside rankings and what HS kids think is impressive and put yourself in the environment that most appeals to you.

What I would do, instead of making a list of things you want, I’d look at each of these and list the things they have that attract you. Also I would look into the requirements for the major and see if there are differences, yes a bit of work. I would also look at the general graduation requirements, because that is going to be your life, filling them.

Brown has a computation biology major also that may be interesting to someone who likes bio and math.

And I have to address uninformed comment like @rhandco said:

Brown has a reputation for warm and fuzzy and pick your own way majors - is that appropriate for molecular biology?

Brown does not have ‘pick your own way majors’. Majors have requirements that must be filled in order to be awarded a degree, just like all the other colleges on your list. The difference is that you select your own courses for everything else. All you have to do is complete the required number of credits plus your major and any prereqs (and I think they have a flexible writing requirement now.) I do not know what warm and fuzzy means in a college, but if that means undergraduate focus then yes. Incredible access to professors and research. mine was a math-cs major.