I’m a senior student who recently got accepted into all three of these colleges. (Emory vs Tufts vs UCSD)
I will be majoring in neuroscience and I’m also interested in studying biomedical engineering in the future.
The tuitions for all three schools are almost identical to me, and I personally don’t care about the location that much.
Which school would you recommend me to attend? In terms of academics competitiveness and reputation in neuroscience research?
Also, I got accepted into both campuses in Emory University. I came from a small private high school so I actually might prefer Oxford over Emory College… But I’ve also heard that Oxford College is a bit less academically rigorous and has less opportunity compared to Emory College. Can anyone confirm if that’s true?
@Rumiwa
If Neuroscience is the goal then Emory College would be your best choice as the program is highly ranked and the opportunities in Atlanta, with access to researchers, would be beneficial.
@Rumiwa
Neuroscience is difficult, with a lot of class requirements. You won’t be able to start those requirements until you get to the Atlanta Campus, which would traditionally be in your third year if you start at Oxford. Also, Oxford won’t allow you access to professors that do research, especially in neuroscience.
@emorynavy So Oxford does not offer any neuroscience courses? I assume chem and bio are neuroscience requirements as well. Does that mean I have to take other courses in the first two years and then take bio, chem, and neuroscience until my Junior year?
@Rumiwa I went to Oxford. I actually found that the smaller class sizes made Oxford more rigorous than Emory as the small classes were more discussion/inquiry based and the teachers expect more from you. I know people who are doing research at Oxford but the research was geared towards Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. Don’t know about Neuroscience specifically.
Personally, as a bio major at Tufts who was also interested in BME, I chose Tufts over Emory for more financial aid and a flexible bio major, but I say you can’t really go wrong with both and Emory has extremely strong departments in both areas as well.
Regarding Tufts, Tufts does have a very flexible bio curriculum and in fact will be taking neuroscience next spring! Also, BME research here is huge, I personally have performed neuroscience research on electrodes geared towards curing Parkinson’s patients and will be working on a publication soon. Personally, I am also part of the Biomed research club, which often has tours downtown Boston of the numerous pharmacy/biotech company hubs in seaport and has some great summer internship opportunities they post. Professors are extremely approachable and nice and always available via email and office hours. Competition for research is small (almost everyone gets it if you ask early in the year or semester). I began in freshman spring and am still in the same lab! There are an assortment of Bio/BME labs and professors, just search up professors and depends on what you want to do. Also, though intro classes here are large, upper level classes including labs are much smaller and focused around performing the experiments and understanding/interpreting primary literature, which I feel is huge. Experimental labs classes here also have just under 10 people with around 2 - 3 faculty members (Professors) and you have very close mentorship experience with faculty members. Tufts also offers the Cognitive and brain sciences major that ties together neuroscience, computer science, and some engineering and you may want to look into that. Hope this helps! Good luck choosing! You can’t go wrong with all three.