<p>Hello, We are finding ourselves in a bit of a dilemma. My daughter is a senior at a public HS in New York. She would like to study Marine Biology or Zoology with hopes of working for either a zoo, aquarium or wildlife conservation organization. The problem is that we do not want her graduating into an uncertain job environment with a mountain of debt yet her overall GPA is not strong enough to gain her admittance to one of the better schools which also are the ones providing the most generous financial aid. She has an un-weighted GPA of 3.0 with a combined SAT score of 1700/2400. She took a lot of AP courses and did well on SAT II's. </p>
<p>My question is, does anyone have experience with this or found themselves in a similar situation? Any suggestions or advice - schools? sources of funding? Any ideas of schools that look far beyond GPA and are affordable?</p>
<p>Your situation and concerns about financing college and the future job market are shared by many here. </p>
<p>The first place to start are your state’s public colleges including local CCs. After that, you can look for schools in your child’s safety/match range for institutional merit scholarships that carry over for all 4 years as long as certain criteria are met. Local outside scholarships are also an option, however the vast majority of them are for a few hundred dollars and only for the first year. But of course, everything helps, it’s more a matter of where the applicant puts their time and effort during the busy application period.</p>
<p>University of Minnesota has a cooperative agreement with the Minnesota Zoo so a lot of hands on programs, etc. OOS tuition is very reasonable compared to other flagships.</p>
<p>In NYS, the go-to choice would by the College of Ag and Life Sciences at Cornell. Back in the last century when I was a grad student in CALS, I met any number of undergrads who had transferred in from the NYS community colleges. Encourage your daughter to find out about formal articulation agreements between CALS and the various community colleges around the state. This could be a good option for her.</p>
<p>IMO, her desired career path will expect a PHd to increase employability.
A broader based undergrad degree- biology or chemistry, instead of marine biology or zoology, is usually recommended when looking towards graduate school.</p>
<p>Hmm, not sure I would agree with the last post. I would think majoring in chemistry would be absolute torture for someone interested in biology at the level of the whole organism. She would have to take physical chemistry, advanced organic chemistry, and quantum mechanics for a chemistry degree. And I have not heard of such a bias anyway. I have been on an admissions committee for a molecular biology graduate program. We absolutely did not take chem majors over bio majors. They would not have the right background and would have to go back to square 1 to understand cell and molecular biology at the level that a grad student would have to know it. They would be ineffective TAs and likely have irrelevant lab skills.</p>
<p>How far would you be OK with her going? There are good marine biology programs on the west coast.</p>
<p>The people I know who have been successful inthe sciences could have gone more than one way with their undergrad degree, so that’s where my experience lies.</p>
<p>Job growth is minimal, a bachelors degree cn technically qualify you for jobs, but reality is that they are very competitive and many applicants will have advanced degrees.</p>
<p>Emeraldkitty4 - Are you referring to relatively recent grads or people of the generation of most parents on this list? The biological sciences have really exploded and gotten far more specialized in recent years.</p>
<p>There are certainly jobs for biology majors where a PhD is not required and would consider you overqualified. For example, as a research assistant in a biotech or pharmaceutical company. That is a different class of job from a scientist at such a company. The scientist job would require a PhD, the research assistant would not, should not have one.</p>
<p>Take a look at Eckerd in Florida. Marine bio is big there, and they seem to give out a fair amount of need-based aid, and non-need based aid. Her stats would be a good match.</p>
<p>I was speaking re: people who are currently in graduate schools in the sciences, and those recently launched. My oldest graduated from Reed College about six years ago with a bio degree, and from graduate school this year. My youngest is currently an undergrad who is focusing on marine bio, but her major is broader.</p>