<p>I am a Biology major at Case Western who plans on transferring in the fall or spring of the upcoming academic year. Case is notorious for its workload--and I have been hit pretty hard by it. I was drawn here because of the hefty financial aide package and its high ranking. However, because of the heavy workload I feel like it has partially held me back from getting the most out of my college experience, because I don't have the time to be social or get involved on campus. In my transfer search I have looked to find schools of comparable prestige, (particularly in biology) to Case where the workload is less heavy and Im not spending upwards of 5 hours a night studying. I haven't found much, though I did relieve admission from UNC Chapel-Hill, which i heard isn't too bad. I'm not too picky. I'm looking for top 50 or 60 schools here. any insight you can give is much appreciated.</p>
<p>Pitzer, Brown, and Wesleyan come to mind. </p>
<p>Pitzer is too far for me, and how is wesleyan’s their biology program?</p>
<p>Wesleyan’s biology program is excellent. Wesleyan as a school has recently invested lots of money in the sciences, which means you’ll have access to very strong professors and facilities. </p>
<p>I’d check out your state flagship for starters. It is said that the students at Lehigh and Tulane know how to party, and I can testify to the party skills of Colorado Buffs and the skiing isn’t shabby. You’re going to pay a hefty tab for transferring because you won’t have access to much merit or grant money. </p>
<p>Maybe the problem isn’t the school but the major. Your id suggests you’re pre-med. Why not major in something besides the cutthroat world of bio that would allow you to have a life outside of orgo and calc?</p>
<p>TULANE WAS MY DREAM SCHOOL. I got a pretty nice scholarship there but my parents wouldn’t let me go. I definitively want to go to a “more party friendly” school because Case for all its prestige is lacking in anything socially stimulating. Case is pretty close to the bottom as far as party goes though, and I feel as if any school would be better than Case with that regard. Also, don’t let the username fool you–I’m no longer pre-med or bme. I am actually looking to get into pharmecutical/medical tech management and sales, or hospital management. I was thinking of getting a BA in a science for undergrad with a business minor, and later going on to get an MBA. Last, ohio state is my flagship and its not really the school for me.</p>
<p>keeping it near home, then. what about miami of ohio? or the university of miami? oops. okay, clemson comes to mind, as does university of maryland, pitt, Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky. My list is trying to account for the additional money you’ll likely be spending if you leave Case. If money isn’t a problem, Penn State, Delaware. I don’t know about transfer rates at these schools, so they might not be candidates for reasons of transfer difficulty.</p>
<p>Highly ranked colleges usually have pretty serious workloads. In fact, I don’t think of Case at the top of that heap – schools like U of Chicago, Swarthmore, Johns Hopkins, MIT, and Harvey Mudd are some of the heaviest hitters I can think of regarding workload. There are some good suggestions so far on this thread, but a bio major isn’t going to be easy anyplace – there is just so darned much material in bio these days!</p>
<p>Biology and biomedical engineering tend to be pre-med-laden majors, so expect a good deal of competitiveness among your fellow students at any school selective enough to have a lot of students with realistic pre-med chances (which is any “high ranked school” with decent biology).</p>
<p>In addition, the lab courses found in those majors mean that they tend to be high workload, regardless of school. Even if you choose a lower workload non-lab major like math, economics, or philosophy, if you want to do pre-med, you will still have to take the pre-med lab courses with their competitive fellow pre-med students grade-grubbing for scarce A grades.</p>
<p>`Im no longer premed…Case costs about 32,000 for me after scholarships. I like the university of maryland and Indiana U Bloomington both. How do they compare to UNC? I was also looking at Northeastern and Drexel for their internship/coop programs. Mind you, my intention for all of this is to go into the buisness of biology, not med school</p>
<p>You will still find a lot of pre-meds in biology courses, since about half of medical school applicants and matriculants are biology majors for undergraduate study.</p>
<p>Biology does not have the greatest of job and career prospects at graduation.</p>
<p>UNC is VERY hard to get into from out of state (think <10%).
As a transfer, you won’t be eligible for much financial aid so if your budget is 32K you’ll be limited.
Schools ranked in the top 30 are likely to take very few transfers and none would cost 32K.
Your best bet is with public universities in Ohio or universities that have scholarships/need-based aid for transfers. I read that UAlabama has transfer scholarships, for instance. ¨Penn has some. Gettysburg has a few.
Dickinson College is pretty good at science and has a strong International Management major (with study abroad). I think they admitted about 35-40 transfers last year. Allegheny and Wooster in Ohio would be good for science - Allegheny requires a minor so that’d be totally up your alley and Wooster requires research.</p>
<p>For the record, each class period is supposed to generate 2-3 hours of work. That means 5-6 hours every day is considered “normal” at good universities.</p>
<p>For schools using the “credit hour” method of counting credits (with a typical normal full time course load of 15 ot 16 per semester or quarter), the nominal work per week is 3 hours per “credit hour”. However, in practice, lab courses and those with large projects are often more time than other courses of the same amount of credit.</p>