<p>So I'm doing the college search thing. My list is way too long. Really the only thing I can say with certainty is that the college must be nonreligious, co-ed, liberal (hah, that cuts out about ten schools in the whole country), possible for me to get into, and be somewhat recognizable (say US News top 75). I've gone to a few nearby schools but I'd rather enroll somewhere farther away, and can't fly around the country visiting thirty colleges to look for a good fit.</p>
<p>I'm thinking about majoring in biology, with the intention to go into research. Getting good internships is essential, I've heard. Having good facilities is also important. Is there any way to find out how colleges compare in this area, beyond the impossible task of divining some sort of relative comparison from the dozens of science department pages? </p>
<p>Can LAC's give you this sort of opportunity, or only universities? </p>
<p>What about large colleges without a graduate program, like Cal Poly?</p>
<p>Isn't there a list somewhere of LACs sending people on for phds? I'll try to keep looking for it.</p>
<p>Definitely a LAC can give you this type of education. From my daughter's college search a year ago, I feel that there is a bit of an arms race going on in terms of building new science centers with fabulous labs. Some that I saw are Williams, Middlebury, Pomona and St Olaf.</p>
<p>Would you be willing to give us an idea of your SAT, ACT or GPA so we could suggest some colleges? Otherwise we are going to have no focus to the suggestions.</p>
<p>I'm willing to do the research on my own, if only I know a way to objectively compare schools.</p>
<p>I doubt any of the LAC's you named would admit me other than Olaf.</p>
<p>My stats are unusual. </p>
<p>My GPA sucks, but is on a major upward trend. All B's freshman year. One A and four B's sophomore year. Will probably get one B and four A's this year. If I start off senior year working like I am now, I might get straight A's. So an optimistic 3.5 UW by senior midterm. Have always taken all honors or AP and I'm at a fairly rigorous prep school (less than five graduating kids out of 200 have a 4.0, 100% go to college).</p>
<p>I'm taking the SAT next month, and getting over 2300 in timed practice. Have hit 800 in each section, so I could get a 2400 I'm lucky.</p>
<p>4.0 from community college. If all goes well, I will have completed Calc III when applying next winter (went off the school math track late).</p>
<p>My E.C.'s aren't very interesting. Academic competitions at state level, come clubs. I think I got his really good research internship this summer, but am not sure.</p>
<p>Since you are interested in biology research, here are some undergrad schools that appear to provide a good basis for earning that PhD (first posted by interesteddad):</p>
<p>Percent of PhDs per grad
Academic field: Bio and Health Sciences</p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees:
ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database</p>
<p>Number of Undergraduates:
ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database</p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period </p>
<p>1 California Institute of Technology 5.4%
2 Reed College 4.8%
3 Swarthmore College 4.4%
4 University of Chicago 3.3%
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 3.1%
6 University of California-San Francisco 3.1%
7 Harvard University 3.0%
8 Kalamazoo College 3.0%
9 Harvey Mudd College 2.9%
10 Earlham College 2.8%
11 Johns Hopkins University 2.7%
12 Princeton University 2.6%
13 Haverford College 2.6%
14 Mount Holyoke College 2.6%
15 Yale University 2.5%
16 Rice University 2.5%
17 Lawrence University 2.5%
18 Carleton College 2.5%
19 Stanford University 2.5%
20 Oberlin College 2.4%
21 Cornell University, All Campuses 2.4%
22 Grinnell College 2.3%
23 Hendrix College 2.3%
24 Bryn Mawr College 2.1%
25 Bowdoin College 2.1%
26 Wellesley College 2.1%
27 Amherst College 2.1%</p>
<p>Along with future PhD production, I would look at the class sizes in the intro science classes. Check the catalog for breadth and depth of coursework in your areas of interest. Check money available for student research-it it available to everyone with reasonable academic performance or just the lucky few? How state-of-the-art are the science facilities?</p>