I’ve applied to the molecular biology program.
Having a hard time picking between Penn State and Purdue.
Help, please?
you are unclear in your message.
Do you mean the biology department or Biochemistry and molecular biology dept?
There is information on the ECoS website on the ranking of the programs and the college of science compared to others. there are links (I think) and you can judge the relevance of those rankings.
Between the two PSU depts:
Biology’s strength is in evolution and ecology and plant biology. They focus on organismal biology
BMB’s focus is in the molecular sciences. It has a significantly stronger laboratory curriculum and it is more rigorous in its requirements (more quantitative courses). It’s strengths are molecular biology, gene expression and bioinformatics.
One very positive about ECos/PSU. ECoS has its’ own career center where students can get advice on selecting and applying for jobs in the science fields and writing resumes for jobs in this area. This is distinct from the University career center (science majors are welcome to use this too). The advantage is that the advice is tailored to the field of science. Almost all universities have one university-wide career center. Science students often find that these centers are great for other disciplines (business etc), but not as strong for the science fields. Having a separate dedicated career center may be something that attracts you to PSU.
My bad, I meant the molecular biology dept