<p>I'm pulling together some information on the number of students graduating with biology majors at various schools. I thought I'd share because some of the information surprised me (especially the Johns Hopkins numbers). Because smaller schools obviously are going to graduate smaller numbers of students overall, I also am looking at the percentage of biology majors for all students graduating last year (2004). </p>
<p>Several things to weigh: a large number of graduates undoubtably means more class offerings BUT it may also mean it is more difficult to "stand out" amongst your peers for things like faculty recommendations, research opportunities, etc. Schools with smaller percentages of bio majors actually graduating may (or may not) indicate that a program is more difficult to get through for any number of reasons. If I was looking at a school with a small percentage of graduates in any field compared to other schools, I'd ask questions about the number of students who start out in that major compared to how many actually graduate in that major (This is why the numbers at Johns Hopkins were so surprising to me).</p>
<p>School/ Number grad. bio majors / Percentage of grad class</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins 83 6%</p>
<p>Carleton 48 10.5%</p>
<p>Stanford 131 7.6%</p>
<p>Uof Mich. 324 18%</p>
<p>Juniata College 50 15%</p>
<p>Emory 98 6%</p>
<p>Harvard 165 9%</p>
<p>Washington &
Jefferson 26 10%</p>
<p>UC Berkeley 710 10.7%</p>
<p>Bowdoin 45 10.8%</p>
<p>UCSD 661 16%</p>
<p>Yale 133 10%</p>
<p>Dickinson 43 8%</p>
<p>Duke 101 6.5%</p>
<p>Univ. of Penn 157 5.6%</p>
<p>U of Wisc. 681 10.7%</p>
<p>Colgate 37 5.7%</p>
<p>Princeton 71 6.3%</p>
<p>More to come - let me know if there is a specific school you are interested in.</p>
<p>Are these numbers for only the regular biology major, or the broad major + any specific subsets a school may have (some have microbiology, others have a neurobiology major, etc.)? Also, is your Michigan % a typo (18% would put their graduating class at about 1800, and it's quite a bit larger than that)?</p>
<p>Anyway, numbers for UNC, Chicago, Cornell, and Columbia would be nice. Thanks!</p>
<p>Ohnoes, the numbers are for the broad major plus subsets (only biology related subsets, i.e., biochem but not bio). I also have some info. on the subsets for some schools.</p>
<p>Anyhow, here is the information for the schools you guys asked about above:</p>
<p>UNCCH 299 8%
Chicago 115 11%
Cornell 393 11%
Columbia 99/5% (note: Columbia has 158 majors in "health professions and clinical sciences - not sure how that relates to bio but only counted strictly bio and biomedical sciences here)
UCLA 822 11.7%
UCI 594 12.8%
Reed 34 11%
Smith 48 7%
Swarthmore 46 13%
Wesleyan 35 5%
Lewis & Clark 38 11%</p>
<p>Yemaya, based on your list of schools, you may also want to take a look at Earlham and Oberlin. Earlham graduated 41 bio majors - 16% of their senior class. I'll look at Oberlin's numbers and get back to you.</p>
<p>Carolyn, I do want to let you know that there is a lot of overlap between bio, biochem and natural science area majors at Hopkins, and many kids pick one major over the other just for some reason that make it easy in scheduling, etc. Many of these kids are premeds, as are the chem major. I would say the bulk of the premeds come from those majors and of course the biomedical engineering group at Hopkins.</p>
<p>To Earlham, I'd also add Kalamazoo and Hope - I think these three have just about the highest percentage of biology majors in the country, and huge grad admissions for such small schools. Also add Grinnell and, surprisingly perhaps, Harvey Mudd to the mix.</p>
<p>Jamimom - Thanks for clarifying. The numbers, however, include biology and biochem for Johns Hopkins which really surprised me. I have not yet begun looking at the number of chemistry majors or bio engineering at any of these schools - if I find the time I will try to pull that over the next few weeks.</p>
<p>Mini, I did look at Hope's numbers for bio and was suprised they weren't higher - just 30 bio majors graduated there last year, about 4% of graduating class. Of course, that doesn't include majors in the other sciences. And, if you consider the amazing research opportunities that Hope offers, you can be sure that all 30 of those bio majors did some pretty neat research while there. </p>
<p>I want to stress that these numbers do not necessarily reflect the quality of the bio program of any of these schools --- they are simply numbers indicating how many bio majors graduate from each school. They are interesting though.</p>
<p>Warbler:
Wake Forest - 64 majors, 6.4% of the grad class
Davidson - 44 majors, 10.3% of the grad class</p>
<p>It occurs to me that another way to potentially use this information is to look at the ratio of graduating majors to department faculty. For example, UCB has 110 Biology faculty on staff (not all of them teach undergrads however) and graduated 710 majors. Faculty: senior major ratio: 6.4 Earlham had 41 biology majors and 10 department faculty (all teaching undergrads). Faculty: senior major ratio is 4.1 As I said, doesn't fully hold true, however, because this is just the number of faculty at UCB, not the number who actually are teaching undergrads. You could do the same sort of comparison with research opportunities - number of seniors who do research as a percentage of all graduating seniors in the department.</p>