I was wondering if anyone knows which ivy league has the strongest biological sciences undergrad program? Maybe even specifically neuroscience? Just want a general opinion, thats all. Thanks!
An undergrad biology degree is pretty much a commodity. It’s like asking which supermarket sells the best iceberg lettuce. Nobody does much w just iceberg lettuce alone. You need to add something else to make a decent salad. You also can’t do much career-wise wirh just an undergrad biology degree; u need grad school or professional school.
So, for an undergrad biology it doesn’t really matter where u go.
Cornell has the broadest offerings in biology, but all of the Ivies are very strong in biology. Harvard is generally the most highly regarded for neuroscience, but again, they are all fine at the undergraduate level.
There are major differences in location/setting (e.g. Columbia in NYC vs. Dartmouth in rural NH), curriculums and requirements (e.g. Core at Columbia vs. open curriculum at Brown), social life and housing (e.g. some have the House system and some don’t), etc. Figure out what you want in a college and then compare biology programs. Needless to say, you should also be looking at colleges other than the Ivies.
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Are you premed?
What are your stats?
Bio is a staple at every univ. Everyone has a good program. It’s not rocket science.
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You can worry about the “best” biology program when u shop for graduate school. Generally, students don’t attend the same school for their graduate degree that they attended for their undergrad degree.
For undergraduate biology, go back to my supermarket analogy for iceberg lettuce. Pick the supermarket that offers the best ambience, price, convenience, or whatever matters personally to you.
Also consider at which school u are likely to finish strong. GPA will matter for graduate/medical school admissions. If med school is your goal, then conserve savings for med school tuition.
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This is true – but also not quite accurate.
Biology is a very large field, and it’s unusual for a small/medium private university to offer more than a couple of the subdisciplines. Many colleges with highly reputable biology programs are actually very specialized even at the undergraduate level – Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, and Haverford, for example, focus on molecular and cell biology. You can compare that to a place like Cornell, which also offers classes/majors in entomology, marine biology, zoology, animal science, botany, etc.
Moreover, colleges arrange their majors in different ways. Princeton, Yale, and Harvard separate ecology majors from molecular biology majors, whereas Dartmouth lumps them together in a general biology major. Neuroscience is a track within the biology major at Penn as well as a freestanding major, is an independent program at Brown, and falls under psychology at Dartmouth and Yale. These may seem like minor differences, but they can significantly affect the courses one is required to take.
As we’ve all agreed, all of the Ivies are perfectly good for undergraduate neuroscience (or for biology in general, for that matter). To suggest that all undergraduate programs in biology are completely interchangeable, however, indicates blithe indifference to how biology departments work. I would evaluate the strength/relevance of biology offerings after the other key factors such as cost, selectivity, location, etc., but it’s definitely something one should consider.
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Iceberg lettuce. LOL GMT.
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Iceberg lettuce. LOL GMT.
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But it’s so true. We see posts like this all the time…which school has the BEST accounting or education or some other staple major.
And, particularly when the student is premed, it is often a total waste to be searching for the “best” bio or chem or whatever program. In most cases…very good is plenty good enough.
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I would drop the ivy from the question and say…I want to major in bio what school would be best for me?
the ivy league is a goal of many people for whatever reason but, for most people a non IVY would be a better/happier fit.
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mom2collgekids…“very good is plenty good enough”
yeah they do not have some secret info the share in anatomy class at say harvard (they close and lock all the doors and say here is some secret info…humans have an extra organ in the abdomen that only students at harvard learn about…never share the secret)
but joking aside if you take biochem at anyone of several 1000 colleges/universities in america unless you were born with an IQ of 150 or more your brain will almost implode trying to learn the material.and while the competition may be more intense at an ivy because you have more competitive students(overall)that said in class the learning is no more or less than any place else.(but perhaps at an LAC you have a more caring professors who will hold your hand when needed and are there to help you better understand and learn the material)
Thank you all for the advice!
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