<p>For a student who is interested in pursuing a neuroscience major with the intent to go onto medical school, which of the following provide the strongest (or stronger) neuroscience undergraduate program and the best (better) pre-med preparation?</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins
Penn
Columbia
Brown
Emory
NYU</p>
<p>Cost of attendance will be approximately the same for all school. We also have visited all of these schools and have a feel for the atmosphere/fit. The question here is really on which of these school will provide a higher quality education in neuroscience and better preparation for medical school entrance. Any inputs/feedbacks will be highly appreciated.</p>
<p>Dain, Hopkins’ neuroscience program is also easily the best on this list. It was one of the first neuroscience programs in the country, and one of the leading ones today. </p>
<p>I don’t play the comparison game well because I only get to attend one school. What I can say is that Brown is excellent for your goals. I’m not sure there are meaningfully large differences between JHU, UPenn, Columbia, and Brown when it comes to the academics, but I do know there are meaningfully large gaps in culture. I’d suggest solely going on what you feel works for you in terms of fit and culture of those four.</p>
<p>A neurosurgeon on this board recommended Hopkins and Brown as the two best picks for undergraduate neuroscience.</p>
<p>Hopkins is top 3 for neuroscience and has Dr. Ben Carson, world renown pediatric neurosurgeon down at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. That dude is crazy… Came from the poorest neighborhood of Detroit, got into Yale, UMich Med, and was the youngest person to become Chief of the Department of Pediatric neurosurgery at the #1 ranked Hospital in the world…</p>
<p>Hi Phead128, many thanks for the response. I appreciate it. Do you by chance know where is the thread that you referred to “about the recommendation from a neurosurgeon on this board”. I tried to search it but can’t find it. If you happen to have the link, I would appreciate it.</p>
<p>Also, you mentioned that Hopkins is top 3 for neuroscience. What are the other top 2 schools? Sorry for my ignorance, but this is a completely new field for me.</p>
<p>Neuroscience Rankings of best departments below.</p>
<p>Yale, Johns Hopkins, and UCSF (which doesn’t have undergrad) are the only schools that show up among the top 10 in all three measures.</p>
<hr>
<p>2005 Academic Analytics / Chronicle of Higher Education</p>
<p>1 Yale U. 1.90 80
2 Vanderbilt U. 1.89 58
3 Johns Hopkins U. 1.78 26
4 Mayo Graduate School 1.71 37
5 U. of California at San Francisco 1.68 65
5 Duke U. 1.68 25
7 Brandeis U. 1.67 20
8 U. of California at Berkeley 1.58 39
9 U. of Pittsburgh 1.54 69
10 U. of Pennsylvania 1.51 92</p>
<hr>
<p>2002 Sciencewatch/ISI (based on quality of 1997-2001 research)</p>
<p>1 Caltech 319 +124
2 Rockefeller University 537 +111
3 MIT 429 +107
4 Univ. Calif., San Francisco 1,424 +106
5 Washington University 1,258 +105
6 Harvard University 2,997 +95
7 Yale University 1,738 +76
8 Oregon Health Sci. Univ. 729 +72
9 Univ. Illinois, Urbana 315 +71
10 Johns Hopkins University 1,897 +71</p>
<hr>
<p>1995 National Research Council / Faculty Quality</p>
<ol>
<li>University of California-San Diego 8.6 4.8</li>
<li><p>Yale University 8.6 4.8</p></li>
<li><p>Harvard University 8.1 4.7</p></li>
<li><p>University of California-San Francisco 8.1 4.7</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia University in the City of New York 7.6 4.6</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford University 7.6 4.6</p></li>
<li><p>Johns Hopkins University 7.2 4.5</p></li>
<li><p>Washington University in St Louis 6.7 4.4</p></li>
<li><p>California Institute of Technology 6.2 4.3</p></li>
<li><p>University of California-Berkeley 6.2 4.3</p></li>
<li><p>University of Pennsylvania 6.2 4.3</p></li>
<li><p>University of Washington-Seattle Campus 6.2 4.3</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Other great programs are Rockefeller U., UCSD, Yale, Columbia, UCLA, UPittsburgh… </p>
<p>I cannot find the thread either. I ran a google search and all I came up with is past post of mine that said the same exact thing. lol</p>
<p>If you want to be assured that you can go to med school, go to Brown. For med school you will need stellar grades, and Brown is the easiest place on your list to do that. Also, I’m sure their neuroscience isn’t shabby either.</p>
<p>Schools with better graduate programs have better financing, better facilities, and attract more research funding in general. Undergraduates benefit from research opportunities at more productive and reputable research program. Faculty quality is also important as well as research output.</p>
<p>I’ve never seen a ranking that measures quality of undergraduate teachings… such a ranking does not exist Intangibles like those could only be seen via peer review, but even then those may have graduate bias.</p>
<p>how do you feel about going to NYU vs Johns Hopkins? I feel that it might be easier for me to excell and get a higher GPA studying neuro at NYU than doing the same at JHU. Thank you!</p>
<p>As you can see from above, Brandeis is top-ranked in neuroscience. In addition, its small, nurturing LAC-like environment provides for great attention to undergrads. Commonly they participate alongside professors in research. </p>
<p>To get a sense of what I mean, you should watch the interview on the Brandeis website with Greg Petsko, Professor of Biochem, who left MIT to come to Brandeis. He discusses his reasons as to why he found Brandeis to be, in his words, “a better place” to teach and for his students to learn. Here’s a link to the “video tour” page which you may need to paste into your browser: [url=<a href=“http://www.brandeis.edu/admissions/videotour/]Tour[/url”>http://www.brandeis.edu/admissions/videotour/]Tour[/url</a>]. Then, you may need to click through to the 'Meet Brandeisians" faculty interviews to find Petsko. </p>
<p>Brandeis is truly an amazing school. It’s a special combination of small liberal arts college and world-class research university-with the smallest student body I believe (around 800 in a class) of any national research university matched with high-powered professors who actually teach in small classes. So, as mentioned, the research opportunities are tremendous. The Brandeis sciences faculty is excellent and committed to undergraduate education as well as cutting edge research and graduate education–the new science facilites are first rate. </p>
<p>It is the nurturing quality of that faculty and their mentoring that attracted and benefitted Rod MacKinnon, an undergraduate and a classmate of mine at Brandeis in the late 70’s. He returned after medical school to pursue post-doc studies there. In 2003 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Clearly, a nurturing, undergraduate-oriented atmosphere can may make the difference in a student’s future. </p>
<p>On a related note, Edward Witten, the Fields Medal winning Physicist (sometimes called “Einstein’s successor”) was an undergrad at Brandeis as well (a History major I believe) and went on to take his graduate training in physics at Princeton. Perhaps another example of how a small, nuturing undergraduate program can lead to great success in science.</p>
Ditto. And Johns Hopkins has the best neuro research/department from the schools that OP listed. The faculty and research going on there is top notch. </p>
<p>But, I’d assume pre-med is pretty cutthroat at Hopkins, and I’d also assume there’s a lot of competition for positions in neuro labs there. Also, we’re talking undergrad… a grad student would choose Hopkins in a second, but as an undergrad, you can get a great education at most of the listed schools. Considering that all of these are good choices, I’d be more inclined to choose based on fit and ability to do well at the school.</p>
Intangibles like those could only be seen via peer review, but even then those may have graduate bias.</p>