<p>Hey, my friend is looking for schools that have good programs in both Biology and Art. She looked at Brown and LOVED it because of the strong academics and cross-enrollment program with RISD, but now she needs to expand the search.</p>
<p>If Marine Biology was offered as a major that would be amazingly wonderful. Also, for art, a program in art history would also be good.</p>
<p>I'm not going to post her stats mostly because I don't know them for sure, but her grades are excellent (nearly all A's) and I'm sure her SATs will be too.</p>
<p>Besides good programs in biology and art:
- Medium sized student body (3,000 - 10,000)
- In the suburbs of a big city, or in a medium-sized city
- Not too cold (preferably no dark, cold winters!)
- No reputation for being excessively "preppy"
- Nice dorms</p>
<p>Brown/RISD would be fantastic. In fact, the 2 schools have a cooperative program in architecture. I don’t know if one could work out any such thing for art.</p>
<p>I don’t know if SMCM would have any appeal as a safety or match school. It misses on at least 2 of your 5 criteria:</p>
<ul>
<li>Medium sized student body (3,000 - 10,000) : NO, IT’s SMALLER</li>
<li>In the suburbs of a big city, or in a medium-sized city : NO, IT’S RURAL</li>
<li>Not too cold (preferably no dark, cold winters!): O.K. (MAYBE, DEPENDS ON YOUR DEF)</li>
<li>No reputation for being excessively “preppy”: GOOD (ECONOMICALLY AND RACIALLY DIVERSE)</li>
<li>Nice dorms: YES (FOR UPPERCLASS), NO (FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS)</li>
</ul>
<p>However, it is a beautiful campus in a gorgeous location, with good academics. They seem to have very strong Biology and Environmental Science programs, which benefit from the school’s *waterfront location<a href=“at%20the%20junction%20of%20the%20Chesapeake%20Bay%20and%20Potomac%20River”>/i</a>. It is Maryland’s public “honors college” (compare to Virginia’s Wm & Mary). Sailing is the big sport there.</p>
<p>Your friend might want to visit SMCM, if only to meet Art Professor Sue Johnson, who teaches scientific illustration. Note, this is not a Catholic college or an all women’s college. It’s not nearly as selective as Brown, but it is academically quite good.</p>
<p>Washington University in St. Louis definitely fits all of your criteria (except maybe the winters are too cold – hard to judge, I’m from Texas).</p>
<p>We have a general five year AB/BFA combined degree program with RISD.</p>
<p>Yeah, Brown is an obvious great fit here… stole my idea in the first post. I wonder, did your friend recently come on a physical science tour at Brown? I recently gave one to someone who was asking me about Marine Bio at Brown.</p>
<p>I don’t know if it is considered “preppy” or not. Location is on the outskirts of Boston. Might be cold for a Californian but mild for a Minnesotan.</p>
<p>When we visited, they stressed several times about their excellence in both Arts and Sciences. They routinely have many students that major in engineering and minor in arts or music. They are building a new and beautiful CS building that will have a sky bridge that will connect the building to the Performing arts deparment symbolically bridging the Arts to the Science. The school also is pretty good match for all the criteria you listed.</p>
<p>I suggest Johns Hopkins. Biology there is very very good, and the Art History program has been ranked #1 in the nation more than once. The Baltimore Museum of Art, with the largest collections of Matisse in the nation (i think?) is actually right on campus and free for students to peruse anyday and everyday if they wish, and students can take classes at the Maryland Institute, College of Arts aka MICA, which is one of the top art schools in the country. Baltimore is a medium-sized city, but JHU is located in Charles Village, which is a little more removed from Baltimore, but still very accessible to it and the JHU campus itself is like a little isolated botanical garden in the city.</p>
<p>The student population on campus is around 5000-5500, with only 4500+ undergrads. Pretty small school :D</p>
<p>edit: there’s also a lot of internships available through the Museum, and various other outlets. +, DC is only a short skip and a jump away, with a number of awesome DC museums
Philly and nYC are both very accessible too :D</p>
<p>secondly, I would recommend both Columbia and NYU for clear and obviously positive reasons :D</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins is hardly a good choice for someone interested in marine biology, or even in organismal biology. Quite pitiful for the university that graduated Rachel Carson. Furthermore, NO reputable ranking would put JHU #1 for art history. There is absolutely no way it would ever outrank NYU-IFA; Hopkins has a top 10 program at best.</p>
<p>The same goes for Carnegie Mellon. Great if you want to do cellular/molecular biology, abysmal for anything else in biology.</p>
<p>Stanford, Occidental, Brown, Duke, Cornell, UNC Chapel Hill, Miami (FL), and William & Mary would be my suggestions. All are extremely strong in biology, marine science, and art history, and most are fairly warm and medium-sized. I would also recommend Penn, which is not particularly strong in marine science but is very good in ecology/evolutionary biology and has an outstanding art history program and museum.</p>
<p>I will mention Williams even though it doesn’t qualify on a couple of point on your friend’s wishlist (smaller, colder, more remote). Williams has an excellent biology department – and runs a maritime studies program in Mystic. It also has one of the best art history departments anywhere. So many Williams grads have gone on to run and curate top museums that they’re known as the Williams mafia. There are three worldclass museums on or near campus and opportunities for internships and hands-on curating experiences abound.</p>
<p>Williams has a very good art department – well funded with extraordinary facilities. The faculty are all working artists with an emphasis on teaching the actual making of art as well as talking about it.</p>
<p>There’s a joint art studio / art history major and it wouldn’t be unusual to combine that with a double/triple major in one of sciences.</p>
<p>For studio art + sciences, of the schools mentioned above, I would concur that Yale would be an wonderful choice, though of course highly selective. CMU has an excellent art program, but I’m not sure how easy it is to combine it with other disciplines. I would also take a look at Wesleyan and in the less selective category Skidmore.</p>
<p>If her precedence is toward art history, she’ll have a lot more choices.</p>
<p>Is anyone else confused as to why people are recommending schools for Art History when the OP mentioned RISD specifically. She’s not looking to study art history, she’s looking to refine her skills in the visual arts.</p>
<p>I second the recommendation for Wash U. A friend of mine (who is planning to major in bio/pre-dent, and either double major or minor in art) is going there in the fall. It seems to fit most of your criteria, too…</p>
<ul>
<li>~5000 students, give or take</li>
<li>just outside of St. Louis</li>
<li>Not too cold (preferably no dark, cold winters!)</li>
<li>No reputation for being excessively “preppy”</li>
<li>the modern dorms are REALLY nice</li>
</ul>
<p>I’ll recommend Georgetown. Has quality programs in both Biology (Ecological, Global Health, General Biology, Neuroscience) and Art History. I know a ton about the Biology department, but no nothing about the Art History department (but I do know it is a fairly popular major).</p>
<p>As for your criteria, I would say Georgetown nails all of them except for the preppy student body. “Preppy” wouldn’t describe any where near the majority of the students on campus, but I’d be lying if I said there is a preppy contingent here.</p>
<p>I don’t know if Duke has a specific marine biology major or anything about art, but they do have a separate marine institute on the NC shore. They’re great for biology as a whole. It also matches all of your location requirements, but at any top college there’s gonna be a “preppy” contingent.</p>
<p>Hopkins’ programs is actually ranked the best by The Chronicle of Higher Education (reputable major news source for academics in higher education) and has cross registration with Maryland Institute College of Art or MICA (4th best fine arts school in US)</p>
<p>I’ve actually taken art history classes at Harvard and Hopkins… both were top notch but I preferred Hopkins classes better. Harvard’s Fogg Musuem is undergoing a 5 year renovation process so only the Arthur Sackler Museum and Bush Reisginer is opened (I really think Arthur Sackler is in desperate need of repair…)</p>
<p>I actually spoke to the former Director of Fundraising of Harvard’s Fogg Musuem who was also a Harvard Art History professor when I bumped into her after a Princeton-Hopkins lacrosse game. She spoke highly of Hopkins’ History of Art program and said it Hopkins Art history is one of the finest in the nation…</p>
<p>Hopkins has access to the Baltimore Musuem of Art (BMA), home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art is located right on campus… Curators and Art professors typically have joint appointments with the BMA/Walters art musuem and classes usually features regularly trips to the BMA (located on campus) and it’s fantastic.</p>
<p>The Walter’s Art Musuem is located on Hopkins’s Mount Vernon/Peabody Institute campus… both are really exceptional internationally renown musuems of art…</p>
<p>ah-- hope2getrice, I missed that. But if that’s the case, then the OP is not looking for anything challenging. Top art history programs alongside science should be pretty easy to find at many excellent liberal arts schools.</p>
<p>Yes, “top art history programs alongside science should be pretty easy to find”.
But it’s the relationship between the science and the studio art interests that may be more challenging. </p>
<p>If these are distinct, complementary, but not equally serious interests, that is one level of challenge. If the studio art is secondary/tertiary, many good schools can satisfy. </p>
<p>If these are 2 distinct, complementary, but equally serious interests, then the search is a little harder. Brown/RISD or Hopkins/MICA should satisfy.</p>
<p>If there is a specialized integral connection among these interests, such as a focus on scientific illustration or sustainable design (architecture), then we could be looking for a still smaller number of good choices unless one is willing to work independently to develop it.</p>
