<p>I'm a high school Senior who is looking for an university in US, Canada, Australia, and UK which have the best educational and research opportunity for biology major students. I would like to choose a school where I can have the largest chance to go to the best graduate program of biology such as that of Stanford, Harvard, and UC Berkeley. </p>
<p>I have an unique criteria to determine which undergraduate school to go, but it seems to me somehow unreasonable. My method is simply to check the world university ranking by biology and to choose the schools which are reachable for me and ranked the highest. For example, University of Toronto is ranked high and reachable, so I decided to apply there. But, is this really reasonable way to choose an undergraduate school? I know that the ranking to which I referred is ranked based on the performance of graduate school of their universities. But if a graduate school is famous for a certain area, I believe its undergraduate program regarding that subject offers great education and prepares me for the best graduate program. How do you think about this method? Should I rather choose some competitive undergrad school, whether or not it has famous grad program in my field, to become a competitive applicant in grad admission? </p>
<p>Thee following link goes to the ranking to which I referred.
QS</a> World University Rankings by Subject 2013 - Biological Sciences | Top Universities</p>
<p>Grad school does not equal undergrad.</p>
<p>First, even the graduate rankings are not entirely meaningful. For example (not actual info), UC Berkley could be ranked really highly in biology for grad school and has a very strong research focus on botany. But if you discover you are interested in zoology, then Berkley would be a poor choice of graduate school. Fit is very important to graduate school, and as with undergraduate lists, ranking can be very misleading.</p>
<p>Second, having a strong graduate program does not mean that a school will be the best place to prepare you for graduate school. The vast majority of schools are going to have strong biology programs that will provide sufficient classroom background for graduate school. What is really important in applying for graduate school is research experience. This might make you say that the obvious place, then, is these places with top graduate programs because they have all the fancy research. But the focus of these institutions can be very heavily focused on the graduate students, leaving undergrads as an afterthought. What you need to look for is schools that offer strong opportunities for undergraduate research. That was one of my number one questions I asked when visiting campuses: what are the opportunities for me to get involved in research as an undergraduate? My school is not a top-ranked neuroscience grad program. (In fact, they don’t even offer a neuroscience PhD.) But the professor I am working with is very well respected in the field of motor neuroscience, I have gotten significant autonomy and chances to develop my skills and go to conferences.</p>
<p>Look for a school that is a good academic fit and where you will be able to get involved in research. Those two things matter way more for getting into graduate school than whether your undergraduate institution has the strongest grad program in the field.</p>
<p>what nano said. You can contact departments and ask them the percentage of students doing independent research. Ask about the number of research grants they offer to UG students to do research each year. Ask if they have an UG research fair on campus each year. Do they have a program or the infrastructure to help UGs get into labs?
To expand on what nano wrote. There is a very famous university in the mid atlantic that ranks #1-2 in research funding each year and in the top 5-8 in graduate program rankings. This is ALL driven by its medical school. The medical school is across town and not easy to get to, eliminating the chance to go on days you have classes. At the undergraduate campus, the research is ok, but not as good as at let’s say PSU, Michigan, Wisconsin. The big problem is the professors are hesitant to take many UGs because the science majors are filled with intense pre-meds. This place also has a reputation for a strong pre-med school. The professors have been burned by students getting into labs just to enhance their med school applications, doing the minimum and after the letter is written or applications in , they drop off the face of the earth. Not all students do this, of course, but the profs are wary of this.
Graduate school rankings are made on criteria such as number of papers, research dollars, size of graduate program. There is not a category for undergraduate education. However, I will say that ranking well in these criteria does benefit the UGs. This provides us with the money to do research. A large grad population means there are students to help UGs in the lab. Large grad populations often mean labs are student driven versus postdoc or technician driven.</p>