I’m interested in concentrating in molecular biology. I understand that both colleges are great and unique in their take on education (for instance Oxford’s smaller class size).
With that said I am interested in being informed about a few things:
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Opportunities for conducting biology research, freshman and sophomore year. Many schools with large intro classes and grad shools make it troubling connecting with professors and TAs for positions in labs, which of course have limited seats. At first glance this makes Oxford’s smaller class size appealing but at what cost? From what I hear it is more “teaching oriented” - to what extent will this be an obstacle for doing research early on?
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Where most underclassmen go for research and internship opportunities - I understand that Oxford is situated on separate campus, away from an urban area (Atlanta). How much easier is it finding and commuting to a lab or anywhere in Atlanta vs. the oxford campus? Do most kids in Emory/Oxford choose to find things to do on campus over the year/summer or do they go outside, and where?
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Rigor of research. Who has the comparative advantage?
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Networking. In some cases a lab student may need or want to transfer to another lab. Either to conduct research or go a different path. Do people care whether one comes from Emory or Oxford? Does that factor a role into getting positions outside of campus?
@somebody2015: Huh, none of this matters but so much. Admittedly, main campus would be a much better place to start molecular biology oriented research, but where you start it is not going to affect the “rigor” of the experience. The investigator you choose most effects that aspect. And if you transfer labs (as most Oxford continuees and even many main campus people do), no PI is going to care where you came from. In fact, Oxford tends to place students in doctoral programs at higher rates, and yes, top doctoral programs at that. BTW, large classes at Emory, especially biology are generally taught by lecture track faculty, so access to research as a freshman has nothing to do with accessing the instructor and more so your simple willingness to e-mail faculty members conducting research. Emory has programs that allow freshman to come in with research. Incoming freshman can apply for SIRE during the summer before classes start. Definitely choose main campus if you feel you “must” absolutely do research in molbiol as soon as you get there, but Oxford may serve as better prep for a research experience because the teaching is better. If you jump in a lab and the teaching in your course is not that rigorous or lackluster on the critical thinking/problem solving scale, then your first semester or 2 could possibly be spent not doing or understanding much. You may essentially end up a de facto technician or work study student just following protocol, so be careful. Admittedly, I would look at Oxford’s website to find out about students who started research there, because plenty did (some folks I knew when they got to main: One is at Stanford for molbiol, one in an MDPhD at Vandy, one at Caltech for chem, one at Johns Hopkins for MD. All from Oxford and all started research during Oxford. I know one of them better than the others). One option if you don’t care much for the on campus research options at Oxford is applying for summer internships and fellowships for national institutes or at other universities (REUs- the MDPhD candidate did a lot of this in addition to starting at Oxford, she was basically a chemist and did her first REU like experience at Oregon State. When she went to main campus, she did her honors in a pharmacology lab. All these are recent grads. BTW, 2013 or 2014). This is a common route and an Oxford course work training can serve as a solid start to that.