Neuroscience/Neurobiology

<p>Hey everyone,
I'm a rising senior and I'm beginning my long search for colleges. I plan to double major in something neuroscience related and then computer science. I've read some of the other forums, but they're giving me some mixed msgs.</p>

<p>Which schools are good for neuroscience? I want to go more into the biological/molecular side of neuroscience. </p>

<p>My current list is:
-Brown
-Carnegie Mellon
-Columbia
-Cornell
-Harvard
-Johns Hopkins
-UMD @ College Park
-UPenn</p>

<p>And stuff about me:
gpa 3.98
wgpa 4.7ish
sat 2070 (to be raised soon)
satii 800 iic, 730 (to be raised soon) bio, i'll take chem later too
magnet program </p>

<p>Thanks! =)</p>

<p>Well, if you're going to look at Harvard, you might as well look at MIT too.</p>

<p>The MIT neurobiology department is on the small side, which means it's fairly easy to get a research position and that classes are small. I've been working in the same cellular neuroscience lab for almost two years now, and might get published sometime soon.</p>

<p>Hmm ok. Sounds good. I was mainly applying to Harvard for fun to see if I could get in, cause I seriously doubt I will get in. So I might as well try MIT too. =P</p>

<p>How good are the courses and labs at MIT?</p>

<p>The molecular neuroscience lab is great -- limited to 12 per lab session, so you get a lot of hands-on time with the professors, who are very nice. The department's very heavy on getting us to read the primary scientific literature and understand it -- many of my classes have involved reading papers and discussing them at the next class session.</p>

<p>A list of classes can be found here: <a href="http://student.mit.edu/catalog/m9a.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://student.mit.edu/catalog/m9a.html&lt;/a>
Note that the department is really kind of a combined neuroscience/psychology department. If you're not excited about psychology (heaven knows I'm not), you can avoid those sorts of classes entirely.</p>

<p>The department website is here: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/bcs/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/bcs/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Many people (like me) who are interested in molecular/cellular neuroscience double-major or minor with biology, so you might want to glance through that department too.</p>

<p>Wow, thanks! The courses look really attractive. MIT is definitely on my list of colleges to apply to now. The neuroscience dept. looks small but it's developing fast and I bet the technology there is very good for the work too.</p>

<p>Mollie, I was just wondering, but do know of any high school interships/research prgms avaliable at MIT, relating to Nueroscience or biology in general. I would really like to be able to participate in an actual research program with some college professors, but dont really have proper info.</p>

<p>I know of one or two high school students doing research here this summer, but I don't think they're affiliated with a specific program -- I think they just got positions on their own. </p>

<p>I would suggest looking through the professor bios on the MIT website, picking several professors you'd like to work with (ideally as many as possible, to maximize the chances of one of them offering you a position), and emailing them to ask if you could work in their labs over the summer. (I'd suggest doing this in ~Februrary... if you did it now they'd probably forget by the time next summer rolled around. Professors tend to be a little forgetful.)</p>

<p>Just as a warning, though, I think these sorts of things are pretty competitive, since there are always a lot of MIT students who stay over the summer and do research -- effectively you'd be competing with us. That's not to say don't try -- just put a lot of effort into the email you compose to each prof.</p>