My college choices are down to Northeastern and Stony Brook, and I’ve been accepted into the Honors Program/College at both. I’m in-state at Stony Brook and have received a full tuition scholarship, and at Northeastern I’ve also gotten a fairly substantial scholarship (though it’s obviously still more expensive.) I’m planning to major in Biochemistry, or Biophysics and am hoping to attend a highly competitive med/grad school after college.
I visited both colleges last year and Stony Brook again this year (going to Northeastern this week). I like the environment of Northeastern a lot more and think I’d probably be happier at an urban school, but Stony Brook seems to be much stronger in the sciences than Northeastern. (Also it’s fairly close to NYC so I guess I could take the train into the city occasionally?) I know Northeastern is famous for its co-ops but I’m not sure how helpful these are for the hard sciences. (Also don’t know how many there even are for majors like mine…) I know clinical co-ops are available for pre-meds but if I go to grad school wouldn’t research be more helpful? (Stony Brook seems to have good clinical AND research opportunities.) My parents are are leaning towards Stony Brook but I liked Northeastern a lot more when I visited last year. They’re also worried about Northeastern jumping so many ranking spots in the last few years, saying it’s possible that he school got more people to apply (more selective) but didn’t improve academically.
Do you think I’d still have a good chance of getting into a top med/grad school if I went to Northeastern? I don’t want to go the academically inferior school but I also want to go wherever I’ll be most happy.
Bump?