Just go to any school that you like and make sure that your college GPA is above 3.6 and the college is cheap. The opportunities for the ECs are absolutely everywhere, including the lowest of the lowest ranked. Your GPA + MCAT score + medical ECs will be the key in your future, the name of college and the strength of the program will be irrelevant.
Oops! i misread. You’re an IL resident, not a FL resident.
UIUC’s and UIC’s neuroscience programs are strongly oriented toward behavioral neuroscience–which may or may not be your area of interest.
Have you looked at UMinnesota-Twin Cities’s neuro program? Strong program with a broader grounding in different areas of neuro than UIC or UIUC. It’s a more biology-based neuro program than either Illinois program. UM-TC is also less expensive than Wisconsin or Michigan or CU-Boulder. (All of which have good neuroscience undergrad programs).
lets say I decided to finish a Ph.D in nueroscience instead of med school. Then which school would be advisable. I would like to study a biology-based nuero program by the way.
There a lot of schools that offer nueroscience, what are some things I should look for to narrow down my options. I would like to play D1 rugby also so that is another factor, although not as impactful.
Start with a list of D1 rugby schools then since that may be the bigger restriction.
After you have that list, look for neuro programs offered thru the biology dept instead of the psych dept. Look for programs that have broad offerings in several sub-areas of neuroscience (cognitive neuro, behavioral neuro, molecular & cellular neuro, systems neuro/neural networking, computational neuro, developmental neuro, neuroimaging) instead of focussing on just one or two areas. (You don’t yet know what sub-field you’ll want to work in.)
A good biological neuro program will have requirements/electives in cellular & molecular bio, chemistry, biochemistry, computer science, linguistics, evolutionary biology, genetics, cognitive science, mathematics/statistical methods, neuroanatomy, neuropsychology, neuropharmacology, biomedical engineering.
You want to look for programs that have or are adjacent to fMRI/PET imaging centers since many neuro studies use these techniques.
If you want to pursue a PhD in neuroscience, look for schools that have a mandatory or optional senior thesis since independent research with a thesis is a plus when applying to grad programs.
I still think Minnesota would be a good fit for your list. But also look at Michigan, Baylor, Wisconsin–all are higher ranked than Colorado in neuroscience and NCAA Div 1A schools in rugby.
If you are interested in a PhD, the most important differentiating factor is a) research experience and mentors who will help you publish, write letters, and make calls for you (publication>>>GRE or GPA which is different from undergrad admissions) b) how easy it is to get research experience as an undergrad (some large publics including some of the ones I mentioned before- it will be hard to get research as freshmen/sophomores).
There’s no really “biological” neuroscience- Neuroscience is a fairly biological discipline.
Most psychology departments involve non-neuroscience research- like using real live human subjects and putting them through different group experiments, choices, surveys (although FMRI has helped bridge psychology and neuroscience in some ways).
Also senior research requirement/thesis opportunity doesn’t mean much- it’s just a way of formalizing research and real experience in research comes from…well…real experience with good mentors + who will put you as a co-author/second author/etc. in a publication.
Also if $$ isn’t an issue, you should look into liberal arts colleges- they do tend to produce disproportion amount of Ph.Ds in sciences vs universities- swarthmore, grinnell, bucknell are well known powerhouses in undergrad science, but they are all obviously very competitive get in (bucknell slightly less competitive).
Also another thing you want to consider is location as well- if you do go to schools in the area with a high concentration of large medical institutions, there might be more opportunities to get involved in research esp during summer even if you are not within their home university system (i.e. boston- a plenty of undergrads get informally involved in harvard programs- mass gen, brigham, tufts med, etc even if you don’t go to harvard/tufts undergrad or i.e. philadelphia- i m sure swarthmore students can find places at penn, jefferson, etc and maryland- a good amount of UMBC students get involved in research with mentors at Hopkins, UMD esp during summer)
If you want to stay in the midwest, University of Iowa does a surprising amount of neuro research- undergrad is within the dept of biology with neurobiology track + also multiple summer programs for undergrads in their neuro grad dept as well as with their college of medicine.
WayOutWestMom thank you so much. You have been a great help!
Would it be a issue if the university only gives a certificate rather than a B.A./B.S. for nueroscience? Should I exclude schools based on this or is a certificate weighted the same as a BA/BS
It would depend on the specifics of the certificate program. It would also depend on the availability of research opportunities in neuroscience–since research is critical for PhD admission.
D1 may derail your medical school plans altogether. I do not know about GPA requirements for PhD though. It is possible to play D1 and be a pre-med but it would require very high level of time management skills. Keep in mind that you will need to complete lots of various medical ECs for medical school application. You will also need to prepare for MCAT during junior year (which takes few hours every day for many weeks) and you will need to travel to medical school interviews during senior year. My D. dropped her club sport participation after freshman year, and she still had to make a lot of special arrangements for her job (most UGs work, BTW), Research lab, volunteering, exams, when she started going to interviews. Some profs may be more flexible in regard to exams schedules than others. If you are considering medical school, you will need some flexibility with your time and rigid sport practice and competition schedules may not leave the space for flexibility. But this point is simply an additional consideration beyond the requirement of high college GPA, preferably of 3.6+ and, of course, a decent MCAT score is also a must.
Amherst college offered the first undergrad neuroscience major in the country and does not have a “weed out” goal in intro science courses.
Amherst neuro students have access to UMass Amherst (as well as the rest of the 5 college consortium).
Though my neuroscience-interested daughter crossed Amherst off her list when she read this on their web page:
[quote]
In addition to being a rewarding major, Neuroscience is one of the more academically demanding majors at Amherst College. Neuroscience has a large number of required courses, and among the largest number of required laboratory courses. We point this out not to discourage anyone from majoring, but so that students have a realistic view when considering enrolling and are aware that scheduling can be difficult./quote
^Many of D’s Neuroscience minor overlapped with her major any way. Amherst or whatever other, it will be about the same.
My D is starting down the neuroscience track at Amherst. When they say that scheduling may be difficult, they do not mean that you can’t get the classes you need. You always can get the classes you need at Amherst - they will open up a new section for you if they need to.
What they mean by that statement is that you have to take a large number of classes with both labs and discussion sessions, that will block out a lot of your time. Moreover, you have to start taking the correct sequences as soon as you get to college due to the prerequisites for the upper level classes. For example, she needed to take Chemistry and Calculus her first semester, and Chemistry 2 and Cell Biology her second semester, and so on, so that she was able to qualify for the upper level Neuroscience classes and the deeper parts of the program.
I suspect it is pretty much the same at the other schools you are looking at…
Neuro is a heavy major at Amherst in terms of the # of courses required for the major, it even has its own study abroad program so kids can do a whole year abroad if they want to and not get behind 
Scheduling is difficult if you don’t begin the pre-reqs as a freshman, for sure. A pre-med would have a lot of overlap, would most prospective science majors.
So far D has never been shut out of her first choice classes/sections, which I personally find amazing as one who stood in line at tables to register for college and got stuck with the 7AM English course…
Well, I’ll just say there were other reasons she crossed Amherst off her list—that was just one of the considerations. (There’s also that she’d like to double major in a not-terribly-related field, and she’s not planning on using neuroscience as a step toward med school or somesuch, so a neuroscience program that has a massive number of required courses wouldn’t mesh well with her goals.)
Doesn’t matter much, either way. But the most interesting thing I’ve learned from all this (in an attempt to broaden the discussion back beyond Amherst) is how utterly disparate undergrad neuroscience programs across the country are. I thought my field (linguistics) had a crazy amount of variety across schools’ major requirements, but there’s incredible uniformity there compared to neuroscience.
Probably so much variety because it’s a new major, relative to bio, psych,…most everything else. I can imagine it’s a tough one to compare apples to apples between schools if one is sure that’s the major they’re going to choose.
Good luck!
OP- my kid played rugby, dropped it senior year to focus on getting a 4.0 that year in upper division science classes, t bump up that GPA before the apps went in. You can play your sport, at least the first few years, but do assume that you would do your med school app after you graduate, otherwise it is quite difficult to keep everything on track. My kid did no research in UG, but did a year of paid research after graduation to fulfill that. There is no reason to rush straight from UG to MS1, it’s fine to have that gap year if your sport is important.