<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I'm currently interested in Cell and Developmental Biology. I am currently choosing between Colorado, Vanderbilt, UChicago, and UCSC. </p>
<p>Does anyone have any opinions? </p>
<p>I feel like the "higher ranked" schools have better faculty, but the other schools are more supportive overall faculty and/or the students have better non-lab life. Which do you think is more important?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Personally I’d say Vandy, but it’s the only one I really know about, so feel free to ignore me. But it is thought of very highly and I know it’s a huge employer… But if you go to Colorado, you could ski! Well, assuming you had any money left from your stipend, so perhaps not feasible.</p>
<p>Go where you like the people you’ll be working with best, I’d say. Surely having a tolerable experience is more likely to result in graduation than an amazing reputation.</p>
<p>What does “better” mean?</p>
<p>Being in my third year of a PhD program I have to say that the supportive faculty and the non-lab life are more important to me, personally. I never wanted to be a superstar/top of the field scholar. Given that, my program is a top 20 program but the support that I’ve had here is the reason I didn’t bail out my first year. And when I went through a really low point that I am just coming out of when I felt like I wanted to quit, I was able to talk to my advisor and tell him honestly how I felt without feeling like was going to drop me or not take me seriously. That is an amazing feeling, knowing that your advisor will fight for you and advocate for you and help you through.</p>
<p>Also, for me holding down a ‘real life’ outside of this program is the only thing keeping me IN the program. I can’t produce when I feel like my life is 100% work. Therefore, non-lab life is important to me.</p>
<p>So it depends on you. If you have aspirations of being #1 superstar in your field, promulgator of a new theory or technique, and a professor at a top top top place…and you don’t mind spending 7 days a week in the lab for it…go to the best place. But if you want to be like 95% of the professors in the country then go for a balance of prestige and sanity.</p>
<p>Are you referring to UC Health Science Center or UC in Boulder? The health science center is in Aurora and lacks any sense of being a campus. Also many of the big name individuals in RNA biology are in Boulder eg. Cech and Gold.</p>
<p>I loved Vanderbilt’s IGP when I interviewed there but eventually decided against it based on the labs studying what I wanted to work on- there weren’t that many of them at Vanderbilt and the ones that were there didn’t seem as exciting (mostly structural biology in the area I was looking at)</p>