This is an amazing list! Thank you!
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What makes @AustenNut so incredible is that they do not just recycle the same 50 schools, but seem to have a much broader view of all the great opportunities for great education throughout the US.
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@AustenNut Any ideas for my DD? She wants a small to middle sized college. Most likely LAC and probably a Christian but as long as the college has some Christian clubs she’d be fine. She is currently planning on pre-vetinary as her major but I have a feeling she might change to pre-law. I would like a strong biology program in case she decides not to go on to vet school.
Her list currently has: Hope, Calvin, Hillsdale, Dordt. She doesn’t really want east coast or west coast. South is fine, but probably not Texas.
That is very kind of you to say, but I feel that really overstates any “knowledge” I have. I’ve learned, and continue to learn, so much on these boards. It’s always so exciting when people here share other resources that are totally new to me. Plus, looking up a schools’ stats or number of majors in a particular field and cross-referencing to other data points is something one can do from anywhere (that’s what I do!), but getting to know the specific vibe of a campus and other intangibles is extraordinarily difficult to do. That’s why I almost always say that the schools I suggest are ones to look into or consider, because they might end up being a match, but they could just as equally end up an epic mismatch.
@chicagoshannon, I’ll put some thought into it! First one off the top of my head is Illinois’ Wheaton.
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St Olaf?
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If South is ok, maybe Samford in Alabama? Very popular with evangelical Christian families from our area and offers a wide range of majors (including biology).
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Sources for all of these are from here, which was also cited upthread by @kaslew. Among baccalaureate-level colleges (those whose highest degree is primarily a Bachelor’s), the schools that produced the most students who went on to get a PhD between 2008-2018 in biological or biomedical sciences in the Great Lakes states were:
This Great Lakes region of the country is really punching above its weight. For comparison, here are the plains states
south central
and southeast
Although this data does not account for the number of undergrads per school, these schools are generally 3k or fewer undergrads (mostly 1-2k or under). Not all bio students want to go on for a doctorate, but the acceptance of students into doctoral programs (and their completion of those doctoral programs) is generally a good sign for the strength of the undergrad department, in my opinion.
This is the breakdown of how many baccalaureate-level schools produced 25 or more doctoral students in biological/biomedical sciences.
Great Lakes: 27
Plains States: 12
South Central States: 9
Southeastern States: 11
I’ll spare everyone the graphs, but among Master’s level institutions (generally a bit larger and whose highest degree is generally a Master’s), this is the breakdown of schools producing at least 25 PhDs in bio:
Great Lakes: 19
Plains States: 9
South Central States: 3
Southeastern States: 7
Among these Masters’ schools, the ones that appear to punch above their weight are:
Great Lakes
- Calvin
- John Carroll
- Baldwin Wallace
- U. of Evansville
Plains States
- Truman State
South Central
- Xavier of Louisiana
- Tuskegee
Southeast
- U. of Mary Washington
- Berry College
All that to say, why did everyone else get a relatively nice clean list, while you got a whole bunch of charts on doctoral production?
I’m willing to bet (and I don’t generally bet) that every single college on those lists has Christian clubs. But from the list of schools you included, I suspect that you may be wanting a stronger Christian link than most of the schools have. Since I don’t really know, though, I wanted to give you resources of schools that could be considered to have “a strong biology program.”
So, with all that prefacing, what particular schools would I put on a list for your D to consider, all of which have Christian affiliations, but some more staunchly so than others? If I’m way off base, don’t worry about telling me so. It won’t hurt my feelings and I’d be happy to try another stab at some guesses with any additional direction you might have based on my guesses below.
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Ashland (OH): About 3700 undergrads
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Augustana (IL): About 2300 undergrads
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Cedarville (OH): About 4200 undergrads
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Centre KY): About 1300 undergrads
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Hanover (IN): About 1k undergrads
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Harding (AR): About 3700 undergrads
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Mississippi College: About 2500 undergrads
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Oakwood (AL): About 1400 undergrads
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Ohio Wesleyan: About 1300 students and for students interested in veterinary sciences/animals, there are so many wonderful options here. Really worth a good, solid look.
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Rockhurst (MO): About 2700 undergrads
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Transylvania (KY): About 1k undergrads
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U. of Evansville (IN): About 1800 undergrads
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Wheaton (IL): About 2300 undergrads and my sense is that it’s somewhere between Hope and Calvin in spirit.
(I also looked at life sciences doctoral degrees and not just biological/biomedical.)
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Thank you! That was very helpful. We might have to take another look at Wheaton. I don’t really associate it with biology but I’ll have to dive deeper. Harding was at a college fair we went to in October and it was briefly on the list. I think she just forgot about it.
I don’t know if I could get over Transylvania’s name. lol
Will definitely look at Ohio Wesleyan!
Thanks again!
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My only problem with Transylvania is that their teams are named the (wait for it) Pioneers.
What?!? You were given a golden opportunity like that, and you take Pioneers?? I mean yeah, your logo is a bat, but that just kind of makes it worse, you know?
(It ranks right up there with Drake’s teams being the Bulldogs, not the Dragons.)
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WHAT?! How in the world are they not the Vampires?! lol
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because, then they’d have to pay royalties each time they wanted to publish another “Interview with a…”
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I guess no one figured out yet that this is a group account, staffed 24x7x365, by an entire research department 
Or maybe AustenNut is the next iteration of ChatGPT…
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… one indication being “hallucinations”?
Ok, so we had D25’s meeting with the guidance counselor yesterday. (Rather, I did. The school didn’t even ask that D25 be there. Aside: I don’t think the counselor has ever even seen my daughter. Let’s talk about how personal her rec is going to be. And now back to our programming.)
We talked about classes for next year. At this point, it looks like this:
AP Eng Lit
AP Bio
H Pre-Calc
DE US History
DE Psych
PE [found out she either has to do 3 years(!) of “life skills” courses, or they’ll let her count her dance. I thought it was 1 year. This is in addition to 2 years PE. Oops.]
DE Neuroscience (this won’t actually go on her transcript bc it’s at an OOS 4 year and the school won’t put it on, but they were ok with her decreasing her load one semester to let her take it)
Does this look reasonable if she is going to apply to some highly rejective schools? If you have quibbles, fire away! She has taken AP Spanish and 1 DE course of Spanish Lit, so is likely done with FL.
Oh, but D25 also said to me two days ago, “So, Mom, I might go back to (former high school) next year.” Ahem, what? I’m supportive of whatever works best for her, but this surprised me, as she really has appreciated having more control of her time. But I have heard mutterings about her missing her friends, and I think the realization that all but one of her close dance friends are either graduating or moving away is hitting her. So there’s a chance this might end and she’ll be back in a brick & mortar again. No one told me I was going to need to be this flexible as a parent. (Are any of you “Js” on the Myers-Briggs? Closure, people, closure!)
I think I’m really adept at second guessing everything. Here’s hoping I learn enough with this kid so when S27 gets closer I’ll not question so much.
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Looks like she has the 4 main bases covered. Math/English/Science/Social Studies. All with a reasonably challenging sounding class. FL was the hole I immediately saw, but I think if she has already done AP she should be fine.
Just my parent opinion, but I’ve been diving pretty deep into this since my 2019 was a soph. Looks good to me.
Also as an aside, I’m a solid “P”, and my wife is a solid “J”. I understand your frustration, and can also picture my wife shaking if she was in your shoes! Make a decision!!
AP Gov test tomorrow at 8am. Can’t wait for it to be done. It’s her only one this year. Next year she’ll have 3.
Starting Wednesday she’s going to start hard core SAT prep. And by hardcore, I just mean 20ish minutes a day plus a couple of practice test thrown in.
Anyone else’s kid have atrocious handwriting? It’s the only thing I’m worried about for the AP test tomorrow. lol
My in-laws met at Juniata and my sister-in-law went there. They rave on the school.
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AP Gov is finished. D25 said that it was easier than the practice tests she’d taken. Hopefully that means a good score. So now they’ll just have movies and responses in that class.
She’ll only have 5 finals out of 7 classes. One of them, Biomedical Science, is a college credit class.
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I have survived the college decision process with S23. Learned a lot. Feeling much more prepared for D25.
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