<p>Friend is having a hard time deciding between Brown and Penn. He knows he wants to major in chem or bio. Has already done publishable research and wants to continue with medically based research in college. Potentially also considering med school in the future.</p>
<p>So which would be better given his academic interests? Only one day left to decide!</p>
<p>Penn has an amazing amount of medical research on campus, and much of it is open to participation by undergraduates. Penn is always among the top 3 recipients of research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and has a medical research complex that includes its medical school, nursing school, dental school, veterinary school (which does a lot of research relevant to human medicine), bioengineering department, and 3 large teaching hospitals, not to mention the world-renowned Wistar Institute on campus and the top-ranked and research-intensive Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia located next to campus. Very few other places in the world–if any–offer such a large and comprehensive medical research complex on the same college campus with undergraduates.</p>
<p>And speaking of undergrads, Penn strongly encourages undergraduate participation in all of this research activity. For example, in the research directory maintained by Penn’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF), there currently are 189 open undergraduate research positions listed in Biomedical Science:</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“Penn CURF”>Penn CURF]Center</a> for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships–Research Directory<a href=“click%20on%20any%20listing%20for%20a%20detailed%20description”>/url</a></p>
<p>I think Penn and Brown have a different “vibe,” and Philly and Providence are very different cities if that matters.</p>
<p>Thanks for the thorough response, 45 percenter!</p>
<p>My friend just let me know that he chose Penn!</p>