<p>So far I have been accepted into most of my schools, yet I feel like my three best choices so far are Pitt, Northeastern, and Purdue (I'm still waiting to hear back from NYU, GW, BU, and Syracuse). I currently attend a boarding school, so there is an immense pressure to attend the most prestigious university, which in my case is Northeastern. However, I am a student interested in the medical field and I want my major to be either neuroscience or nutrition science. To be honest, I have no clue which school would be in my best interest. While Northeastern is enticing, I was accepted into their N.U.in program which means that I would have to study abroad my first semester. Additionally, it just doesn't make sense to pay a larger amount of money for an education that isn't even top 30. My family is placing a large amount of pressure on me to attend Northeastern, but I feel like based off of my personal qualities in conjunction with research opportunities Pitt might be the most logical option. It's cheaper, it has a more laid-back environment, and there are plenty of research opportunities. I'm just not sure if I'm cut out for the expensive, hectic, east-coast lifestyle. Anyways, this is incredibly long winded, my main questions are: which university is better for a pre-med student and which university gives the best experience for the tuition cost? (I live in Ohio so I'm out of state for both Purdue and Pitt)</p>
<p>I don’t know what you mean by “laid back” for Pitt vs. NEU. I can speak to research opportunities - I have 2 at Pitt, both in engineering, one frosh and one jr. Both have been able to get research easily - there is a ton of NIH funded projects going on and Pitt has the hospitals and medical school to expand those opportunities. My frosh simply sent an email to 10 researchers and 4 got back to her within a day - she’s working at one of the research institutes in the UPMC on stem cell therapy. I think if you are interested in medicine, those opportunities are pretty special and unique. My daughter had the choice of Pitt and NEU and chose Pitt for that reason, and also because of the cost differences. Boston would be a much more expensive city for basic living costs - I have friends with students at NEU and off-campus housing is much much more expensive (like 3x). </p>
<p>@julie528 If you search this thread by typing in Northeastern in the search forum at the top (while you are in the Pitt forum) there have been several discussions on Northeastern vs Pitt. It will help give you many opinions on it over the last few years. Be careful of saying Northeastern is more prestigious than Pitt. It really depends on the criteria. If you are going with the intent of pursuing a medical field, Pitt is ranked higher in most of those categories. My son turned down NEU for Pitt (majoring in Pharmacy) and hasn’t regretted it for a minute. Just my humble opinion, but I also think the NU in program is a little suspect. It’s their way of putting you on hold by making you study abroad first. You won’t be there for all the traditional fall – Freshman orientation activities which I think are important. </p>
<p>Northeastern is not more prestigious than Pitt. Especially for Neuro or any bio/health sciences. Pitt is the best school on your list for that, and it isn’t really that close.</p>
<p>I have a PhD in Neuroscience and if you are considering that, your top choice of all the schools on your list should be Pitt. Pitt is the only school on your list with an undergraduate neuro program on offered by a full fledged Department of Neuroscience, not just a Program in Neuroscience. This is a big advantage, and I’ve described why at length in a recent post comparing Pitt’s program to Michigan’s here: <a href=“UPitt vs Michigan for Neuroscience - #7 by wgmcp101 - University of Pittsburgh - College Confidential Forums”>UPitt vs Michigan for Neuroscience - #7 by wgmcp101 - University of Pittsburgh - College Confidential Forums;
<p>Pitt is the only one on your list with the resources and advantages of an undergrad neuro major provided by a fully dedicated Department of neuroscience: Northeastern, Purdue, NYU, GW, Syracuse, and BU only have programs that rely on drawing resources and faculty from separate related departments like biology or psychology.</p>
<p>For Neuroscience, biosciences and health sciences, Pitt should really be your top choice as long as you feel comfortable with the size and setting of the university and feel that you’ll be able to succeed academically there. Neuroscience is a research field, and you’ll need experience working in labs where you can try to work on real research projects that will lead to authorship. Those are also valuable things if you are intending to apply to med school because it helps set your application apart, and the hospital volunteering/physician shadowing for med school applicants is also easy to accomplish at Pitt because the medical center and research labs are right on the undergrad campus. It’s easy to fit in doing these things around your undergrad academic and social schedules there, at least compared to schools that don’t have these facilities within walking distance of your dorms and other undergrad facilities.</p>
<p>Regarding the prestige thing, I assume you are going by US News rankings, and only US News, which is just silly because it is one of dozens of rankings and the small difference in scores between Pitt and Northeastern won’t impact a career in medicine or other biosciences one iota. It is especially silly if you are relying US News to conclude that Northeastern has more prestige than Pitt because just two years ago Northeastern was ranked behind Pitt. Each time US News changes their methodology, which is every few years, the rankings get shuffled. Nothing has changed at the actual schools to move one ahead of the other. In all other major rankings that I am aware of, Pitt is ranked ahead of Northeastern: Forbes (US), Washington Monthly (US), Princeton Review Academic Rating (US), Center for Measuring University Performance (US), Times Higher Education (London), Quacquarelli Symonds/US News World (London), ARWU (Shanghai), SCImago (Madrid), Leiden (Netherlands), HEEACT/NTU (Taiwan), URAP (Turkey), Global Language Monitor (US). For overall institutional rankings, I literally can’t find one other ranking that places Northeastern ahead of Pitt.</p>
<p>In addition, of all the schools on your list, Pitt has the best, most varied, and most prestigious bioscience and health science faculty, medical facilities, and research labs. The most reputable measure of this is the amount of peer-reviewed funding schools receive from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This is the largest and most prestigious form of research funding and the primary way institutions compare themselves to each other. Here’s the rank of the schools on your list for Fiscal Year 2013…</p>
<h1>1 Johns Hopkins</h1>
<h1>6 Pitt $396.7 million in funding</h1>
<h1>59 Boston University Medical Campus $101.8 million (separate location)</h1>
<h1>72 George Washington $75.7 million</h1>
<h1>102 NYU $46.1 million</h1>
<h1>110 Boston University Charles River Campus $42 million (undergrad campus)</h1>
<h1>144 Purdue $27.3 million</h1>
<h1>167 Northeastern $22.4 million in funding</h1>
<h1>403 Syracuse $3.3 million</h1>
<p>This is one of the major things people in the biosciences judge institutions by. Going by these and other actual quantitative measures, Pitt has been ranked in the top 25 of American research universities for pretty much the last decade, ahead of all of your other schools, as far as the statistics are compiled by Center for Measuring University Performance which measures things like faculty awards, national academy membership, research expenditures, etc. And again, Pitt has a perennial top 20 ranked medical school and top 10 medical center (UPMC). </p>
<p>I ended up enrolling to BU. </p>
<p>Good choice. NUin is a scam, and I say that as a Northeastern student.</p>