<p>It's coming down to those final couple days in which I'll have to make the final decision for where I'll be heading in the fall. I've narrowed it down between the University of Miami and the University of Minnesota and really need your help and thoughts about final ideas and deciding factors--any advice or thoughts about anything at all helps! I'm thinking about majoring in neuroscience and possibly something else, definitely wanting to stay on the premed track and go to medical school in hopes of getting a MD (this is a long shot, but I've always thought about becoming a neurosurgeon). I also like being involved, exploring research opportunities, etc.</p>
<p>University of Miami: $58K - $27K scholarships
-invited to PRISM program
-invited as Foote Fellow
-concerned about grade curves
-more expensive than Minnesota but worth it?</p>
<p>University of Minnesota: $25K - $6K scholarships
-close to home (I live two hours away)
-accepted into College of Biological Sciences
-accepted into Honors Program
-not as good as Miami academically?</p>
<p>thank you so much! any thoughts would be appreciated :)</p>
<p>I’m curious to know what you ended up deciding. Being a Foote Fellow is such a huge advantage, it really makes UM a much more appealing option in your case. PRISM is a good program for sciences like neuro, and as a neuroscience major, UM should also be appealing because they have the new neuroscience building being built for I think fall of 2013.</p>
<p>Not sure where your concerns of grade curves stem from… am also curious to hear about that.</p>
<p>Are you kidding barrons? Miami is an up-and-coming elite private school while Minnesota is a fairly run of the mill Big 10 school. Miami should be in the conversation with Emory, Rice, Vanderbilt, and Carnegie Mellon in a decade or two.</p>
Seriously, I don’t even know how anyone can honestly believe that UMinn “is much stronger than Miami.” LOL it’s in fact the other way around… and not even close. </p>
<p>Regarding Miami being in the conversation with the likes of Emory, Vanderbilt, and Rice, it’s already pretty darn close… don’t think it’ll take two decades at all. You’re already seeing threads on here of people debating between Vanderbilt/Emory and UM, and I personally passed up a full ride at Vanderbilt to attend UM, and it wasn’t for the social life at UM, as academics are #1 priority. </p>
<p>People who talk so blatantly downward of UM clearly aren’t up-to-date on its standings and achievements.</p>
<p>Minnesota is clearly a much better research university than the University of Miami. It’s possible that University of Miami has some advantages at the undergraduate level but barron’s comment is pretty reasonable.</p>
<p>@SeekingUni Sure. Here’s a number of research metrics where Minnesota does much better. By what metrics is the University of Miami a comparable research university?</p>
<p>Consider the Academic Ranking of World Universities [Academic</a> Ranking of World Universities - 2011| Top 500 universities | Shanghai Ranking - 2011 | World University Ranking - 2011](<a href=“http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2011.html]Academic”>http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2011.html). Not only is Minnesota leagues above Miami in the overall rankings 28th vs 151-200, it also has substantial leads in all metrics. Whether or not you trust rankings the metrics used in AWRU are important. Minnesota has clear leads in alumni winning Nobel prizes or Fields medals, staff winning Nobel prizes or Fields medals, papers published in Nature or Science, number of highly cited researches, and publications. University of Miami leads in no categories. Minnesota also retains its considerable lead when adjusted for per capita.</p>
<p>In the Times Higher Education rankings which reflect the amount of research a university does, Minnesota again has a commanding lead being ranked 42nd compared to the University of Miami at 172nd. Minnesota also has decisive leads in the research, teaching and citations subscores.</p>
<p>There might be a handful of depts at Miami that are better than same at UMinn. U Minn is FAR better in engineering, biosciences and social sciences. It has a Top 10 econ dept. Miami is not even an afterthought. It has a better business school, better med school and better law school.
Not to mention Miami is seriously overextended. </p>
<p>How is this “academic prestige” as it relates to graduate education going to benefit the OP? Minnesota isn’t exactly Berkeley or UCLA anyway. UMiami has a better medical school than Minnesota and provides much better premed preparation which is what the OP is interested in.</p>
<p>Neither university is prestigious but Miami has more upside.</p>
<p>
Once you get past Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, etc., you are always better off going to a private school in my opinion for the greater undergraduate focus, especially when neither school is going to “wow” laymen, corporate recruiters, or graduate admissions officers.</p>
<p>“Always”? Even if it is something like Seton Hall versus Rutgers?</p>
<p>And plenty of lesser known public schools are focused on undergraduates. Examples would include the entire California State University system. In contrast, plenty of private universities follow the research university model, so they may not be as undergraduate focused.</p>
<p>I saw no greater focus on undergraduate education when I was an undergraduate student at Northwestern than I do now as an instructor at a public Big Ten school. </p>
<p>People in the academic world know the quality of Minnesota undergraduates and certainly think no less of them than a Miami graduate. If anything, Miami suffers from a ‘country club’ image.</p>