<p>Harvey Mudd
Johns Hopkins
Northwestern
Occidental
Rice
Stanford</p>
<p>I'm planning to apply there, plus the UCs. Should I cut any of these schools?</p>
<p>Also planning to be premed, if that matters</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd has a great chem department but is not generally know for premed because of the low grade inflation, which you may want to take into account.</p>
<p>Rice has a great chemistry department. Dr. James Tour (google him) teaches here ( I will have him for orgo next semester). Additionally, “buckyballs” were invented at Rice as well.</p>
<p>Rice is also excellent for pre-med since we have the world’s largest medical center (Texas Medical Center) next door.</p>
<p>Buckyballs weren’t invented, they were discovered. They’ve been in campfire soot since the caveman days, it’s just that nobody ever noticed them before. And yes, the Rice University chemistry program is awesome.</p>
<p>With the exception of Occidental, all will offer great undergraduate chem preparation. Northwestern and Stanford are standouts - consistently top 10 ranked. Northwestern stronger in Inorganic, Stanford in Organic. Mudd will offer great undergrad teaching on all fronts but is reputedly even more rigorous than these other very rigorous programs.</p>
<p>Come to Northwestern…we have Mirkin (currently number one cited chemist in world) and Silverman (inventor of compound for lyrica) 
</p>
<p>[Mirkin</a> Group](<a href=“Mirkin Research Group – Northwestern University”>Mirkin Research Group – Northwestern University)
[Silverman’s</a> golden drug makes him NU’s golden ticket » North by Northwestern](<a href=“http://www.northbynorthwestern.com/2010/02/63918/silvermans-golden-drug-makes-him-nus-golden-ticket/]Silverman’s”>http://www.northbynorthwestern.com/2010/02/63918/silvermans-golden-drug-makes-him-nus-golden-ticket/)</p>
<p>@spdf: Yeah, that was a blunder on my part. I knew they occurred naturally; I meant that they were discovered at Rice.</p>
<p>Rice is going to be a smaller school as well with tons of research opportunities, so you will probably get more personalized attention at Rice versus a place like Stanford or Northwestern.</p>
<p>^that’s usually what lower-ranked & smaller programs like to market themselves to compensate for the ranking. it’s largely nothing more than just unsubstantiated claim.</p>
<p>Three Chemistry Undergrads at NU Receive Prestigious Goldwater Scholarships:
[NU</a> Chemistry](<a href=“Department of Chemistry - Northwestern University”>Department of Chemistry - Northwestern University)</p>
<p>Rice may be smaller as a university, but engineering is actually a different story. Stanford has about 700 undergrad engineering majors, Rice about 1,000, Northwestern about 1,400. None are large programs. Class sizes will be small at each. Despite NU having the largest program, their Engineering First program for freshman probably offers one of the most innovative closely mentored programs in the country. It was designed to “Engage faculty with students from the very start of their college careers…Engineering First® gives students the chance to engineer early with real engineers.”</p>
<p>Love this program.</p>
<p>[About</a> Engineering First<sup></sup> - Northwestern University: McCormick School of Engineering](<a href=“http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/undergraduate/prospective/efirst/about.php]About”>http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/undergraduate/prospective/efirst/about.php)</p>
<p>Thanks guys! So seems that all these schools on my list are pretty good…maybe I should kick off Occidental because it doesnt seem to be that great? And perhaps Harvey Mudd because my GPA would seriously die there?</p>
<p>And btw Bala, chem, not engineering!</p>
<p>I looked up Harvey Mudd, and the average GPA upon graduation was about 3.3 in 2008, which is on par with most non-Ivy top schools (normally between 3.2 and 3.4). It’s not like it’s Georgia Tech or Swartmore or schools known for deflation. The lowest I saw in the table I read was like 2.97 average. Schools like GT are just now getting to 3.0. I go to Emory, and ours may be between 3.3 and 3.4, and we are not a math and science school. Don’t exclude Harvey Mudd because of that.</p>
<p>Well, Sam Lee, I have found that Rice has actually been quite true with its claim.</p>
<p>^The reason I bet this claim is not true for chemistry is because one of the posters is a chemistry major at NU and had posted how awesome the program is. It’s like the department wants to make sure the quality of the highly ranked graduate ranking trickles down to undergrad also. The standard is so high that a while back, the department only accepted transfer credit for organic chemistry from Harvard; then it decided to drop Harvard. The department has produced Goldwater and Cambridge Gates winners consistently.</p>
<p>But isn’t that at least partially because of how Stanford divides orgo. between spring and summer (as in orgo. 1 in Spring, and orgo. 2 in Fall) as opposed to Fall/Spring. My orgo. prof. at Emory told me about that, because apparently we were considering it. Needless to see that he didn’t agree with that method. I don’t know if they do that simply because Stanford orgo. is far more difficult than the other schools’. Honestly, I bet many schools in the top 20 can give any Ivy or top 10 a run for the money when describing the difficulty of orgo. sections. We have some notorious sections at Emory for example.</p>
<p>Oh, I should revise that statement about our graduating GPA. Normally our graduating GPA is a flat 3.3, or a mid-high 3.2 (an old Emory report broke it down by gender, I was about a 3.2?(low hundredth’s place) for males and 3.34 for females. This by no means indicates there was no grade inflation over the years, and I certainly would not call it low grade inflation, even though there are those science majors here that claim deflation, I disagree (and I am one) because lecture component averages in intro chem/bio/physics (lets include orgo.) courses are normally between D to C+. Admittedly, the only curved courses among these is orgo, but I don’t really think intro. should be curved. To give a breakdown, intro. bio averages are usually C/C+, intro. non-calc. physics C-/C, calc. physics has a range depending on year, D/C+, gen. chem. depends on section D/C, organic chemistry D/C- (before curving). These are probably normal course averages at top schools. I don’t know why some here consider it deflation. I am right that this is normal at other schools, right?</p>
<p>oh yeah did i mention that two of our chemistry professors were just elected to NAS? 
[Top</a> Scientific Honor for Two Chemists : Northwestern University Newscenter](<a href=“http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2010/04/nas.html]Top”>Top Scientific Honor for Two Chemists: Northwestern University News)</p>
<p>Heh thanks guys. </p>
<p>Seems like you Northwestern kids really love it…same with you Rice kids!</p>
<p>Here is a recent thread about Chemistry at Occidental (from the Occidental forum):
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/occidental-college/906080-chemistry.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/occidental-college/906080-chemistry.html</a></p>
<p>Hehe I started that thread!</p>