<p>I am seeking a major in Zoology; Wildlife Biology;Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution (EBE is all one major); etc.</p>
<p>Please rank these schools in the order of how good their Zoology (or Zoology-related) majors are.</p>
<p>UCLA, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Florida, Humboldt State University.</p>
<p>Also, I am open to other recommendations. </p>
<p>Thanks in advance</p>
<p>UC Berkeley > UCSD = UCLA = U of Florida > U of Hawaii = UCSB</p>
<p>It depends on your area of interest. In the broadest terms, however, UC Davis has the best ecology and wildlife management programs among the UCs - not even Berkeley is as good in this area, though its integrated biology program and the college of natural resources are extremely strong, making it a close second. </p>
<p>UCLA/UF would follow Berkeley. Florida is one of only a handful of schools to still offer a degree in zoology, and its offerings are quite strong, as are the research/internship opportunities. </p>
<p>UCSB is roughly as good as UCLA for ecology, and if your interests lie in marine science, it is certainly on par. Hawaii is excellent for botany, zoology, and marine science, and for purely organismal offerings, it is also probably on par with or slightly better than UCLA. Humboldt State is great for natural resource management and environmental science, and it is arguably the best for botany, but overall it is not quite at the level of the other schools. </p>
<p>USCD is a bit of the odd man out. Although it offers ecology/evolution, it does so primarily from a micro rather than macroscopic level, so you won’t find many of the specialized courses in ornithology, limnology, bryology, etc. that you might expect elsewhere.</p>
<p>It seems you’re primarily confining your search to the west coast (and are hopefully a California resident). I would certainly recommend Washington, which is on par with Berkeley for ecology and has excellent fisheries and wildlife management programs to boot, and Oregon State, which has a superb zoology program.</p>
<p>There are numerous other excellent programs (Michigan State, Cornell, Wisconsin, Maine, UNH, NC State, Auburn, Duke, Princeton, Oklahoma, SUNY ESF, Texas A&M, and more), but the publics are probably not worth the cost unless you’re a resident of that state. Even with a MS degree, which you’d likely need for zoology, people in the field don’t make much more than $30-40K a year starting out.</p>