<p>"Yale's only good in the humanities, so what's the use of that"</p>
<p>I would strongly disagree. I would argue that Yale and Caltech are the top undergraduate science programs overall, with MIT and Harvard being close runners-up. </p>
<p>What you might be confusing is quantity and quality. Obviously, places like UCSF, Johns Hopkins, and Michigan churn out more papers than Caltech each year, and are very good, but I would argue that the quality of Caltech's program (at both the undergraduate as well as the graduate level) and the average faculty quality is higher than that of any of those places. </p>
<p>If you evaluate quality-based rankings, you can see some trends. In the individual department rankings of the 2006 Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index published by the Chronicle of Higher Education, 4 of Yale's science departments were ranked #1 in the nation (and many others in the top five). For comparison's sake, 4 of Harvard's, 3 of Stanford's, 2 of MIT's, 1 of Princeton's, and none of Northwestern's departments were ranked #1.</p>
<p>Another way to look at it is that 13 of Yale's biological science programs were ranked among the top 10, versus just 10 of Harvard's, 10 of UCSF's, 10 of Johns Hopkins's, 10 of Duke's, 8 of Stanford's, 6 of UCSD's, 5 of UPenn's, 4 of Berkeley's, 3 of Caltech's, and 3 of MIT's. </p>
<p>According to a totally separate source, ScienceWatch 2006 published by ISI, if you take the average placement of the 100 largest university science programs among 21 different fields, Yale scored the highest average placement with a score of 2.67, followed MIT at 3.00, then Harvard (3.80). Princeton and Stanford were in fourth place. </p>
<p>In other words, you could argue that Yale is #1 for undergraduate science -- not even just #2 or "top five." Certainly, the sciences are a major area of strength for Yale. Obviously, Yale also has amazing programs in fields other than science which compete for undergraduate majors. It is generally regarded to have among the strongest history, political science, law, psychology, anthropology, art history, economics, English, language and literature departments in the world, for example. That's why it ranks so highly on an overall basis: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060158922-post45.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060158922-post45.html</a></p>
<p>More anecdotal evidence includes things such as Yale winning more young researcher (PECASE) awards this year than any other institution in the United States. Also, Yale's science faculty have won four Gairdner Awards just within the past 4 years. The Gairdner is the most prestigious science award in the world after the Nobel Prize, as about 1/4 or more of Gairdner Award winners later go on to receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine-Physiology. Yale's research program is world-renowned and rapidly expanding, and in terms of actual research funding per undergraduate science student, Yale beats everyone else (except for Caltech) hands-down. That means plenty of research opportunities.</p>
<p>Anyhow, my suggestion is to throw all of this info out the window and evaluate the program for yourself. Harvard, Yale, MIT, Johns Hopkins, UCSD, UCSF, Stanford, WUSTL, Chicago, Duke and others are all world-renowned for their science research, but which school has the best undergraduate program? Talk with current faculty and students and see if they like the biology program, as well as where they go after they graduate. Also it is important to see where you would best fit in as a student. Some people would do better at a place like Wellesley or Pomona -- both of which have incredible undergraduate programs -- than they would at a large, impersonal school like Berkeley, Stanford, Michigan, Texas, etc. It doesn't take all that much work to figure out which school is right for you, but don't base your decision on what anyone else says.</p>