<p>Hey guys, I could use some advice from other potential biomed ph.d students. I got an early offer into a program that I like a lot, where they have a lot of labs that are in my specific interest area. Based on the kinds of research they do, it was my top choice program through this whole application process. </p>
<p>The school (BU) is unfortunately very poorly ranked by the latest NRC results. I <em>think</em> they've been specifically building the program and with the new BSL-4 facility, are trying to make it a bigger player in academic, biomed research. Unfortunately, right now the level of publications coming out, especially student papers, aren't consistent and aren't in high impact journals. I also just got an email from Tufts saying I'd likely get an offer. This is, of course, not 100%, but it's definitely made me start thinking more seriously about this ranking thing. Tufts is very highly ranked in the field (top 10) but is a much MUCH smaller program and only has a few labs that directly interest me. Still, that's 3-5 labs I'd be happy with. </p>
<p>Does anyone more familiar with the area (I'm on the west coast and out of the east coast schools loop) know if BU is building its reputation and if a degree from there would be respected? I know that if you do great work anywhere, you'll be noticed, but that's more of a rare case than not (to really stand out, that is), so I'm not putting all my eggs in that basket. Would a future post-doc institution look much more critically at a BU degree over Tufts? Should I just go to the school that has problems in other areas but is working on the things I love and just let the chips fall where they may? I unfortunately don't have a close mentor in the micro field (I work in genetics), so I'm not sure if I should re-think this whole thing.</p>
<p>Thanks for any help. Again, I don't even have an offer to Tufts yet, so I could be worrying for nothing!</p>