Schools with good science undergrad programs?

College Search & Selection
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<p>I hope my title for this thread wasn't terrible. Anyway, I started to look at colleges since I'll be applying next fall. I started my search using those college search engines on the internet. Chose schools based on name recognition and looking at the stats on their sites--looking at their majors, etc. I'm thinking of Biochemistry or Neuroscience. Ummm, I'd also like to go to medical school when I'm done that. So. I don't even know if undergrad majors are that important considering med school (and BA v BS?! sdfsdfsa)</p>

<p>I have no idea what colleges I should apply to. I mean I want to apply to colleges that are good for the path that I'm seeking but..it's hard for me to figure out which colleges those are! So I thought maybe asking in a forum like this would help out. :D</p>

<p>Here are my (academic) credentials from high school--approx. number grades--unweighted. if not marked ap, they were honors (or adv honors--)--whatev that means to everyone else here!</p>

<p>freshman (chem - 90, eng 1 - 94, french 2 - 93, alg 2 - 94, world hist - 95)
sophomore (ap calc (ab) - 90, eng 2 - 91, ap us hist 1 - 90, ap bio - 93, anat & phys - 94)
junior (ap us gov & poli - 92, ap stat - 93, eng 3 - 94, ap chem - 95, ap physics (c) - 90)</p>

<p>stnd tests-
sat i: 750 (m), 740 (v), 730 (w)
sat ii: 710 (bio), 710 (math ii), 730 (lit)
ap exams: BC calc - 4 (5, AB subscore), bio - 5
probably grades for ap exams taken this year: us gov & poli - 4/5, stat - 4/5, chem - 5, physics mechanics - 5, physics e&m - 3 if i'm lucky.</p>

<p>ec-
varsity tennis, 4 years, captain & (at the moment) 1st singles next year, some tournaments (team, not usta or anything)
science club, 4 years, regional olympiad placements
asian-american club, 2 years
NJ governor's school (sciences)
conference honors band, 3 years (Bb clarinet)
drexel uni visiting scholar, 4 years (basically every quarter there i get a free class because of jhu's cty thing--)</p>

<p>other:
female. asian (flip/viet). public high school in south jersey. less well-off than peers. if there's anything else, don't hesitate to ask. :)</p>

<p>anddd my tentative list-
amherst, brandeis, brown, bucknell, carnegie mellon, duke, hypm, northeastern, stanford, tufts, upenn, williams</p>

<p>any help is surely appreciated. :)</p>

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<p>and i guess gpa would be important, huh? (i tried to find out where to edit my post if possible--no dice)</p>

<p>my school uses a 100pt scale as opposed to 4.0. grades are inflated like no other--ap classes get +10, adv honors get +10, honors get +6. so my weighted gpa is something like a 101.5. our unweighted gpa includes no academic classes so i'm not sure what it is, really. there is "no class rank" but i'm somewhere in the top 20 or 30. of ~650 or so.</p>

<p>i also have the most difficult and rigorous classes over anyone else, if that makes up for less-than-stellar grades.</p>

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<p>Add Davidson and William & Mary to your list. Both have great records for premed by majoring in either BIO or Chem</p>

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<p>northeastern doen't fit your list. Did you mean Northwestern? You have a mixture of LACs and universities. Any preference? Brandeis has a large Jewish population. Does that matter? Cornell is good for sciences.</p>

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<p>yeah, meant northwestern. i prefer universities slightly (and of course, mommy favors any ivies :)) but it doesn't matter that much as long as the program is ..."good" (wow, how ambiguous can you get). i'm pretty lenient concerning almost everything else.</p>

<p>the only biases i have are no unisex schools, preferably in the anywhere on the east coast stretching from new england down to about north carolina. and california is all right too.</p>

<p>thanks so far, guys!</p>

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<p>Well, I would say you need to narrow your list to 10-12 schools. Maybe exclude Northwestern because of location (Midwest) and the LACS and Brandeis because of small size. I would narrow down to 2 or 3 of the Ivies. I would exclude Stanford because of distance. You migh consider Cornell, JHU, and U Rochester for pre-med preparation.</p>

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<p>Maybe exclude . . . the LACS and Brandeis because of small size.</p>

<p>I disagree. Despite their size, Amherst, Brandeis, and Williams all have top-caliber science programs and extremely impressive med school placements. Arguably they would be better to attend than universities, because classes will get smaller faster, and equipment, faculty attention, and research grants are focused almost exclusively on undergrads.</p>

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<p>bumped, you don't have to major in a science to go to med school. I would estimate ~40% of med students today did not major in bio/chem/physics etc. Med schools want a person that does well in the pre-req classes(bio, chem, ochem, physics, math) as well as someone who is well rounded in other subjects aka history, english, the arts, etc.</p>

<p>Also, if you plan on going to med school try and avoid any debt...some med schools cost 60k+ a year after all said and done. However, pick the school that you feel like you will have the best time/fit in because any top school is going to give you great opportunities...you just have to go out and take advantage of them</p>

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<p>well, i think at this point, even if i didn't want to go to med school, i'd major in a science. i enjoy them a lot--especially biochem, and i think neurosci is interesting. i can see myself minoring in other subjects though--which brings up another question. </p>

<p>when people choose minors, is it often a hobby-ish thing or something somewhat related to their major? what about double majors? i know what subjects you can double major depends on what school you go to depending on their policies--right?</p>

<p>and also, could anyone give me a little more detailed info on amherst and duke? and about my list, is it a good list for me? are a lot of my schools reaches for the criteria i have? sorry for asking so many questions. :) you guys have been a lot of help.</p>

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<p>According to its website Reed College produces more (per capita) Ph.D.'s in the life sciences than any other school in the nation. Academically it is second to none and it is located in a fun city city on beautiful campus. Its facilities are quite amazing for an LAC, for example, an active, student-run nuclear reactor, and brain-scanning equipment for undergraduate research.</p>

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<p>Reed is a great school but offers ONLY need based aid if that makes a difference.</p>

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<p>if you want good undergrad science - any ivy, stanford, duke, northwestern, and chicago will have anything you could want</p>

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<p>First of all, I'll say yeah south jersey public school students who did CTY. </p>

<p>You can probably take of some of the top tier stuff. I'd say of HYPSM, only apply to 3 or less. From your stats right now, there is nothing extremely outstanding, other than being a woman in science, but there are still a fair number of those. Princeton is going to be extrememly difficult for you to get into, especially instate. Of the kids I saw getting in this year (not me waitlisted) they all had something that truly made them stand out, something like national awards in chemistry or programming. </p>

<p>I'm not sure why you have missed Columbia or JHU on your list, you also might want to look into Harvey Mudd College in California, I really liked the place when I visited. Cornell probably has a better science program than any of the ivies and they love to take women that have lesser resumes than you do. I don't hear many good things about bucknell, a kid from my school went last year, he then transfer to Stevens because the place was too isolated.</p>

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<p>i'm thinking that of HYPSM, i'll be attempting to take on yale and princeton. or harvard and princeton. i HAD jhu on my list but i guess i deleted it while getting rid of some other schools. thanks a lot for the input, this is helping me out a lot!</p>

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<p>DUKE, Hopkins, HYP.</p>

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<p>If you are serious about neuroscience, MIT has by far the best program in the US.<br>
<a href="http://www.mit.edu/bcs/%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.mit.edu/bcs/&lt;/a> </p>

<p>Its faculty includes 2 Nobel Prize winners and just unlimited research resources for undergrads. Most graduates end up in the top med schools or pursue PhDs in various bioscience fields. My D is enrolling at MIT this fall specifically because of this program and there is nothing even remotely close to it at HYP or S. Because of the premed requirements you pretty much end up double majoring either in chemistry or biology, which are also among the very best departments in the country. You should probably contact Mollie on the MIT board for additional information. She just graduated from the program and is now pursuing a PhD at Harvard medical school.</p>

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<p>Penn's top-tier med school has resulted in very strong life-sciences. Just finished a shiny new bioengineering building last year.</p>

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<p>If you are in the top 10% of your class, Harvey Mudd College will give you 10,000$ merit aid just for your SAT scores.</p>

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<p>i'm definitely in the top 10%. probably in the top 5%.</p>

<p>thanks guys--especially for the detailed info about individual schools! it's really helpful! (i say this every time i reply to my thread, but it's true!)</p>

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