Hi, I recognize this is a rather old post and what I say no longer pertains to the OP, but I’ve had a few people ask me about the neuroscience program at Tulane, a few seemingly worried about its quality compared to “higher-ranked” schools, and I thought this might be a good place to answer them and anyone sleuthing around with an in-depth description (if it’s more appropriate for me to start a new thread for things like this, please let me know–I’m new here).
I’m an alumni from the neuroscience program at Tulane who graduated in the last five years and have great things to say about it. Regarding graduate placement from the program: neuroscience is one of the most common pre-med majors (it’s built into the curriculum) and thus swarming with students wanting to go to med school–and most I personally knew did get into medical school. In comparison, fewer students pursued PhDs; however, I was one of the students who did and, applying straight from undergrad (this is only to illustrate the strength of the academic programs at Tulane), I received interviews/acceptances from every graduate school I applied to, including top-tier ones like MIT, Caltech, and Stanford, and was a finalist/awardee for nationally recognized fellowships. I am no exception either–I know other neuro students who got into highly selective MD/PhD programs, etc.
A quick anecdote: I had the chance to chat with the admissions director for the neuroscience grad program at a top-ranked program (think Ivy League) as a junior; when asking them if I had good enough stats to even bother applying, I told them my GPA. They immediately asked what school I attended. When I told them Tulane, they replied: “Oh, that’s a great, well-respected school. With a high GPA from an academically rigorous school like Tulane, you definitely have a good shot.”
Of course, the perceived prestige of a program shouldn’t matter compared to the actual quality of the program. While Tulane does a fairly decent job at having good STEM lecturers, the neuroscience program in particular really hits it out of the park with how good they are at teaching (there are a couple profs in particular whose classes can sometimes have LONG waitlists due to their reputation). The faculty also is absolutely incredible in terms of mentorship and class/career guidance–if you’re willing to talk to them, they will spend hours they really don’t have advising you.
Two other points I loved about the program (although the faculty quality was definitely my favorite aspect):
(1) flexibility in the major–outside the pre-med core, you have lots of freedom and many electives to choose from, making it easy to specialize in whatever aspect of neuroscience you’d like, from cognitive to molecular. In my case, it also allowed me to easily double major.
(2) Tons of research opportunity–between the core faculty, the medical school (actually, most of my neuro friends happened to work in med school labs), and the new well-funded Tulane Brain Institute (whose new building has beautiful facilities and fancy conference rooms), it is fairly straightforward to get research experience if you’re willing to keep asking around, unlike at some well-respected state schools where I’ve talked to friends complain about the competition over limited resources.
In summary: AMAZING neuroscience program, has all the resources and opportunities to get you wherever you want, as long as you are willing to go for it.