<p>We are in the process of finalizing our college short list for DD, who is a rising junior from a reasonably competitive high school in Texas. She is currently ranked 6th in a class of ~750, with a 4.0 (uw) / 5.5 (w) GPA. Her junior year course load includes AP Calc AB, pre-AP Physics, AP English III, AP Spanish IV, AP US History, Astronomy and Pathophysiology. Next year's planned course load includes AP Stat, AP Biology, AP English IV, AP Gov/Econ, and Honors Anatomy/Physiology.</p>
<p>Her ECs include eczema related research, Indian classical dance, Western and Indian classical vocal music, volunteering at the local children's hospital, and membership in the standard suite of honor societies and clubs.</p>
<p>She is interested in studying something that combines biology and medicine, e.g., an undergrad degree in biology followed by a graduate degree in biomedical sciences.</p>
<p>Leading college choices at the moment are small, diverse universities such as Rice and Emory, as well as more "techie" alternatives such as CMU and Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>I am looking for some parental perspective and/or experience about these colleges - especially as it relates to females interested in life sciences and possibly graduate school. Any insights, thoughts, advice, etc. would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Why are you finalizing a list for a rising junior? She's got an entire year to do that. Kids can change tremendously between junior and senior year. </p>
<p>I think it's OK to develop a list of schools to visit junior year, but not a "short list" of those to apply to.</p>
<p>A good source of information would be parents/students of your HS, who eventually matriculated to those schools. Try your HS advisor. </p>
<p>Alumini groups. Some schools have extensive alumini associations that can be found by the school's website. Biased information but you can get some type of feel in the caliber of successful students. </p>
<p>Rice, Emory, CMU (not sure of HM) have, nearby, very large medical centers.</p>
<p>I can really only speak about Rice and Carnegie Mellon, though my son applied to Harvey Mudd he didn't ever visit. My nephew is at Rice majoring in bio-engineering. He's absolutely flourishing. He was a good student in high school, but didn't have any research experience. He started working in a prof's lab before school officially began freshman year and had a great internship this summer. He's now thinking about possible MD/Phd programs. Rice has residential colleges which I consider a big plus.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon is where my son is. He's happy as a clam in the School of Computer Science. At SCS there is a group devoted to women in computer science that sponsors various events and has a web page. Be aware that CMU is more separated in separate pre-professional schools than most schools. They even tend to room kids with the same majors together. It may be a bit different in HSS, but my son's social life seems to revolve around his dorm (mostly engineers and computer scientists) and the computer cluster where he does homework (other Linux users). It's an attractive campus in a pretty area, in a city that really is pretty nice. U. of Pittsburgh and the medical center are very nearby.</p>
<p>Agree with fireandrain. DD radically changed her major in the middle of HS Junior year. Required a whole new set of schools. Then when she was accepted, the school that had been first choice in the fall completely changed. There is a lot of growth and change in this age. It is too soon to be doing a short list. A list to visit, yes.</p>
<p>I think some of the onlookers in this thread may be looking to LENGTHEN the list of a class of 2010 student, so please keep the comments coming about those specific colleges, all of which have few alumni here.</p>
<p>Rice is great for throwing all kinds of students together in the res college system, and it has a nicely balance M/F ratio (about 50/50). Great campus, lots of faculty and staff support. Both my kids were/are very, very pleased with their experiences there. (And my DD even won a post-graduate travel scholarship from Rice. Rice has been very good to us!)</p>
<p>My daughter is a 2007 Rice grad and she (and we) were completely pleased with the Rice experience. There are lots of cultural opportunities, good shopping, a great campus and a perfect sized school. The price is right, too. There are many things about Rice that are superior to the Ivy experience of my other child. Emory was on my son's list (he was an athletic recruit), so I know something about it, too. It is quite different from Rice with a much different "vibe". It's DIII sports as opposed to DI at Rice (well, OK, very low D1 except for baseball). I would give Rice the nod for an undergraduate experience. </p>
<p>I do agree that it is WAY too soon to have a "short list". My kids changed a lot through the last two years of high school, and especially from the start of junior year to the start of senior year.</p>
<p>S had Mudd at the top of his list at the beginning of junior year and it was standing until the very end of April. He would have been thrilled to attend. He is not a bio guy, but I can tell you that Mudd has a Bio and a Mathematical Biology major. The folks S and I know who attend Mudd have been VERY happy with their experiences. Remember that Mudd also is part of the Claremont Consortium, which gives a student the opportunity to take bio/chem courses at the other schools there, including Pomona.</p>
<p>The current president of Mudd, Maria Klawe, was formerly Dean of the Engineering School at Princeton and has launched a successful campaign to recruiting young women to the school. There are also generous merit scholarships for kids with excellent numbers/class ranking, as well as some full-ride scholarships for underrepresented groups.</p>
<p>I just noticed that your D is taking AB Calc -- Mudd requires BC Calc by the time one matriculates. If math is a concern, she should take a look at the math core for Mudd -- it is VERY heavy and everyone, regardless of major, must get through it. Great for some kids, torture for others. If it's torture, there are fine bio programs elsewhere that require less math.</p>
<p>OP, is your D looking at Rice/Mudd/Emory/CMU as reaches or good targets? I wouldn't call any of them safeties even for students with very strong records. If you are targeting schools based on merit money, be aware that the kids who get $$ at these colleges are absolutely stellar and will be getting offers from other top schools as well.</p>
<p>If these are the high end/middle of the list, be sure your D identifies schools that would be true safeties, both from an academic and financial standpoint (if $$ is a concern) and that she would be happy attending. Fortunately, UT's Honors or Plan II seem to be great options for highly qualified in-state residents.</p>
<p>CMU's biology program has a lot of females in it; it's probably the only department in the technical side of the school that has more females than males. I had one friend that was doing bio and he was pretty happy there, though he didn't like how many students wanted to go to med school and weren't actually interested in the biology they were studying. There's lots of opportunities to work with professors at CMU, during my time there (in the Materials Science & Engineering department) I worked with a bunch and and very positive experiences. The University of Pittsburgh is also right down the street and many of their facilities are used by CMU people.</p>
<p>This list has been a while in the making and includes several considerations, e.g., academic reputation, size of undergrad v/s grad population, student/faculty ratio, diversity in student body, 25th-75th percentile SAT score range, climate, etc. All of these schools are what I would classify as reach / target - none would be considered a safety. DD's safety is UT Austin - where she is guaranteed a place if she keeps her top 10% rank (she is ranked in the top 1% now). She will also apply for the Dean's Scholar honors program in the College of Natural Sciences. BTW, her dream (super reach) school is Stanford - although she realizes it is a crap shoot at best even with legacy status. </p>
<p>So far, we have visited Stanford and CMU. The Mudd trip is planned for September, followed by trips to Rice in November and Emory in March. I agree that college visits provide some very useful insights about the "fit" issue. </p>
<p>DD is fairly certain about what she wants to study, and the type of college she wants to enroll in. As such, we feel there is minimal risk in developing a short list for visiting and doing more in-depth research to know these colleges better (so as to articulate responses to the "why Rice" type questions). This may not work for everyone, and we might still be surprised halfway thru Junior year. But, it seems a reasonable strategy for the time being - especially since most applications for early admission / merit scholarships need to be in by November-December of Senior year.</p>
<p>As before, I would continue to appreciate parental perspectives and/or experiences about Rice/Emory/CMU/Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>Could you give some input on your reactions to Stanford and CMU? It might help people gauge what sort of information to give you about the other schools you're asking about (and possibly some other schools to look at that you might not have considered so far).</p>
<p>Stanford pluses - Enthusiasm of students, weather, campus architecture, academic flexibility (independent study options), Human biology major</p>
<p>Stanford minuses - Super selective admissions process, large graduate student population, large size of some core courses</p>
<p>CMU pluses - Enthusiasm of students, excellence in both techie AND artsy areas, quirky campus traditions, accessibility of professors for undergraduate students, Humanities and Science Scholars program</p>
<p>CMU minuses - weather, campus architecture</p>
<p>RacinReaver - How would you contrast the average science major at CMU with the comparable undergrad at CalTech (who might be similar to one from Mudd)?</p>
<p>We visited Mudd this past summer. DD is interested in Biology which is the smallest department at Mudd. Last year they had 8 students graduating from the biology department. The core required curriculum is VERY VERY science and math intense and the science prerequisites as well as SATII's are also quite substantial. Mudd was very different from the other schools we have visited both because it is sooo small and in many ways very informal. DD liked it a lot. She's going to see how much she likes her AP Physics class this year before finalizing a decision on whether she will go if she is accepted but she plans to apply.</p>
<p>Forgot about Mudd's physics requirement, too -- they do a pretty heavy-duty version. S like physics, so it was not a concern to him. (The bio, however, was!) S found Caltech and Mudd to be a universe apart. Loved the Mudd folks, liked the strong humanities requirements, liked that they work intensely hard but also seem to keep it in perspective. Did not care for the joyless life of Caltechers (at least the ones he saw). Was also disappointed with Caltech humanities courses that had large math components -- he felt like they threw in math in the philosophy class he visited just to keep people awake. That kind of killed it for him, as he wanted to also be around humanities people who like what they study.</p>
<p>Mudd is suburban -- not much going on beyond the local Claremont area without access to cars, but the students find plenty of things to do on-campus. Skiing and the beach are also nearby. This was not a big deal to my S, as he is happy to use public transit (even if it takes a long time).</p>
<p>S also looked at CMU -- liked it a lot. He was looking at SCS and a math major. Got the impression it was hard to meet people from other schools within CMU, but I defer to other current students on myth/reality regarding that. S didn't mind the weather (he is heading to Chicago, so obviously it was not an important consideration!) and he thought the campus was pretty.</p>
<p>OP, is it possible for your D to take AP Chem before she graduates? I see her course list is heavy on the bio side, but I am sure that colleges will also want to see how she handles chem, since it's a big part of a bio major's program.</p>
<p>My S had a final list by the end of Spring Break junior year. Your D seems to have good reasons for the shortlist she does. S spent a lot of time sitting in on the classes in his intended major as well as the humanities side. Also talked to profs and advisors. He made appointemtns in advance. A short intense list can be a good thing, but make those visits count. DH or I did campus tours and info sessions while S went out to explore in-depth. It was a good system for him, but he was very tightly focused and knew exactly what he wanted.</p>
<p>D2 is a first yr engineering student at CMU. In terms of living, she intentionally hooked up with roommate who lives within driving distance of Pittsburgh and is a voice major. They get a long fabulously and brings variety to their group of acquaintances. She had a great 1st day of instruction and is impressed with the passion/intensity of her instructors...even the one who teaches writing!!! ;) D2 is already leaning toward material science...</p>
<p>MATERIALS SCIENCE? WOO! Tell her to join MSE as soon as possible, it's the best department ever at CMU! I absolutely loved my time there, and I think the big difference between the friendly, cooperative team spirit of the MSE department at CMU and the...well...not that here at Caltech is one of the main reasons I remember CMU with such fondness. If your daughter's got any questions about MSE (or you do), archermom, feel free to PM me, as I love the field and can answer anything you want about the department at CMU. When I was there I used to actually give tours to prospective MSE students and parents around our facilities. :)</p>
<p>sxm2872, I'd say people at Caltech are definitely more math nerds than the people I knew at CMU (except for SCS, they all loved math there). CMU people seemed to have a really big passion for what they were doing and tended to like the engineering applications of what they were doing, while Caltech favors more of a theoretical and math approach. And that really says something, since CMU has a reputation for being a very theory-based school!</p>
<p>CountingDown, I wouldn't say it's hard to meet people from different schools at CMU, though it definitely does get harder after your freshman year if you're not involved in clubs. Freshman year your roommate is generally in the same college as you, which is nice since you can tag along to various classes together. Dorm halls are pretty diverse, though, and they should have opportunities to meet other people. It is definitely a little harder to meet people at CMU than some other huge state schools, but, personally, I liked that since I'm the kind of person that prefers to have a small group of good friends instead of a large social network (my brother, at Pitt, is the complete opposite personality type of myself).</p>
<p>I'd also say the course instruction at CMU is light years ahead of Caltech, as a lot of professors there are actually interested in what they're teaching, and many actually care about what you write on your faculty evaluations at the end of the term. Teaching at Caltech has been a lot more spotty, from professors that are very good to ones you can tell would rather be walking on hot coals than teaching in a lecture hall.</p>
<p>After looking through that post I probably came off a little harsh on Caltech. Like is stressed so often on this site, "fit" is a very important factor. I know some people at CMU that would have fit in great here at Caltech, and I've met people here at Caltech that I think would have fit in a little better at CMU. Both schools are absolutely fantastic for the right kind of people. The biggest common trait among the students is a passion for learning and loving solving difficult problems. The only students I knew at CMU that had a hard time were those that weren't self-motivated and didn't actually enjoy spending their time doing work. I spent 12+ hours on many assignments, but much of that time was spent working with friends and having a lot of fun while trying to solve ridiculously hard stuff.</p>