I am currently a high school senior starting my applications. I want to study biology and pursue research in my later schooling (fellowships). When I tell my friends that I want to go to Emory University, all I hear is about how bad the student body is and how depressing it is academically due to perfectionism. My question is, is this true?
I want to go to a university where there is at least some school spirit (I don’t care that there is no football team or crazy parties), great professors that believe in me, and at least a small academic challenge. (I am Georgia based)
Maybe you hear more because it is local- I have only heard good things about Emory. But definitely be skeptical about anything you hear about any college. I would visit, and talk to current students and make up your own mind.
I graduated from Emory with a degree in biology. It was a fantastic experience. Best time of my life. I made my closest friendships there. Lots of school spirit, even without a football team. Always lots to do on campus or in Atlanta. It also prepared me very well academically. I went on to grad school and I now work in biotech/pharma. My DD applied to Emory last year with perfect grades, high test scores, leadership roles, ECs, etc. and did not get in.
Have you visited? This would be a good way to get a sense if it may be the school for you. I will say my own student didn’t love the vibe at Emory but she was looking for more of a big football school type experience, and the campus over all felt quieter to her than others we visited There are, of course, many, many students who feel differently, and there is no doubt it offers an excellent academic experience.
All that means is, if your friends are intimidated by Emory based on academics, then it’s not the school for them. It’s possible that 10 of your class mates will end up with 10 different schools they had visited and liked best, and 50 that were “no way” – for them, while overlapping with someone else’s “best” list.
Every single, good college will have people for whom it was the right fit, and have people who were looking for a different urban environment, larger/smaller, sports, more or less relevancy of “Greek”, cost, study abroad options, programs,… It’s all subjective.
Objectively does not - at least not in systematic reviews based on a large datasets, vs. a handful of high schoolers who are pulling their information out of their hat (being polite), and then reinforcing this from their own feedback-loop bubble.
It’s easy to dispute:
If a college has 10 times as many applicants than they can fit, then who were all the masses with whom it has that supposedly bad reputation?
PS - It’s also very normal for high schoolers to decry almost all colleges in their own state - regardless their excellence.
Well. Emory is like the worst university out there with bad reputation and like why would anyone ever want to go there FOR YOUR FRIENDS!
You are learning a good lesson early in the process. Who cares what your friends think. Period. If they can’t be happy for you are they really friends?
Apply to schools that speak to you. Period. Who really cares where others are applying. Just be happy for your friends. Some might go Ivy and some might go Community College. Be happy for both of those choices. People don’t know why others make the choices they do. You do you.
BTW - both regionally and Nationally Emory kinda has a great reputation
Make sure you find schools you think will fit you - and apply.
If you don’t get a chance to visit before, make sure you sit in on onlline sessions, including student panels. Or ask to speak to student ambassadors.
You, not others, need to determine the best fit for you - academically, socially, cost wise. So try to deflect the noise - and focus on what’s important to you.
I’ve been twice and was very impressed - but again, everyone is different and perhaps your friends have different needs/desires than you.
Is this an indirect commentary on pre-med students, who need top-end college grades to have any chance of medical school admission, and may be more competitive in courses with competitive (“on a curve”) grading? But that phenomenon can occur anywhere there are many pre-med students.
You might want to search older posts by @bernie12 , who has commented on Emory and how pre-med and non-pre-med students in biology and the like differ there.
I do not know much about Emory. I do have a daughter who works in biotech research. I also have heard about Emory’s excellent reputation.
Biotech research is difficult. My daughter does a lot of lab research. The thing about “research” is that you are trying to do something that no one has ever done before, or at least not successfully. This is inherently difficult. Sometimes lab results are the same as what you expected. Often they are not. Then you get to try to figure out why the results are not as you expected. Did you do something wrong? Is the chemical that you are testing not having the effect that you expected? Did someone mix up the chemicals (this can happen)?
Of course “difficult”, for some of us, can also be “great fun”.
I think that any highly ranked university is going to expect academic excellence from its students. Any highly ranked university is going to be a lot of work. There is a lot to be learned that is related to “biotech research”, and a great university (such as Emory) is going to give you the opportunity to work hard and learn a great deal.
And there will be a lot of very good professors and a few bad professors at any one of a very wide range of universities (including but not limited to the famous ones).
I agree with others that it makes sense, if you can do it, to visit Emory and make up your own mind. You should try to arrange a tour, and if possible get to sit in on a class and/or talk to a professor there.
Since you mentioned biology research, I thought that I would also mention an experience that my daughter had. Due to a change in major, she had to take 4 lab courses at the same time sophomore year. She discovered that she loved lab work. This meant that she spent the rest of her time in university doing as much lab work as she could. This included helping out with some research (trying to find better treatments for a bad and common disease), and included continuing the research over two summers. She had a pretty easy time finding a job after graduation. I have heard that biology majors sometimes have trouble finding jobs due to the large number of biology majors. I think that the issue is that a lot of biology majors are premed, and are getting experience in a medical environment. While her classmates were doing this, my daughter was instead in a lab growing cells and then seeing how they react to various chemicals (which would be potential medical drugs). Then the job that she got was very similar to what she had already been doing in the lab.
If you are focused on biology research, then you should be able to find similar opportunities at any of a wide range of universities. I would be confident that Emory would have similar opportunities (although my daughter was attending a different university well to the north of you).
Wondering if you live in the Greater Atlanta area, because this would be typical of kids living near a great university not realizing how great it is because it’s close by. I’ve heard kids in Philly dissing UPenn for instance.
Of course beside “familiarity breeds contempt” types, there’s also “I’ve never heard of it” - kids in that case dont think it’s because there are 3,700 universities in the US and most people have only heard of about 5 to 10 tops (including for football/basketball reason v. academics) therefore they don’t know 99.5% colleges, which does not mean a thing about the college itself, just that the person isn’t on CollegeCOnfidential and doesn’t read Fiske GUide or Princeton Review’s Best Colleges for fun
Anyway… Emory has a great reputation throughout the country and throughout industries.
Schedule a visit if you live within half a day driving distance and see for yourself though
