Hi, as a rising senior this summer who is still pretty lost in the rush of college readiness, this is my first post to the forums. After months of college counseling, I have definitely been informed about large parts of the application processes, but have found myself lacking in how to do research. Thus, I’ve turned to you guys in hopes that you’d be able to recommend a good college based on a few criteria, or a way to find a good college based on my relatively specific criteria. Ashamed as it makes me to say, I have been using only a mix of usnews ratings and browsing through the Fiske Guides up until now. But to get to the point I want a college that has two things sorted by importance: a good Cell and Molecular biology program and a good undergraduate biology research program. Of course some minor things I’m looking towards are: a relatively well-known name (not like Harvard well-known but I don’t want to go to a small open admit college in the middle of nowhere), lack of a conservative climate (I don’t align myself with any political party, but I don’t think I can make friends at an extremely conservative school that disregards the rights of minority races and the LGBTQ community), a populated town (I’d prefer to be within 1-2 hours drive from a pretty large urban or suburban area, having grown up in the bay area), and a reasonable cost (Anything above 70k per year is going to kill me).
Based on these criteria, I’ve done some research to find colleges like the University of Washington in Seattle (which impressed me with a beautiful campus, a great cell biology program, and extremely large undergraduate research program) and The University of California in San Diego (which impressed me with a great cell biology program and the title of the “research star of the UC system”).
Some colleges that also impressed me but I am unsure about were Cambridge (which I am not allowed to apply to as it is supposedly extremely expensive to attend) and UNC Chapel Hill (which I quickly threw down the gutter after the whole North Carolina bathroom scandal).
If it would help, here’s a list of some of my basic stats and a summary of my criteria:
Stats:
3.89 Unweighted GPA
34 composite ACT score (I’m planning to retake to fix the essay)
800 Sat biology, 730 Math II, 770 Chemistry
5 AP biology, 4 APUSH, 4 AP chemistry
I attend The Harker School in San Jose, California
Criteria:
Good Cell and Molecular Biology Program
Good Undergraduate biology research program (in terms of funding and success of researchers being published)
Relatively well known name (smaller state universities are fine but no community colleges or tiny unknown privates)
Not hyper-conservative (No schools filled to the brim with racists, homophobes, or bigots, but lightly conservative is fine)
A suburban or urban area 1-2 hours away (nothing in the middle of nowhere with no retail stores or wifi)
Sorry for such a long post…thanks for reading though! I look forward to your replies!
In terms of colleges that match your setting preferences, you may find some good choices in these Newsweek articles: “The 25 Most Desirable Suburban Schools” and “The 25 Most Desirable Urban Schools.”
Waste of time and money to retake the ACT. Writing scores are basically useless, and colleges know that (even the ACT knows, as they have now changed back to their earlier grading system, while not actually taking responsibility for the problem).
Spend the time on your essays and applications.
UCSD, Tufts and NYU would be some obvious – and excellent – schools to consider. However, do not overlook traditional LACs. Their undergraduate research opportunities could, depending on the particular school, rival those available at even the best universities.
Rice University. I don’t know the specifics on molecular biology but they are a top research university in an urban area, they give a fair amount of aid, and tend to be more liberal than conservative.
As mentioned by @livinginLA, Rice might work for you. Your stats line up, and hopefully you have some depth in your ECs. The school is liberal, its located in the middle of Houston, and has plenty of opportunities for hands-on research. The campus is across the street from the biggest medical center int he world, Texas Medical Center. There are many students who attend from California.
Harker has a great national reputation so I agree with @WhataProcess that spending the time and money to re-take the ACT doesn’t gain much if anything. “Reasonable cost” is kinda meaningless in the context of private undergrad education but NYU will get you to that $70k faster than any other school, so I would take it off the list. WUStL and Vandy may look conservative by SF standards but attract lots of East Coast liberals and have moderate campuses from my experience.
With an NYU application, the OP would automatically be considered for a merit scholarship. In this scenario, NYU could conceivably be less expensive than colleges with lesser programs.
@wowsee, here are a few more items to consider regarding Washington, which you have rightly placed at the top of your list along with UCSD based on your criteria:
One, undergrad is for a good broad, foundational education across an area. You specialize in graduate school. If you can find a school with a major in cell/molecular biology, great, but don’t rule out schools with a biology major with no concentrations or specialties. Any “cell and molecular biology major” at the undergrad level is probably just a regular biology major with 3-4 molecular/cell electives, anyway, which you can probably also create at a school with a regular biology major and a good cache of elective courses.
Two, don’t worry overmuch about research areas that don’t apply to undergraduates. Finding a place that supports undergrad research experience is important! Worrying about funding or publishing rates is not quite as important as an undergrad. Undergrads can learn really valuable basic research skills in a variety of settings; you don’t need to be in the most cutting-edge laboratory to do that, and in fact, the most cutting-edge laboratory may not even be the best setting for you. For one example, large university labs with graduate programs tend to have doctoral students and postdocs who take up the majority of the PIs time; places without graduate programs might give you a more direct line to the professor and more one-on-one mentorship, as well as a greater role in the research earlier.
Of course, this varies from school to school - small colleges are not universally better at this than larger universities. My only point is to encourage you to think broadly about where you can get a good research experience as an undergrad; it doesn’t have to be at a big university with a reputation for international research. That’s more important for choosing a grad program or postdoc.
Also, UW is great and Seattle is wonderful! But as a California resident, it might not be worth it to pay OOS fees when you have SO many good options right there in CA.
Thanks everybody for the replies and recommendations, I am sending this reply currently on the road to visit UCSD. I’ve been doing some research on tufts, WUSTL, rice, Vandy, and NYU. Most surprising to me is that, with the exception of WUSTL, none of the schools had anything that special in terms of biology. @merc81 , I definitely do see UCSD as a great biology school but Tufts is #82 in biology and biochemistry as well as #108 in molecular biology and genetics, accompanied by NYU that’s #41 and #44 respectively. Is the something about the schools I’m not seeing in the USnews rankings? Just based on rankings at least I don’t really see how they’re obvious choices, but I’d love to hear your reasoning as I’m clearly a novice to these matters. @livinginLA , I’ve heard a lot of great things about rice and have an acquaintance joining its class of 2020 this year. That being said, he’s a prospective CS student and I’m finding myself really unimpressed with its biology program. I understand its placement near the medical center helps for medical internships but I don’t see how great this benefit will be unless I try for pre-med or go into medicine. Looking just at biology rankings, it stands at #243 for biology and biochemistry and doesn’t offer molecular biology. I just can’t see how a school with not as much care to biology could provide great undergrad biology research. @Oregon2016 , Vandy seems really similar to WUSTL in general national ranking but I don’t see anything especially notable as far as biology goes. To clarify, I’m not opposed to slightly conservative schools, I’m just uncomfortable with racist communities and extreme social conservatives who back things like a wall to keep out mexicans and a ban on all muslims. @wayneandgarth from what I understand, isn’t UCSF only a graduate school? @apple23 , this seems like an interesting list, but I’m confused as to how it was made. The items on the list don’t seem to be ranked and I don’t see any methodology provided. Is it really trustworthy? @juillet , I understand that at the undergrad level, most bio majors are kinda just blended together, however I’m also looking towards graduate school and the idea that a good molecular biology/genetics program would indicate resources for research in that area. Of course my main concern is general bio, I’m just thinking that being established at a school with a good graduate molecular bio program might give me an advantage when applying for grad school. As far as your point on undergrad research goes, I believe there’s a bit of a miscommunication on my part. I am looking specifically for places with good undergrad research programs. Udub really struck me as a top choice because of this. During a tour I was told that 1/4th of all undergrads were involved in some sort of research and it was commonplace for undergraduate projects to get published in relatively well-known journals. I do want to find pretty well-equipped labs, partially because I want to pursue research I didn’t have the resources to in high-school, and partially because I want to produce good research in order to get into a good graduate program.
Overall, I’m still confused as to how to conduct proper college research. Currently basing decisions on rankings seems alright because of USnews credibility, but what else can I use? Specifically, how can I find out what colleges have the best undergraduate biology research? What metrics will tell me the effectiveness of a research program, if not percentage of undergrads published or funding to the program? I once again look forward to your responses!
Graduate department rankings are not acceptable as a source for the evaluation of undergraduate programs.
Colleges that could potentially be ideal for the study of biology/biochemistry/molecular biology, as well as associated research, such as Williams, Bowdoin, Hamilton, Wesleyan, Reed and Middlebury, would not be included in graduate department rankings because of their undergraduate focus (Wesleyan is a partial exception). Schools such as Tufts, which has a relatively strong undergraduate focus, would similarly not be adequately evaluated for your purposes by any ranking that is designed to consider graduate programs. At any of these colleges, you would have ~three dozen or more biology courses available to you, well more than double what you would ever actually take.
WUStL could be an excellent choice for your interests.
The overall rigor of a college may be of importance to you and may be correlated with the academic preparation of attending students. Though its methodology is limited and its title is unfortunately reductive, an article such as “The 50 Smartest Colleges” (Business Insider) could help you with sorting your many potential choices.
With further respect to schools that may offer particularly strong opportunities in your academic areas of interest, consider Harvey Mudd, Swarthmore, Carleton, Haverford and Grinnell. You can screen them individually based on your general preferences such as that which pertains setting. Note that these are highly selective schools.
@yikesyikesyikes agreed with Michigan. Ann Arbor is also an AMAZING place that is very liberal and well educated. UROP at Michigan is also ranked the #1 undergrad research program in the US
The methodology for that compilation might in fact not be rigorous. My understanding, though, is that its basis is a book that preceded the site. Consider the source mostly as a decent sampling of colleges with good programs.
@wowsee Not chasing prestige, looking past the rankings and evaluating individual departments- other kids should follow your example! Since you found 2 strong programs at UW and UCSD use them as a resource. Where did the professors and graduate students go for undergrad? Also if you dig up academic journals where they publish research papers look at the c.v. for each contributor.
If you think WUStL is a good choice applying ED and showing lots of interest is important.
I get your take on socio-politic campus direction. Just remember that the huge dope leading the anti-immigrant movement is a New Yorker; bigotry isn’t isolated by geography.