Tulane vs. UPitt for (Bio)Chemistry (both full rides)

College Search & Selection
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<p>I'm a Louisiana Resident with Deans to Tulane, in addition to TOPS and National Merit. I also have Pitt's Full Tuition Honors Scholarship, and I'm waiting on the status of their legacy scholarship. I don't know if they sponsor national merit scholarships. </p>

<p>Anyway, they will both basically cost less than $8000 per year. I am interested primarily in Chemistry, although I want to give biochem a try in undergrad just to expand my horizons a bit. I also love languages, specifically German and Chinese, and really want to do a study abroad term in a German or Chinese speaking country for at least a summer and up to a year! It's a really tough choice for me right now, and I just want a bit of input from people who know about those programs at the schools. </p>

<p>I guess I should also mention that I have a bit of a presence in louisiana thanks to all the awards and stuff I got for doing chemistry research. Will I lose those connections and status if I leave this state? </p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>Still open to input, if anyone’s got some =P</p>

3

<p>last bump before I give up =S</p>

4

<p>Well, Pitt is the better school in these disciplines. Moreover, Pitt’s Honors program has a very good reputation. I would vote for Pitt.</p>

5

<p>My daughter is a freshman at Pitt. From what she says, the Chinese program is quite good at Pitt and German is okay (she tested into the fourth semester of German after four years of high school German and thought the class was what she had learned in high school, so she dropped it). </p>

<p>I always wondered about studying languages in the deep South–though I certainly understand that not all professors would have strong southern accents. In my daughter’s Japanese classes, all of the recitation instructors are native speakers. I do not know whether that is true of the Chinese department as well, but I thought it was a great benefit. You might call and ask. Chinese is also offered at Pitt’s summer language program.</p>

<p>Sciences are strong at Pitt and you will have opportunities as a freshman to do research if you want. </p>

<p>We were just in Pittsburgh this weekend. The university has a great agreement with the city and students are admitted free to the museums and ride the buses by showing their Pitt ID. The city is small enough that it is easy to navigate and buses run right to campus from the airport. You might miss the warm weather. Good luck with your decision.</p>

6

<p>I’ll be visiting Pitt for their honors weekend this week and I’ll pretty much have everything I need to decide by then! I did some research on their programs again; it does seem clear that Pitt has a superior science program, but Tulane’s study abroad programs in China, Germany, and Singapore are more relevant to me (science internships!) than Pitt’s. </p>

<p>Arg this is so difficult! While I’m sure my coming visit will make or break the decision for me, it’s imagine the future right now. This may actually seem like a strange question, MD Mom, but how does your daughter’s skin fare in PA during the winter months? I have excessively dry skin, and even in the perpetual 100% humidity of Louisiana it’s hard to keep it under control at times. Since I’m visiting during the balmy spring, I won’t really get a taste of extreme northern weather, and I won’t be able to gauge its impact on my skin. That would definitely be a deal-breaker for me, in the event that Tulane and Pitt are still tied after this trip…</p>

7

<p>I may be able to be of some help with this. I am a Tulane alum, chemistry. I have a daughter there now, freshman (non-science), but Chinese is one of her majors. She is DHS also. Finally, I lived in Pittsburgh for 10 years.</p>

<p>So first, it can get bitterly cold in Pittsburgh, with lots of snow. The air gets extremely dry in the winter, so be aware of that.</p>

<p>My D is very pleased with her Chinese studies so far, and of course the professors are native speakers. She will study in China, and apparently Tulane has some pretty good ties to China to the point where there are some programs where the Chinese government pays all the costs for a year at one of their universities. I haven’t seen details on that yet, but she is hoping to do that her junior year. She will study there at least a semester in any case.</p>

<p>I think undergrads get a bit confused when it comes to the “reputation” of a school in some areas. I have no doubt Pitt’s science programs, in some areas at least, are more notable and active than Tulane’s, but that is at the grad school level. You will get a very high quality, complete undergraduate education and either school, and Tulane has plenty of high quality research going on in these areas. As an undergrad you won’t be devoting full time or even half time to research opportunities. It just isn’t realistic with everything else going on. That is what grad school is for. Don’t get me wrong, I was able to do some wonderful research at Tulane, and was a co-author on 2 papers in American Chemical Society journals. And you will just have to trust me that it wasn’t for washing glassware by any means, it was real work. But I still was spending 80% of my time in classes, dating, and two music groups I was in. Grad school is the opposite, it is 80% your research. My point is there is far more available to you at either place for research opportunities than you can possibly take advantage of.</p>

<p>So go to Pitt for the weekend, see what you think (it is a fine school), remember that November-March are not very great as far as weather, and then you should be able to decide.</p>

<p>The thing about your reputation in Louisiana for the work you did in high school…not a factor. It helped get you these wonderful scholarships and opportunities, so it was well worth it. But it will not matter once you start college either place. You get to build it up all over again, which is actually a good thing. You will have fun doing it.</p>

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<p>I’m a Pitt student. If you want to major in biochemistry at Pitt, you would be choosing the Molecular Biology major with the biochem track. I think a lot of what you’ve asked has already been answered here, but if you have any other questions I’d be happy to answer them as a current student. </p>

<p>About the winter dryness… I used to get dry skin especially on the knuckles back when I went to high school in NJ, but for some reason it hasn’t manifested itself much in Pittsburgh the past winter.</p>