Hi - my son is a future marine biology major (NOSB champ, has a salt water tank, lists marine worm genuses in Latin). Unless a couple of his reach schools come through RD, his top choices are U Delaware (accepted to honors college, world scholars) and Eckerd. What do y’all see as the pros and cons of these schools for marine bio majors?
With merit aid, they’re the same cost for us, and the same cost as our state school (UMass, which is inland and has lackluster marine bio options). Eckerd looks like marine bio paradise, but Mom and Dad are a little nervous about Eckerd because A) it’s small, and doesn’t offer that many majors if you decide to stop pursuing marine biology B) it doesn’t have a graduate school or much in the way of grant-funded research labs. We’re a little worried that our nerdy kid won’t find people to talk to.
UDel is much bigger, but there’s also serious bio research going on in addition to marine bio, and the research center in Lewes is pretty cool.
IOM Delaware is the better option, and you already identified the main reason. Our son went to a specialty high school for Marine Biology and lost interest along the way and ended up back at our local high school. Plus, the honors college combines all the benefits of a small college with a large university’s resources.
Whenever I asked anyone working in the field for recommendations for a Marine Science major, Eckerd always was on the list and often first. One pro for it was not having a graduate school there so students got to do everything graduate students usually do. At other places we visited, undergrads might visit the lab, but rarely do anything meaningful. When we went to visit, we found many students who had experience at Woods Hole and similar who chose Eckerd.
It was enough to make Eckerd the only college my youngest applied to since at the time he wanted Marine Science.
And like many who start that way, he changed his mind. He ended up as an International Studies major and has no regrets going there. He had 2 or 3 job offers at graduation, then turned them all down to do his love - Permaculture Farming - which, coincidentally, he learned about while on a Study Abroad in Jordan.
If you can, visit Eckerd and see what your son thinks. It’s a terrific smaller science school, esp for Marine Sciences, but other majors seem to do fine too. A big key is seeing if your guy meshes with their culture (Think Outside, etc).
As one aspect to consider, students at Eckerd graduate with marine biology degrees at a much higher proportion (recently, 69 of 460) than those at UDelaware (19 of 4,243).
Also, consider the additional option at Delaware if he wants to study Oceanography. We know a recent graduate of Stockton State in New Jersey, a little bit further up the shore, who switched to Oceanography from Marine Biology. I believe the main was she wanted to get into the research side of the field because of the overall environmental impact.