<p>Best programs for undergrad botany for top student who once collected succulents for the fun of it?</p>
<p>Swarthmore Bio is pretty good in my son's view (he is attending). Here is the Howard Hughes Institute's take on Science at Swarthmore:
<a href="http://www.hhmi.org/bulletin/summer2004/wellspring/passion.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.hhmi.org/bulletin/summer2004/wellspring/passion.html</a> </p>
<p>It mentions the Bio department. Don't know specifically about Botany. But the Plant and organismal Bio course is well received.</p>
<p>Most of the large state universities have good programs - in the midwest I know of U of Wisconsin-Madison, U of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, Purdue, U of Missouri and U of Kansas. Look under horticulture, agriculture, plant biology, environmental studies, and landscape for more ideas - it's a large and diverse field.
Your son or daughter might enjoy this website:
<a href="http://www.nmnh.si.edu/botany/%5B/url%5D">http://www.nmnh.si.edu/botany/</a>
check out the articles in "Plant Press"</p>
<p>According to an old ranking:</p>
<h1>1 University of California-Davis</h1>
<h1>2 Cornell University</h1>
<h1>3 University of Wisconsin-Madison</h1>
<h1>4 University of Texas-Austin</h1>
<h1>5 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor</h1>
<h1>6 Duke University</h1>
<h1>7 University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign</h1>
<h1>8 Michigan State University-East Lansing</h1>
<h1>9 University of California-Riverside</h1>
<h1>10 North Carolina State University-Raleigh</h1>
<h1>11 Pennsylvania State University-University Park</h1>
<h1>12 Indiana University-Bloomington</h1>
<h1>13 University of Minnesota-Minneapolis</h1>
<h1>14 University of Georgia</h1>
<h1>15 University of Washington-Seattle</h1>
<h1>16 Purdue University-West Lafayette</h1>
<h1>17 Washington University-Saint Louis</h1>
<h1>18 Iowa State University</h1>
<h1>19 Ohio State University</h1>
<h1>20 University of Kentucky</h1>
<p>Adding to Alexandre's list - other schools with strong botony/plant science programs:
Connecticut College
Miami U (Ohio)
U of Florida
UC Berkeley
U of Maryland College Park
Ohio Wesleyan
U of Tennessee
Humboldt State (Calif)
U of Alabama
U of Delaware
Oregon State
U of Hawaii
U of Wyoming
Colorado State</p>
<p>Additionally, many schools with strong biology departments will have botany programs within them. Swarthmore has already been mentioned; another example is St. Olaf in Minnesota.</p>
<p>Finally, he may also want to look at environmental science as a possibility for a major --- many programs focus on preserving natural plant habitats, etc.
Schools with strong environmental science programs include: Middlebury, College of the Atlantic, Bowdoin, Brown, UCSB, Denison, U Penn, Macalester, Bates, etc.</p>
<p>I cosign Alexandre's list... Michigan State's is one of the oldest and most prestigious the land ... it's Beal Botanical Garden is the oldest college botanical garden in the US... Surprised Harvard's not on the list (they may not have a per se major, but they've got to teach it)... Asa Gray, at Harvard in the mid 1800s, trained many of the world's pioneering botanists.</p>
<p>I really enjoy botany, but I'm concerned about limiting the biology to botany. Other posters have suggest some environmental and bio programs, let me suggest that a strong overall bio program that encourages/requires a thesis (Bard, Reed, Haverford, etc.) would allow a student to explore that interest in depth without sacrificing options.</p>
<p>You might want to look at Rutgers University- Cook College. They have a list of possible majors that may interest you.</p>
<p>Actually, many schools have already made the choice for you by incorporating the biology of plants into a field called "Environmental Biology" or just simply 'Biological Sciences.' These schools often no longer have a major called "Botany".</p>
<p>Check out Cornell University's agriculture school.</p>