<p>I'm having a hard time finding the undergraduate biology program rankings on the internet... If anyone can help me that would be fantastic. </p>
<p>Note: This is not really for myself, it's more for my parents. XP I know it's completely stupid to look only at rankings when considering colleges, but my parents like to see everything backed by statistics. (they're trying to convince me to choose UCLA over UCSD for biochemistry, but are having second thoughts because they heard UCSD has a strong biology program and have been bugging me to try and find the rankings)</p>
<p>I don’t know where undergrad rankings are found, but the Ph.D. rankings are here, through the top 20:</p>
<p>NRC Rankings in Biochem/Molec Biol </p>
<p>1 Cal San Francisco 4.84
2 Stanford 4.83
3 MIT 4.83
4 Cal Berkeley 4.81
5 Harvard 4.80
6 Yale 4.59
7 Cal Tech 4.57
8 Wisconsin 4.55
9 Cal San Diego 4.53
10 Johns Hopkins 4.38
11 Columbia 4.38
12 Colorado 4.26
13 Washington (St. Louis) 4.22
14 UCLA 4.20
15 Duke 4.18
16 Penn 4.11
17 Brandeis 4.06
18 Washington 4.05
19 Baylor College of Medicine 4.04
20 Texas Southwestern Med Ctr 4.00</p>
<p>Biology rankings from Gourman Report
Caltech
MIT
Yale
Harvard
Wisconsin
UC San Diego
UC Berkeley
U Colorado
Columbia
Stanford
U Washington
U Chicago
Duke
Wash U St Louis
UCLA
U Michigan
Cornell
U Penn
Purdue
Indiana U
UNC Chapel Hill
U Utah
Johns Hopkins
Northwestern
Princeton
UC Irvine
Notre Dame
UC Santa Barbara
UVA
Brown
U Illinois Urbana Champaign
U Pittsburgh
Vanderbilt
U Oregon
SUNY Stony Brook
U Rochester
Tufts
U Minnesota
SUNY Buffalo
U Texas Austin
Florida State
Michigan State
USC
U Connecticut
UC Riverside
Rice
Iowa State
SUNY Albany
Case Western
Boston U
Ohio State
NYU
U Iowa
Penn State
Emory
Brandeis
U Kansas
Rutgers New Brunswick
Tulane
US Air Force Academy
U Missouri Columbia</p>
<p>The Gourman report is over 10 years old I think and completely worthless anyway.</p>
<p>OP - tell your parents that trying to rank undergraduate programs in anything is completely and totally silly. Tell them to PM me if they don’t agree. I can’t even come close to listing all the reasons this is true, but here are a few (FYI, I have gone undergrad and grad in chemistry at three very different environments and have taught as well. I know what I am talking about here):</p>
<p>It is a completely non-quantifiable thing.
You only take about 25% of your courses in that major.
More than half of all undergraduates change majors and therefore even if there were any value in ranking departments (and there is not, I say again for emphasis) you would then have gone to a school based on the wrong department.</p>
<p>What parameters could possibly go into the ranking of an undergraduate department? The research and reputation of the professors? That is for grad school. Undergrads often never get involved at that level, and even if they do it is on a very limited basis compared to their entire 4 years at a school. The quality of the labs? We are talking basic undergrad here, again. It rarely makes that much difference.</p>
<p>Now some of these things can be nice to have. New labs are great. Great professors are great too, but sometimes they can’t teach worth a damn. Within the top 100 schools as ranked by USNWR overall, the quality of the courses will be very similar. Biology and chemistry don’t change based on where they are taught. Pick a school based on affordability, size, location, fit to you academically and otherwise, etc. If you are happy at the school, everything else will fall into place no problem.</p>
<p>Man I just hate it when parents do this. It is so totally misguided.</p>
<p>Undergrad prep for a bio PhD is one available metric. First posted by intereseteddad:</p>
<p>Percent of PhDs per grad
Academic field: Bio and Health Sciences</p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees:
ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database</p>
<p>Number of Undergraduates:
ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database</p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period </p>
<p>1 California Institute of Technology 5.4%
2 Reed College 4.8%
3 Swarthmore College 4.4%
4 University of Chicago 3.3%
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 3.1%
6 University of California-San Francisco 3.1%
7 Harvard University 3.0%
8 Kalamazoo College 3.0%
9 Harvey Mudd College 2.9%
10 Earlham College 2.8%
11 Johns Hopkins University 2.7%
12 Princeton University 2.6%
13 Haverford College 2.6%
14 Mount Holyoke College 2.6%
15 Yale University 2.5%
16 Rice University 2.5%
17 Lawrence University 2.5%
18 Carleton College 2.5%
19 Stanford University 2.5%
20 Oberlin College 2.4%
21 Cornell University, All Campuses 2.4%
22 Grinnell College 2.3%
23 Hendrix College 2.3%
24 Bryn Mawr College 2.1%
25 Bowdoin College 2.1%
26 Wellesley College 2.1%
27 Amherst College 2.1%</p>
<p>Very interesting list, vossron. Of course, it could also be interpreted as the tendency for students at these schools to go on to graduate school regardless of the quality of the undergrad program, by which I mean all programs could be equal at these and other schools and these kids just tend to have more of a propensity to go on to PhD level degrees anyway. After all, there are a LOT of LAC’s on here, and no one would argue, I don’t think, that the research at these schools is anywhere near the level of research that goes on at UCLA or UCSD, nor are their faculty as reknowned in that regard. Obviously they are great schools that prepare one for grad school, but possibly no more so than UCLA or UCSD. I would submit it shows much more that certain schools tend to attract students with certain predispositions.</p>
<p>Well, the underlying challenge is to be admitted to a PhD program. ;)</p>
<p>Better comparisons for UCLA and UCSD might be Caltech, UChicago, MIT, UCSF, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Yale, Rice, Stanford and Cornell. </p>
<p>LACs are in a space of their own, but we can say that attending an LAC for bio grad school prep does not put the student at a disadvantage! I do agree that LACs attract many academically oriented kids with predispositions for advanced degrees; there is a lot of self-selection. UCLA and UCSD are indeed top PhD destinations, for exactly the reasons you give.</p>
Ditto. Johns Hopkins and Caltech are superb for molecular biology, but they quite frankly suck for organismal. Conversely, Michigan State and Oklahoma have the best organismal programs but are not at the cutting edge of biotechnology.</p>
<p>The number of colleges strong at both the micro and macro levels is quite small.</p>
<p>I was admitted under the major Biochemistry and Cell Biology for UC San diego, and Biochemistry for UCLA. </p>
<p>Thanks for all the insight!!</p>
<p>:'( so hard to decide! I’ve visited both campuses of course, and I love both of them… i’ve always wanted to go to ucla because its in los angeles, but ucsd has a medical school and more opportunities for biology related research, and tons of internship opportunities because the surrounding areas are all biotech…</p>
<p>it does seem that ucla isnt as strong in biochemistry than ucsd though… is that wrong? XP</p>
<p>There is absolutely no difference between the programs at the undergraduate level, and most likely no perceptible differences exist at the graduate level either. Pick the one you like better, which seems to be UCLA.</p>
<p>Totally agree with warblers. To say that UCLA might not be as strong in biochem as UCSD is to totally misunderstand the undergraduate experience. That kind of thinking is totally appropriate for grad school where essentially 100% of your time is on biochemistry. As an undergrad you will only take about 25% of your courses in your major area, and for biochem that means freshman chem, organic chem and Pchem, different biology courses, and you might not get to a true biochem course until your junior year. This is all besides your english, math, history, etc, courses. The point is that as an undergrad, given all that , what does “not being as strong” in biochem even mean? Both schools have tons of opportunities for research at the undergrad level, and plenty of courses in the subject to prepare any undergrad for grad school.</p>
<p>I am a 30 year old transfer student in NC with a 4.0 GPA and a 1220 SAT but I can’t into any of these top 100 schools. I want to get degrees in biology and microbiology and pursue a career in either medicine or pharmacy; if I got to a school like an Appalachian State, Mars Hill, Campbell University, Montana State, or The University of Montana instead of a UNC or Duke, will that adversely affect my ability to get into a more prestigious graduate program at an Ivy or UNC, even if I maintain my GPA and score well on tests?</p>
<p>For medical school it will have some effect; for pharmacy school it will have less effect; I’m not qualified to answer for grad school. Most important for med school or pharmacy school is to do well whereever you are. If you do well at a less well known school and have good MCAT scores, you will still be in the running for many medical schools.</p>
<p>Just to add to my previous post, as a 30 year old transfer student, you’ve probably got a very interesting story. One of my faculty colleges with an “interesting story” went to Harvard Med School- shes smart but not brilliant. Being interesting and mature matters.</p>
<p>Think seriously about what you want to do after undergrad. </p>
<p>Most post grad and professional schools will admit students from almost any institution as long as their GPA and test scores are competitive and their SOP shows growth. If your major goal is to go to grad school or medical school and assuming money is an issue, why go to the top school if you need to take out massive loans? The admissions examine vague rankings based on how challenging some programs are (my friend who is applying and managed to get waitlisted at Tufts vet school informed me that our small commuter university scored a more challenging biology program than another more well known school of hers, U. Maryland BC according to Cornell’s vet school admissions which is harder to get in than most med schools) but they are NEVER alone deciding factors.</p>
<p>I also speak from experience because I got my undergrad in Biology at Umass Boston (commuter school/small program) but under the support of my advisor I managed to snag a prestigous grant plus a smaller one in my undergrad and have gone on to do a PhD at Big HUGE Midwestern Research University. My friend went on to Harvard and I know some who have easily gotten into med school. One more advantage of going to a university with a smaller science program: it is typically easier to get hands on undergrad research and to nudge your way into a network of famous scientists within your field. The first year may involve large classes but once you get into the 2nd/3rd year, it is relatively easy to find professors looking for eager undergrads to advise. If you go to school in a major city, it is not difficult to find medical-related internships and jobs outside of the university and there are career counselors as well as colleagues in the biology department that will help. Several students in my class got internships at Genzyme. One of them is going to med school. Also, even though I’m not too old, I took a bit of time off before doing undergrad and I found it motivating that many of my friends were my age or older and at Umass primarily to work and learn, so there weren’t typical distractions that came with being an undergrad at a major party university.</p>
<p>If your goal is to go into industrial research or to become a technician, it couldn’t hurt to have a name-brand degree under your belt. But if you want to go into graduate school/professional school, do what you’re most comfortable with and what will end you up with minimal debt.</p>
<p>Sorry for the ramble, what is right for one person isn’t right for another, so my major point is do what is right for YOU and not what the rankings say. They can factor in, but don’t discount your comfort and the opportunities other universities offer. You accomplish your goals so much easier and happier, and possibly with far less debt.</p>
</p>