<p>Pretty much, I've been stuck between these four. I was accepted into the College of Chemistry for Berkeley, which is extremely prestigious for chemistry. However, I visited Berkeley, and it felt no different from my high school. </p>
<p>I was wondering how the science programs are at Wesleyan, and in a way, how they compare to these other liberal arts schools? I'm so confused and I don't know what to think anymore.</p>
<p>Wesleyan is one of the best liberal arts colleges for science. Wesleyan is #1 is National Science Foundation grants and in terms of faculty publications, as well as the only liberal arts college with an NIH training program (Berkeley, Hopkins, Harvard Medical School are other schools with the program).</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.wesleyan.edu/sciences/sciencefacts.html[/url]”>http://www.wesleyan.edu/sciences/sciencefacts.html</a></p>
<p>Wesleyan’s chemistry department is quite excellent. You get a “university” science department (grants bachelor, masters, and PhD and the advanced research that goes along with it) within a liberal arts college setting. You get liberal arts college research opportunities in terms of quantity, but the projects are at the graduate level in terms of quality.</p>
<p>I had to respond to this one because my son chose Wesleyan over the Berkeley College of Chemistry and is now studying chemistry at Wesleyan. What clinched it for him was a trip to Wes and a tour of the science facilities and I highly recommend that you do that. His academic experience has been great so far, and he has something like 40(?) kids in orgo class, his largest class. The College of Chemistry sent him a letter bragging that his Chem classes would only have 200 students each. Honestly, I thought it was a typo, but then I found out that Berkeley’s other chem classes outside that college have 500 plus students. Also, research is pretty easy to get involved with and almost expected at Wes, while at Berkeley undergrad research is the exception and you have to fight for it.
What really won us though was how kind, engaged, and dedicated we found the science faculty at Wes- nothing like Berkeley. He has had much positive interaction with his profs so far - we know that wouldn’t happen at Berkeley.
The only problem with Wes is that its so far from home for him, but there’s no question that’s he’s getting a better education than he would have at Berkeley.</p>
<p>Science at Wes is awesome. So many students have pursued research at levels only dreamed about at the undergraduate level. Also, check out their course catalog (WesMaps) because you can even get credit for signing onto a research project (or carrying out your own research). At the end of the day, the great thing about science is it is the same info at both Harvard and your local community college. I think English, Philosophy, etc are disciplines that differ because they rely heavily upon discussion and therefore the intellectual curiosity of the students in your class.</p>