<p>I think this is a discipline that needs to be a bit more "hands on" so I guessed a place like new college of florida...any other suggestion?</p>
<p>U. Hawaii & UCSD have excellent programs.
Also: Florida State, U. Miami</p>
<p>I don't know about 10 best but for hands on and a nice campus: Eckerd College in St. Pete FL <a href="http://www.eckerd.edu/%5B/url%5D">www.eckerd.edu/</a></p>
<p>By the way, a lot of schools do not have marine biology per se...
look into schools that offer both biology & oceanography.</p>
<p>Isn't #1, the Institute for Marine Sciences at Kiel University? I read about that a while back, to bad it's in Germany, meanwhile, across the ocean there is, this is excluding military affiliated schools:</p>
<p>College of the Atlantic is entirely dedicated to this area</p>
<p>University of South Carolina, UCLA, UCSB, & Rutgers are the names I here tossed around, then theres a handful of great programs in Florida:
*Florida Institute of Technology, Florida International University, Florida State University</p>
<p>Since I'm no expert, that's all I can offer you. Also, Samuel Berry, the great American marine biologist, went to Stanford, random, I know, GO STANFORD
That being said, have you read this article:
<a href="http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/marinebio/becoming.html%5B/url%5D">http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/marinebio/becoming.html</a></p>
<p>Do you have top credentials? Are you going to look only USA? Australia, New Zealand.....are looking for a reef?</p>
<p>Scripps UCSD is top: sio.ucsd.edu/</p>
<p>MIT and Brown have top program in Marine Biology, as do UC-Santa Brabara, University of Miami, Texas A&M, FIT and several others are excellent too. But Marine biology is a very specific field and is more of a graduate field of study.</p>
<p>Hawaii and Florida. UCSD Scripps is excellent but it is a graduate institution.</p>
<p>Texas A&M-Galveston...plus you can just pay and walk in the door.</p>
<p>I've heard Occidental College (<a href="http://www.oxy.edu%5B/url%5D">www.oxy.edu</a>) in Southern California has a good Marine Biology program.</p>
<p>Honestly, I can't believe no one has mentioned 2 of the top 3 marine bio programs: College of Charleston and UNC-Wilmington.</p>
<p>Duke has their own campus on the Carolina coast.</p>
<p>roger williams is good.</p>
<p>all i know is that the scripps institute at UCSD is world renowned.</p>
<p>University of Hawaii: Manoa......excellente</p>
<p>OT: Nice name acerockolla. Loveline rules :P</p>
<p>UCSB!</p>
<p>i went to a summer program at UC santa cruz centered around marine biology. they have a great program there.</p>
<p>I can't believe nobody's mentioned the University of Rhode Island-their program is among the very best. </p>
<p>It is NOT wise to major in marine biology (unless you're a double major). As any MB will tell you, marine biology is mostly a graduate school field. It is unlikely a marine biology major will land you a career or grad school admission. What is far, far more important is getting the necessary anatomy, biology, biochemistry, organic chem, physical chem, physics, statistics, computer science and possibly geology that you need to succeed in the field. There are many summer programs (Scripps, Duke Marine Lab, and Woods Hole spring to mind) that you can (and should) participate in to gain some background in marine biology. </p>
<p>Marine biology is a subset of oceanography (often called "biological oceanography") and is by far the most popular branch (chemical, geological, and physical oceanography being the other three), so the availability of jobs is not high.</p>
<p>That said, the best schools (for oceanography) are:
1 UC San Diego<br>
2 MIT<br>
3 Washington<br>
4 Columbia<br>
5 Oregon State<br>
6 Rhode Island<br>
7 Hawaii Manoa<br>
8 SUNY Stony Brook<br>
9 Florida State<br>
10 Maryland<br>
11 Miami<br>
12 Texas A&M<br>
13 North Carolina<br>
14 Duke<br>
15 South Florida<br>
16 Wisconsin<br>
17 Old Dominion<br>
18 Stanford<br>
19 North Carolina State<br>
20 South Carolina<br>
21 Alaska<br>
22 Naval Postgraduate School<br>
23 LSU<br>
24 Massachusetts<br>
25 Florida Inst of Tech<br>
26 Northeastern</p>
<p>Warbler, you deftly identified some accurate aspects of the field of biology/oceanography. But here are some small corrections/modifications.</p>
<p>There is no marine biology/oceanography major at any public college in Massachusetts. The multiple U of Massachusetts campuses have an interdisciplinary Masters and Ph.D administered by UMass-Dartmouth. Keep in mind that undergraduate students interested in marine biology can sample marine ecology or marine organismal biology with some individual courses (such as Marine Mammals and Invertebrate Zoology) particulary at UM-Amherst, UM-Boston or UM-Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Also, note that Marine Biology in the UNC system is available only at UNC-Wilmington (a very picturesque campus).</p>
<p>Places like U of Washington and U of Rhode Island call it a "Fisheries Science" major.</p>
<p>Like you said, ocean/marine sciences is largely a graduate field. So interested undergrads should choose any major that they enjoy, take more than a couple science classes, and apply to a graduate program in Biology, Ecology,Environmental/Earth Science or Oceanography.</p>
<p>Undergraduate Summer studies at a lab is essentially a must for students planing on a graduate degree. Comprehensive labs include Woods Hole O. I., MBL at Woods Hole, Friday Harbor (UW), UCSD-Scripps, U of Rhode Island SURFO, Old Dominion U and Dauphin Island, Alabama (if it's still above water after Hurricane Katrina).</p>
<p>One more thing, if you look at the faculty of biology/marine sciences at noteworthy schools, the Ph.Ds from the Florida colleges are not great in number. I don't give much validity to rankings, but for Fisheries, Marine Sciences and Oceanography, graduates from California-SD, U of Washington, MIT and Oregon State do well.</p>
<p>realize the differences between the marine bio program at a place like MIT and a more well rounded program at a place like U of Miami. My hunch is at MIT, you're going to be doing physical oceanography and your options as far as fisheries biology etc., are probably extremely limited. I taught at Miami for two years and while there is much to be desired of their overall undergraduate program, their marine sciences major was one of the few that stood out. The students and faculty were amazing and along with the rosentiel (sp?) school on key biscayne, the facilities are absolutely top notch.</p>