<p>Im a junior right now, getting started with my college search. I'm thinking of getting a major within 1 of 2 fields: computer science, or biology. Both are pretty broad, but I'm looking for schools that have opprotunities for both. Also, I want a school with a decent pre-med program, as that is also a possibility.
I want a relatively small, though well known, school (less than 7,000 or so). Also, I want plenty of opprotunities for research as an undergrad, be it during the summer or during the school year, or with the school or with a company. In regards to location, my only preference is to not be inside of a large city (I'm from atlanta, so the campus that comes to mind is GaTech - this is the kind of campus I do not want). That's about all I am looking for so far, and this is the list I have (no particular order). Let me know what I should add or take off from it. I consider myself a fairly strong applicant, by the way.</p>
<p>Wash u St Louis
Caltech
Stanford
Rice
Vanderbilt
Duke
Princeton
Johns Hopkins (Obviously good bio/premed, but how is their comp. sci.?)
Harvey Mudd</p>
<p>I’m not sure about the others, but Rice’s location is ok with me (I’ve been there). By big city, I really mean the big skyscrapers, smelly, highways running through the middle of the campus, and (in general) a high crime rate. Like I said, Atlanta is the city I’m familiar with, and the GaTech campus is an absolute turn off for me. I hope my description is detailed enough to give an idea of what I’m looking for, because “big city” really isn’t all the descriptive, so I apologize for that.</p>
<p>add northwestern, take off harvey mudd in my opinion</p>
<p>harvey mudd is bad for pre-med if only because they have lots of grade deflation. it’s also small, relatively obscure (in the layman’s world) and very unlike the rest of the schools on that list.</p>
<p>Vandy for CS O.o Hmm, I haven’t heard too much about their department being outstanding. I’d replace that with CMU for CS. </p>
<p>MIT and CMU are the best in the CS field… However, since you might go pre-med, MIT’s grade deflation may not be so good for you. CMU isn’t AS difficult. I’ve met many pre-meds who are doing just fine there.</p>
<p>Wash u St Louis – Not sure
Caltech – Obviously has ridiculously good physical and life sciences, but mostly male and very, ah, not fun.
Stanford – Mega reach for almost everyone, but, naturally, great comp sci.
Rice – Very strong in biotech, and overall, as well.
Vanderbilt – major party school, and heavily greek
Duke – also a southern party school
Princeton – Not for pre-med, no.
Johns Hopkins: A very, very strong school in all aspects.
Harvey Mudd: It’s the quintessential engineering school that has ridiculously good liberal arts.</p>
<p>Also, just a quick comment: Even Rice is pretty safe, generally. The NY Times Education Supplement ran a list of campus crime stats and Rice seemed pretty good.</p>
<p>Wow! All these responses are great, I really appreciate them. With these replies, I’m looking at:</p>
<p>Wash u St Louis
Caltech
Stanford
Rice
Vanderbilt (could anyone touch on their CS program?)
Duke
Johns Hopkins
and now:
Northwestern
Rochester
Carnegie Mellon
and of course I will add some safeties later</p>
<p>Couple more questions: Could anyone touch on how Vandy’s CS program is? Also, could someone compare CMU’s campus to one of these other schools, or give a brief description of just how ‘urban’ it is? When I began researching CMU, I was turned off by the urban location.</p>
<p>CMU is definitely urban. Smack in the middle of Pittsburgh. There are some pretty buildings and retreats for students, but aside from that, it’s about as city as it gets. (It’s in a really fun part of town though)</p>
<p>CMU is NOT urban in the sense of Boston University or George Washington. It has a distinct campus with grass. It’s a fairly small campus, though, but it’s next to a very big park. It has a much nicer campus than U of Pittsburgh which is a few blocks away and decidedly more urban.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’d just like to second what the above said about CMU. I visited, and it’s definitely not the kind of urban campus you said you’d like to avoid; in fact, I think it’s a good balance of campus-y campus but a nice city area right outside the campus.</p>
<p>Also, campus-y campus is such an intelligent description, right?</p>
<p>I just reread the OP and noticed a request for undergrad research opportunities. You’re not likely to foster as-good connections with professors when you’re in lecture-sized classes, and you won’t find those at LACs. If you want more undergrad research and smaller class sizes, LACs are the best bet. Another good option for you is Brandeis (it’s a small, small, small uni.). Other schools that might be good are Reed and Pomona. See [REED</a> COLLEGE PHD PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html]REED”>Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College) It has good info on PhD productivity stats.</p>
Yeah, the 46% pre-med Duke freshmen really know how to party it up. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I would consider scratching Caltech for the reasons elsijfdl gave.</p>
<p>TourGuide’s suggestion of Emory was a great one, if you don’t mind staying close to home. The campus is literally next door to the CDC and the American Cancer Society; more research opportunities are available than get taken.</p>
<p>Davidson might be worth a look. It eliminated loans and has good financial aid, and it does rather well in sending students to med school.</p>
<p>To elaborate a bit more on Rice, there are abundant research opportunities there. The professors at Rice allow undergrads to get involved in amazing research opportunities (even as early as freshman year), and the collaboration with and proximity to the Texas Medical Center (right next door), leads to a wealth of internship and research opportunities. In case you don’t know this, the Texas Medical Center is the largest medical complex in the world, comprised by 13 separate hospitals and 2 medical schools. Rice also has a 90% acceptance rate to med schools. My son, who is a freshman at Rice, has been involved in research with a computer science professor in a joint research project between Rice and MD Anderson Cancer Center. An amazing opportunity!</p>
<p>I was at CMU for the entire summer and that campus is definitely not what you would typically call urban. The campus is pretty much all in one area, so you never really have to go wandering around the rest of Pittsburgh, if you don’t want to. Plus, I couldn’t even tell it had an “urban” campus when I first visited, since you have to go pretty far (over a small bridge/overpass) to get to the actual city. CMU’s CS program definitely is #1, so if you really like CS, that is the school to go to.</p>