I live in Indiana and am looking to go to college for Cell/Molecular Biology. There are 2 colleges in Indiana that offer this among the (statistically) 5 best: Purdue and Ball State. the others are IU, IUPUI, and Notre Dame, but IU and PUI only offer General Bio and I am not interested in private college.Purdue is my dream university and I feel like I have good odds of getting, but I need to have back ups just in case. Ball state was my original 2ed, but when doing research, I found 2 other colleges that were about the same price out of state as in state equaling Ball, and ranked decently among websites.They were University of North and Univ. of South Dakota(s). I know it does not sound glorious, but they seem decent and here’s why.
(If you wish to answer now, feel free to because from here, I will be listing my research I found on the 3 colleges)
There are 3 Websites I have been using to do my research. The 2 monopolies of college ranking: US News (nat. and bio) and Forbes Top Colleges (nat.), and a smaller website called http://biology-colleges.com (theirs will be national too). This is what I got on each one
USD: US- Nat. 180, Bio. 188, Forbes- 411, Biology College- 320
UND: US- Nat. 180, Bio. 188, Forbes- 444, Biology College- 277
Ball: US- Nat. 168, Bio. N/A, Forbes- 569, Biology College- 194
I also looked up student reviews from U-nigo, Niche, and a couple other colleges and each one is generally the same review from review:
USD: Cons: Dorms a little small, not much diversity, and some, NOT ALL, but some do not care for their jobs. Side from that, everything else about it seems great to students.
UND: Cons: not too many healthy food options, people are not all that social alot of times and many who are seem stuck up, and, while it is more of a college town than the other 2 colleges, people say it does not offer a whole lot for students. Everything else is fine for the most part.
Ball State: (visited) The town is DEAD; only fast food and old factories, known to not be safe in the past, and people say you REALLY have to try putting yourself out there to become social.
With small aditional stuff, USD and Ball are about the same size, at 10,000 students,whikle UND is about 15,000
UND has no famous Science Alumni; most are sport people. Ball States most famous is David Letterman, but he barely got by with a C, while USD can say they have Ernest Lawrence, the man who invented the Cyclotron and won a Nobel Peace Prize for it.
Each college has it’s specialty: Ball State makes Media and English degrees, USD has many political alumni, and UND has many hockey players and some writers.
These are about the basics discluding cost and look of college, but focusing on Cell And Molecular Bio, This is the main “jist” of it all. If you have any opinions or reasons for why i should pick a certain or none of these colleges, please tell me, as I am hoping for some insight. Thank you for your time.