<p>I know I'll get some biased advice if I post here, but I need a good amount of input. </p>
<p>A bit of background: I plan to major in either molecular biology or biochemistry and go on to graduate school to get a PhD in genetics. However I also hope to explore various areas of study and maybe even double major in a humanities. I'm from California which factors in a bit on my decision.</p>
<p>I'm mainly leaning toward either Yale or UC Berkeley, but I was invited to Penn as a Vagelos Scholar in the Molecular Life Sciences. I'm looking to get into research early on and perhaps even publish a paper before I finish undergrad.</p>
<p>Aside from environment and aesthetics (I've visited all three universities), which of these three would best prepare me with connections, research opportunities, and a good biology education?</p>
<p>My thoughts: UC Berkeley has a great biology program but it's one of the more popular majors; it's also a fairly large, competitive school. Yale isn't as well known for the sciences but has a smaller Biology department that may be beneficial in terms of attention and research opportunities. I don't know much about Penn.</p>
<p>Any help is greatly appreciated. I never thought I would find myself in such a difficult, yet fortunate position.</p>
<p>^ I’m sorry, but do you know what you’re talking about? Biology’s a great department at Yale especially for certain areas (and research probably lacks in other areas). Yale’s physics department is ranked about 10 and would be one of the very top for some of the quantum information research that’s going on (and possibly other areas too). </p>
<p>To the OP - there’s no reason why you can’t publish a paper (or more!) as a biology undergrad at Yale. I’m a physics undergrad at Yale working on several papers right now and it’s not uncommon. There are special scholarships for freshmen to do research over the summer after freshman year at Yale, so you can definitely get into research early on. Sometimes they’ll discourage you because they want you to explore other areas, but if you want to do it, there’s nothing stopping you. </p>
<p>I am talking about undergraduate physics. As someone who is going to Yale, I can even tell you that the program gets a bad rap. My point of the bio dept being extremely strong still stands.</p>
<p>We are talking undergrad here, and Yale physics simply doesn’t compare to that of H or P or Berkely.</p>