suehl

Hi everyone,

I feel really outdated posting here again after all the college admission craze I went through last year as a hs senior.

Anyways, so i am about to finish my freshman year at cornell. i am in the college of engineering and kind of in electrical engineering/computer science track, but through taking some biology related courses here, i have come to realize that engineering isn't what i really want to do: biology turns out to be my true love.

i have a couple of good reasons why i want to transfer out of cornell. my question is then, a)does cu have a good biology program?(i am not a premed) and b)does cu have lots of researchs going on? (cornell is a huge school=>lots of research opportunities)


about me/specs:

my GPA from the fall semester is 3.5. but considering the grade deflation at cornell AND the difficulty of the courses i took/am taking, I think 3.5 is just slightly less than ideal. (if you wonder, for the first sem, i took orgo(for sophomores), an intense cs programming course(for sophomores), and 1st year engineering math(with an A). and others are just required freshman stuff)

this semester i'm taking: microbiology for sophomores, biochemistry for juniors/seniors, 2nd sem engineering math and 1st sem engineering physics and some other required courses. i am expecting and hoping for something higher than 3.5 for this semester.

i also work in this genetics/biochem lab as a lab technician, but i will be doing intense research over this summer (which i believe is rare for a freshman)

i have a couple of other good extracurricula but since i already cut the ivy line in the past, i don't think this much hs school isn't necessary here.

RECAP:
a)does cu have a good biology program?(i am not a premed)
b)does cu have lots of research going on?
and c)do i have any shot in tranfer?

thanks in advance.

PS. you guys have a pretty campus/buildings!

confidentialcoll

a) yes, comparable to cornells
b) yes, ton's of stuff, lots of freshman spend their summers doing research on campus
c) yes, but 3.5 even with difficult courses is a stretch, the transfer acceptance rate is like what - 5-7% so it'll be difficult to get in, but you're not an automatic rejection, you def have a shot.

lvilleslacker

as a comparison, it is not rare at all for freshmen to be doing research over the summer here - a lot of my friends are doing it, either here or at home.

suehl

the main reason i'm considering tranfer is because the depth of undergrad biology education at cornell is rather shallow. i am looking for schools with excellent faculty/course offerings and research opportunities.

any thoughts on biochem/genetics departments at columbia?

PS. my research experience may be slightly different from other's. it wasn't like research program targetted for undergrads; i am butting in one of grad student's ongoing research (but i do have a significant amount of work to do for it still). i guess it wouldn't make much difference except my research would be likely to have some more depth to it.

anyways, thanks to you all=)

CayugaRed2005

The idea that Cornell's undergraduate education in biology is shallow is laughable, particularly when you consider the chemistry and chemical biology major.

Denzera

i think you're looking for an answer to the question "is columbia's bio education much better than cornell's?", whereas the people in here can only really answer "does columbia have a really good bio education?". we don't have any basis for judgment, we can really only go on facts in this situation.

your best bet may be to visit, try to meet with a few professors, and/or talk to students in the bio / chem buildings and see what they think. just stop them as they walk around and ask if they can help you for a minute. sounds like a lot of effort but it's the only way you're going to get good data.