<p>My son is very into chemistry (he finished Organic Chem already) and at this point plans to pursue a career in chemistry research/teaching so he’ll need to go to graduate school in the future. He is currently debating between Cal’s college of chemistry or Stanford chemistry. Both are top schools. What are the things he should take into consideration for his decision ?</p>
<p>Net price and debt needed, if any.</p>
<p>Chemistry is not great at job and career prospects, so taking on a lot of debt would not be a good idea.</p>
<p>At Berkeley, students who have completed organic chemistry at a community college should take the ACS organic chemistry exam, aiming for 75+ percentile to get subject credit for Chemistry 112A and 112B.</p>
<p>[UC</a> Berkeley – College of Chemistry – New Freshman](<a href=“http://chemistry.berkeley.edu/students/organic_chem_cc.php]UC”>http://chemistry.berkeley.edu/students/organic_chem_cc.php)</p>
<p>One advantage at Berkeley is that they are much more likely to accept your son’s high school/community college credits, as ucbalumnus mentioned. By doing that, it would be fairly straight-forward to take graduate level chemistry courses in his second or third year. Stanford generally makes it more difficult to skip out of introductory courses.</p>
<p>But Stanford is Stanford…</p>