<p>How competitive is Princeton in regards to biochemistry as a major?</p>
<p>Infinitely competitive, since BioChem is not a major at Princeton.</p>
<p>But seriously, there are two routes you can take to study Biochem at Princeton (Molecular biology or Chemistry). You would take the core classes in each, but then focus on upper level Biochem courses and write a thesis with one of the many professors in each department that studies biochemistry. </p>
<p>If you decide to major in Molecular Biology, it’s not the major that’s competitive, it’s just a very tough program. Professors only award A’s for true A-level work, so the number of As they give out in upper level classes is often lower than the recommended upper limit by grade deflation. There are about 75 students per year that major in Mol, last semester, about 10 got A’s on their junior papers (About 13% A’s instead of the 35% recommended by gradin policy) They certainly could have given more A’s, but just expect a lot from the students. This eliminates a lot of the competition between students, since you’re really only competing against yourself, seeing how much you can learn and how good of independent work you can produce.</p>
<p>Chem on the other hand, is a bit more relaxed. It’s a smaller department (about 40 per class), but has about the same percentage of Pre-meds as Mol. I’m not sure exactly how competitive Chem is, but I know one common attribute of chem majors is their dislike of the perceived competitiveness of the Mol program. Since Mol and Chem are so closely related, majors in each often have a choice about which department to join. Study groups are really common in upper-level Chem courses. The grade distribution in Chem falls pretty close to the one recommended by the University. </p>
<p>I hope this answers your question?</p>