Comparision between UVA Neuroscience and VATech Neuro Science

DadTwoGirls
Tue, 16 Aug 2022 21:21:44 +0000

I agree with others that your primary concern at this point should be finding a university that is a good fit for you and that is likely to be affordable. Both UVA and Virginia Tech look like very good options to me. UVA looks to me that it may be very competitive for admissions, which makes VA Tech important to consider as being more reliable for admissions. However, with your very good stats both may be possible, particularly if you can improve your SAT for UVA. I think that you should at a minimum apply to both of them and see what happens. What I see on-line for their neuroscience programs looks quite good also in both cases.

My understanding is that a graduate degree is likely to be useful for a career in neuroscience. Attending a very good university such as UVA or VA tech is likely to set you up very well for a very good graduate program.

Many of the really top ranked universities such as Harvard do not offer any merit based scholarships. Do you know if you would qualify for need based aid? You might want to run the NPC and see. My understanding is that Johns Hopkins does have merit scholarships, but it would be a reach for admissions, a reach again for a merit scholarship, and very competitive in classes once you were there. UVA is not very far if at all behind in terms of being an excellent university with an excellent program, and since you are in-state would be likely to be more affordable.

UVM (Vermont) has a good neuroscience program. U.Mass has a neuroscience track which appears to be in the department of psychology. Both offer some merit scholarships for out of state students. I would be mildly surprised if either ended up being preferable to VA Tech and UVA either academically or financially, and of course they are quite a drive from Virginia (and they both get plenty of snow and cold in the winter).

If you can do it, then avoiding debt for your bachelor’s and if possible saving a bit of college money for your master’s would be a good idea. This again suggests that you should carefully consider and apply to your in-state public universities. In your situation I would visit both of them also.

When we signed up for university tours (a few years back, and further to the north and east from you) our daughters were in some cases allowed to set up an interview with a professor as well as in a few cases sit in on a class. You might want to see whether you can do this for both UVA and VA Tech.

But to me it looks like you are doing very well, and have very good in-state public options.