Duke vs. Stanford for Biological Sci

belevitt
Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:07:46 +0000

You picked two of the top five in most biological science fields. At this point, I don’t think you need to weigh the differences in academic quality or prestige, especially because you are only considering where you attend undergrad. Go for the place you think you would enjoy living and learning. As you point out, NC offers a lot in the way of research triangle, top notch medical school and multiple major universities. However, Stanford offers a very similar deal. You may already know this but NC has the third largest concentration of biotech/medical device companies in the world, whereas Southern California has the second largest concentration (these figures were from several years ago and I don’t know if the situation has changed). The point is, both Stanford and Duke offers a substantial amount in the biological sciences and you needn’t worry about the difference between them.