@Goldfish76 I don’t really know about the other two schools. All I’ve heard about NYU is that the introductory and intermediate science courses are very large…With exception of physics 141/142 (if you don’t want to take “real physics” and just follow the other pre-healths), this isn’t the case at Emory. The introductory courses are much smaller than at peer institutions. Usually sections at peer institutions range from 150-250 students, whereas at Emory 75-120 is more common. This does biology some justice as you get more experimentation among instructors. For example, Emory is one of the few top 25 or so universities where a decent amount of the biology sections actually employ case study assignments in and out of class. Needless to say, this is good for MCAT (passage based-equivalent to a case study). And since you are an NBB major, much of that curriculum, especially the non-core (elective) courses are moving toward a more active learning/case based style of teaching that mostly focuses on analyzing data and experiments in context of the material as opposed to memorization of it. Not to mention, many of the NBB electives are just awesome! They offer things like a course/seminar in neurodegenerative diseases, drug development, and in the upcoming fall a course just on axon regeneration will be offered. Sometimes a neurobiochemistry course is offered, a neurophysiology lab course is offered every so often.
Just some really good options. In addition, if you were NBB at Emory, you can pretty much dabble in anthropology, biology, psychology, and even chemistry (via chembio molecular modelling) and get credits towards your electives. It is extremely interdisciplinary. Chemistry is taught very well at Emory (at intro level) and so is organic chemistry (though if you choose a really good instructor, it will be far more rigorous than at most peer institutions…and I’ve actually compared many of them side by side. The two most beloved instructors’ standards more so resemble of what you expect to see at HYPSM or something). If you came to Emory and took biology first (without chem) you may experience what the chemistry curriculum overhaul will be and if implemented correctly, it could be quite good (they plan to reframe the intro and foundation courses so that they cover material in context of modern applications of chemistry). This could make the sequence more challenging if they implement it properly, but again, it is honestly better for you as you want the material to be contextualized. You will retain it better and things like MCAT passages will not scare you because you are simply used to being challenged by applications of the material (something the two best ochem instructors do very well, and many of the biology and NBB instructors do well too) instead of content in a vacuum. Though there are naturally some struggles getting faculty to buy into curricular innovations, I would say Emory has done a very good job in comparison to many similarly ranked peers. The efforts to do science education well are actually quite aggressive on main and at Oxford. We are one of the schools that has a Center for Science Education…it has had an effect. Emory could be a cool place to come if you’re into science/pre-med. We have a lot going on there. I am sure that all schools will be well-resourced if not merely due to the cities they are in.