LACs with best Biology programs

warblersrule
Mon, 03 Sep 2012 18:09:42 +0000

Literally dozens of schools fit your criterion. Biology is one of the most popular majors everywhere, and any decent school will have an above average program. Allegheny, Franklin & Marshall, Rhodes, Bucknell, Hamilton, Union, Whitman, Middlebury, Cornell, COA, Colby, Wesleyan, Reed, Davidson, Oberlin, Colgate, Bates…the list goes on and on. Many lesser known LACs like Hope have absolutely superb track records in biology and can match any elite college.

(1) Think about what you want in a college.

[ul][]Big city, small city, suburban, rural…?
[]Which part(s) of the country? (Pacific Northwest? Northeast? California? Southeast?)
[]Co-ed or single-sex?
[]What can you afford?
[li]Any other factors you deem important - must offer a particular language, offers LD support, has gender-neutral housing, etc.[/ul] [/li]
(2) Use search engines to create a preliminary list of prospective colleges based on qualities you’ve determined are important to you.

https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-search
[College Search - College Confidential](http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search)

(3) Narrow down further. Read books like the [Fiske Guide to Colleges](http://www.amazon.com/Fiske-Guide-Colleges-2013-29E/dp/1402209630) and the [Insider’s Guide to the Colleges](http://www.amazon.com/The-Insiders-Guide-Colleges-2013/dp/0312672969).

(4) Narrow down based on your interests in biology. No college, even among major research universities, excels in all areas of biology. Haverford is excellent for biochemistry, for example, but it’s much weaker in anything else. Amherst, Conn College, Ohio Wesleyan, and Eckerd excel in neuroscience, botany, zoology, and marine biology, respectively. Check course schedules - NOT the course bulletin, which includes courses that haven’t been taught in years - to see if courses in your areas of interest are taught regularly. Other things to look for:

[ul][]How much research funding is available? How competitive is it to get?
[]How good are the college’s research opportunities? Are freshmen encouraged to participate in research? (Be wary of people who talk about freshmen “working in labs.” Too often this is simple grunt work.)
[]Have students been published? If so, as what author (1st, 2nd, etc.) and in what journals?
[]What graduate programs do students attend?
[]Does the college offer field and lab-based seminars?
[]Are there faculty members in your area(s) of interest?
[li]What special facilities does the college have? Herbarium, vert/invert research collections, SEM, phytotron, mass spec, flow cytometry…?[/ul] [/li]
I don’t agree at all with the above post about PhD production as a proxy for quality, and I voiced my objections in the linked thread. For one, the vast majority of biology students don’t get PhDs in biology. Many choose to only get master’s degrees (suitable for many positions in some subfields) or get graduate degrees in medicine, veterinary medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, public health, or any number of other related fields. Additionally, it only tells you how many PhDs are produced - what’s far more important is (1) the success rate of people who actually apply to graduate school and (2) where schools send their students for PhDs. Which looks more impressive to you?

LAC 1: 3/3 successful, sent to Harvard and Berkeley
LAC 2: 5/10 successful, sent to West Central Valley State U*

PhD per capita production would favor the second one, but LAC 1 is obviously doing better.

*Feel free to insert any other fictional and academically weak university here.

That said, most of tk21769’s suggestions are perfectly good for biology, and the list includes some of the strongest programs among LACs.