Princeton vs. UChicago

juillet
Wed, 24 May 2017 16:45:58 +0000

If I wanted more specific information about research opportunities and typical academic paths, who would I email: faculty or admission representatives or someone else?

I don’t think you really need to contact anyone just yet.

You can answer broad questions about the kind of research that is done by checking out the websites of both universities. The relevant departments (biology and any related ones) will have websites with faculty research interests on those websites, so you can see what kind of research the faculty are doing and maybe even profiles of their lab members. Most of those faculty members will take on at least some undergrad RAs to help run their labs, so that’ll give you a broad idea of what kind of research is done there. Press releases from the department can also clue you into major discoveries and such.

Do keep in mind, though, tat as an undergrad your focus is not working on the most cutting-edge research with the best researchers in the world; rather, it’s learning the basic/foundational skills necessary to go onto graduate school and do the cutting-edge work later. They’re not necessarily mutually exclusive, but it’s more important to find an environment that will nurture you and prepare you for a future research career than it is to find a place with the “best” faculty and “best” equipment/research.

As for typical academic paths - no need to ask that question, as there really is no typical academic path. Just know that you can do pretty much anything you want coming from a school like UChicago or Princeton. What you could potentially do is, once you’ve identified some faculty with research that sounds kind of interesting to you, is ask them what kinds of graduate programs their recent graduates have gone off to. I don’t think it’s strictly necessary, as a high-achieving Princeton or Chicago graduate could really go to any kind of PhD program they wanted to.