Take note that Amherst, as mentioned prominently on its site, was the first institution to establish an undergraduate major in neuroscience.
https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/neuroscience/about
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Please reread OP’s original post in this thread.
OP wrote:
“I plan on majoring in neuroscience…I’m looking for grad school prep and access to research oppotunities as an undergrad, specifically on the biological basis of human behavior and mental illness.”
OP: Just research the course offerings at each of the schools which offered you admissiom as a transfer student.
@merc81: Even Amherst College’s website refers readers to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst for profs in Neurobiology / neuroscience.
Being the first (1973) has little/nothing to do with being the best.
P.S. Amherst College’s website notes that Amherst students often do honors projects / thesis under the guidance of UMass-Amherst faculty.
OP: If you want an intro. to neuroscience, Amherst looks like a reasonable option; but, if you want to major in neuroscience UMass at Amherst is a better option. And you have better options than UMass-Amherst.
With respect to the OP’s stated goals, note these relevant comments from Amherst’s site:
And
And
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Or OP can enroll at USC, Penn, UNC, Emory, or Michigan & have access to a wider variety of courses, instructors, research, and on-campus grad school opportunities.
I cannot think of one reason for OP to select Amherst College over USC or UPenn for the study of neuroscience / neurobiology after examing all three schools’ websites.
I don’t agree that research opportunities are necessarily better at larger universities. If anything, it can be much more competitive, especially as OP will presumably be transferring in as a junior, competing with university students who will probably already know professors far better than OP will.
Speaking from the experience of my daughter, who will soon graduate from college, students at LACs are not at a big disadvantage for research opportunities. Especially not from Amherst. My own D easily found two summer research positions. One was offered to her directly by her professor. Many of her college friends had summer research positions at prestigious universities.
Because LAC professors work closely with undergrads, they are in good positions to give excellent recommendations, or take on students for their own research, or to refer students to positions they have connections with. And no top university is going to think less of an Amherst student than a USC student.
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Publisher, kudos to you for all the research you did. You make a compelling argument.
Since I know nothing about the subject, let me just ask the ignorant question. Despite the greater amount of research, will the competition from a larger number of students in these bigger schools offset the advantage of more research? And how many research opportunities go to undergrads?
National Universities receive substantial amounts of funding (money) from both private & government sources. Paid research opportunities often go to PhD & other graduate students & sometimes to undergraduates. Unpaid research opportunities are usually available to all qualified & interested students.
If one examines the websites for USC & for UPenn in the area of neuroscience research, it is overwhelming which leads me to believe that research opportunities are available to all.
At LACs, students can participate in the limited projects done by professors or can do an independent paper/thesis/research project.
National Universities offer more & more varied research opportunities.
I cannot state with any authority, but I suspect that most research projects would welcome serious, dedicated, unpaid researchers majoring in that or a related discipline.
USC states that it is one of 32 research institutions for the NIH in the area of neuroscience (as is UPenn).
Thanks for educating me on the subject. Much appreciated. I feel smarter already. ?
The top 30 schools in the US by “research expenditures” are relevant to OP’s decision as Michigan, UPenn, UNC, Duke, USC, and Emory are included in this group.
Each year Johns Hopkins leads the nation followed by Michigan.
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JHU (Johns Hopkins University)
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University of Michigan
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UC-San Francisco
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UPenn
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Univ. of Washington
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Wisconsin
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Duke
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Harvard
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Stanford
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Univ. of North Carolina (UNC)
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Cornell
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MIT
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Yale
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Univ. of Pittsburgh
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Minnesota
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NYU
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Texas A&M
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Columbia
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Ohio State
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Penn State
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Georgia Tech
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Univ. of Florida
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UCal-Berkeley
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USC (Univ. of Southern California)
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WashUStL
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Northwestern University
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Vanderbilt University
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Michigan State
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Rutgers
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Emory University
This list includes both private & federal government funded research.
According to US News, there are 399 institutions classified as National Universities in the US. (211 public, 180 private, & 8 for-profit.)
Also according to US News, there are 223 LACs (liberal arts colleges) in the US (199 private & 24 public).
I prefer the Carnegie Foundation’s classification of colleges and universities. USNWR just rips them off anyway - and then waters it down.
My first reaction was Amherst for the reasons that Lindagaf suggests – smaller school so easier to meet profs. But, otoh, I’ve never been sold on the Consortium: ‘as my son asked me when we toured Amherst, why would anyone pay Amherst tuition to be able to take classes at UMass?’
I’d drop USC as it is full of CA premed gunners who likely already have many research opportunities locked up. Sure, the same can be true at Penn, but I’m guessing that 'SC is just a tad more competitive in that area.
So, IMO, that leaves the OP with two academic choices (of admitted): Emory and Penn, but not necessarily in that order.
In that case, @bluebayou, why not Swarthmore where cross registration opportunities include Penn as the big research university option instead of UMass?
^^sure, Swat is excellent for pre-PhD, but I have the same problem there - its a personal thing. Enrolling in a LAC to take classes at a R1 kinda defeats the purpose of a LAC, IMO, particularly when the Recs that are needed will mostly come from the Penn profs (who will be teaching the upper division neuro courses. Just go to Penn in the first place.
The other possible downside with Swat is for premed. Rumor has it that Swat is not exactly generous with A’s. But that just could be rumor and not fact.
(To maximize GPA, Amherst would be my first choice.)
Decisions, decisions. Good luck OP, there is no wrong answer here.
I stilll think time is a factor. Two years could go by before the OP meets anybody outside the neuroscience department at a big R-1 uni. So much for socialization.
@Publisher While research universities have more research going on, the opportunities for undergraduates to do actual research are few and far between. The vast majority of undergraduates who work with faculty on research are doing manual work, from cleaning up to feeding animal research subject. Very few of these students ever do anything which results in even a conference poster, much less a peer-reviewed publication. Student research at LACs is much more likely to be actual research, which results in a name on a publication.
After studying, being a teaching assistant, teaching, and working at 6 research universities in 5 states, I have seen nothing to contradict this. Over 15 years of conferences and looking at student presentations have also done nothing to contradict this.
Proportionally, graduates of liberal arts colleges attain PhDs at a much higher rate than graduates of research universities. This is a fact. Since being accepted to PhD programs is extremely difficult without demonstrating background in research, this argues that LACs are better at providing undergraduates with more opportunities at gain this experience.
There is also an issue of LoRs - an undergraduate working in a lab at a research university is more likely to be working with a graduate student or a post-doc than with the PI, meaning that their Lor is likely going to be either from the grad student/post-doc
Of the 50 colleges with the highest percent of undergraduates who go on to get PhDs, 34 are liberal arts colleges and 16 are research universities (R1). Of the top 100, 68 are LACs, and 27 are research universities (both R1 and R2). You can derive this yourself from https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/ids/sed but I let the good people at Swarthmore do the work for me: https://www.swarthmore.edu/institutional-research/doctorates-awarded.
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“this argues that LACs are better at providing undergraduates with more opportunities at gain this experience.”
The RU vs LAC discussion gets played may be too much in threads like this, but this is so far off the mark and an exaggeration that it needs to be brought out. There are kids I know at Stanford, Berkeley, MIT and Harvard who do not clean up labs but do actual research.
By your logic, someone getting into Stanford and Amherst to do CS research should pick Amherst because a LAC is better at providing research opportunities than a RU like Stanford.
https://www.swarthmore.edu/institutional-research/doctorates-awarded.
This also shows that Swarthmore is proud of their kids getting into Cal Tech, MIT etc, because guess what, that’s where the real research is done, at a RU, surprising as that sounds.
@MWolf: And you present the argument for LACs well except that it is not universally true that undergrad research assistants simply do manual chores. (Although may be accurate for freshmen undergrads.)
Your post does raise an issue about quality of research at LACs if LACs produce research based in significant part on the work of undergraduates without the assistance of PhD degree seeking grad students.
The overwhelming amount of research dollars invested by private companies & the federal government go to research universities–not to LACs.
As for letters of recommendation from faculty members for undergraduate students, I know many undergraduates through many decades who have received detailed letters of recommendation from professors at research universities among the 30 universities listed in my post #29 above.
I agree with @theloniusmonk that the differences are greatly exaggerated.
Also important to note that the ardent LAC supporters argue that LACs are superior because professors focus on teaching, and not on research; then when the issue focuses on research, LACs are magically superior to National Universities because students work closely with professors on their reseach at LACs.
Research universities have the funding from the federal government & from private industry enabling these National Universities to purchase the best equipment & to fund PhD programs.
Would one rather be the sole aid to a city councilperson or work as a legislative aid to a US Senator ? (Big fish in a very small pond versus small fish in a very big lake.)
@MWolf wrote:
“Of the 50 colleges with the highest percentage of undergrads who go on to get PhDs, 34 are liberal arts colleges and 16 are research universities (R1).”
Not surprising as LAC degrees are overwhelmingly in disciplines which are not preprofessional (such as business) or technical (such as agriculture).
With respect to OP’s area of interest (science), LACs make up 10 of the top 25 institutions for PhDs awarded in “science & engineering.” (Which is the opposite of overall PhD degrees awarded where 10 of the top 25 are National Universities.)
In OP’s case, do you think that Amherst College is sending their students to a National University, UMass at Amherst, to do “manual work, from cleaning up to feeding animal research subject” ?
If so, then why even consider Amherst College for neuroscience research ?
If not, then your assertions in post #35 above are discredited.
P.S. Not even one of the top 30 schools listed in my post #29 above is an LAC. And the research expenditures for these top 30 National Universities are massive in terms of dollar amounts.