Which top 20-30 for Biological sciences?

College Search & Lists
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<p>Without knowing anyone’s statistics when they applied to grad school makes your arguement of their placement @ Caltech worthless.</p>

<p>For applications to some place like Caltech, we can be assured that they have, for the most part, their pick of the best of the best. If we assume that these individuals had steller GRE scores (not unlikely) and good GPA’s, then their admission has little if anything to do with their undergrad institution. It’s just like the HS students in the pre-med forums here who ask “If I have a 36 MCAT, and a 3.9 GPA with a triple major, and I volunteer and I’m published, will I get accepted to Harvard Med? Because I really think this is all doable and yada yada yada…” The answer ends up being “well yeah, you have a shot, but the trick is actually getting those sorts of accomplishments.”</p>

<p>The thing is though, that MOST people don’t end up with scores like those and have that type of GPA, and all those accomplishments that lead to getting into a place like Caltech. If getting those things was easy, then everyone would have them. The safest assumption then is to figure most people asking these questions are going to have fairly average scores and GPA. They then need to find things that will make them stand out in the crowd. And while I know that most of the people on this site are obsessed about prestige, the prestige of graduate school isn’t as important. Understanding that prestige doesn’t matter is particularly important for medical school (where the goal should be just to get in somewhere) and graduate school, where different programs have very different strenghths - and so the search would be for programs whose strength matches one’s interests.</p>

<p>Let’s try an example (since I majored in sociology at Nebraska), Nebraska has a very highly regarded program in Marriage and Family sociology, but the rest of the programs (like say theory or sociology of latinos) are relatively average or weak. It’s possible that Wisconsin-Madison (usually considered the nation’s top sociology department, or pretty damn close) has a weak Marriage and Family focus (I really don’t know, it’s just an example). Then for the person who really wants to study Marriage and Family and do their dissertation on some topic therein, it would be better for them to go to Nebraska. They probably might even have much lower scores then someone who was admitted to Wisconsin for Marriage and family (who applied there because of being overly impressed by the prestige). But since they have rather average scores and GPA, they need something to make them stand out, like research while an undergrad. </p>

<p>With that mindset of trying to stand out in a relatively equal field, then the original poster needs to focus on places that are going to be the best at supplying those opportunities. In this case, a Research I university.</p>

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<p>Also, mad props to the person who said the original poster is going about the process backwards…</p>

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<p>Bigredmed, I’m afraid I don’t agree, mostly because I disagree with your starting assumptions.</p>

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<p>Then I’ll give you a shining example. We can use molliebatmit, a regular poster here, and who got admitted to a number of top bio PhD programs coming out of MIT. At the same time, I happen to know some other bio students from other big research schools (like Berkeley) who also applied to the same bio PhD programs that she did, and didn’t get in. In fact, in most cases, they didn’t even get an interview. </p>

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<p>And that’s where the analysis breaks down. Molliebatmit had good, but not stellar GPA and GRE scores. Yet she got into every single bio PhD program she applied to. I happen to know quite a few other people who got into top doctoral programs who had decent, but certainly not spectacular scores. For example, I know a guy who just got admitted into the business doctoral program at Harvard Business School whose stats really aren’t that good.</p>

<p>The truth is, stats are not the major determinant of whether you will get into a top doctoral program. I know people coming out of MIT, Harvard, and other major research programs with near-perfect grades and test scores who nonetheless found that they couldn’t get admitted to a single top-tier doctoral program. What matters far more than your stats is your rec’s and your research experience. Molliebatmit got admitted mostly because of her strong research experience.</p>

<p>So now that I have mentioned the importance of research, one might say that that would cause you to prefer a research university over a LAC. Wrong - and that is where the analysis goes off the rails. The issue is not how good the research is at a particular school, the real issue is how much research YOU as an individual student will be able to perform. This is the major difference between LAC’s and most big research universities.</p>

<p>The truth is, most undergrads at the big research universities, especially the big public schools, have little access to any meaningful research projects. Sure, there is a lot of research going on, but you as an undergrad probably don’t have access to it, or if you do, in only higher constrained circumstances. For example, I know plenty of undergrads at Berkeley who have complained that they have never been allowed to work on any research of note, and if they were able to get a lab position at all (which is by no means certain), then they would often times be relegated to performing menial tasks like cleaning glassware or calibrating instruments, rather than actually doing anything meaningful. In short, most research universities reserve almost all of their research facilities for their graduate students, leaving very little available for the undergrads. </p>

<p>LAC’s may have less total big-time research, but that research is far more AVAILABLE to the undergrads, mostly because you don’t have to compete with a whole slew of graduate students for lab spots. </p>

<p>Again, take a look at all of the newly minted Caltech PhD’s and check out their CV’s online. Nearly all of them, including those from the LAC’s, can demonstrate substantial research experience from their undergraduate days, including in many cases published articles. How is that possible if the LAC’s are unable to provide research opportunities for these undergrads? </p>

<p>To give you a case in point, take some huge research univeristies like Berkeley or UCLA. According to the Caltech data, it is almost always the case that more of their newly minted PHd’s did their undergrads at one of the top 10 LAC’s than from Berkeley or UCLA, despite the fact that Berkeley and UCLA each have far more undergrads than all of the top 10 LAC’s combined. </p>

<p>The other main aspect is that you talk about the importance of grades. Well, to that I would say that it is often times actually EASIER to get higher grades at an elite LAC than at a major research university, mostly because of the grade inflation. At most LAC’s, it is practically impossible to flunk out or otherwise get truly bad grades. As long as you put in the bare minimum of work, the worst grade you will get is a B, or maybe a C. Contrast that with the big research universities like Berkeley that almost seem to enjoy tagging students with bad grades. </p>

<p>But more to the point, I think vossron has hit the nail right on the head. The fact is, LAC’s do extremely well when it comes to getting its students to PhD programs. For example, what school has the highest percentage of its undergrads going on to receive PhD’s in engineering, science or math? Is it a major research university? Nope - it’s a LAC, Harvey Mudd. A full 34.4% of Mudd’s graduates go on to receive PhD’s. That’s higher than the percentage from Caltech or MIT. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.leaderu.com/choosingcollege/sowell-choosing/chpter04.html[/url]”>http://www.leaderu.com/choosingcollege/sowell-choosing/chpter04.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>So your argument that those individual people who get high stats may get into doctoral programs may hold water if a small minority of the class goes to these programs. It holds far less water if more than 1/3 of the class does so. The fact that the percentages are so high indicates that there is probably something else going on - that the school itself must be providing something to prepare its students well for doctoral programs.</p>

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<p>At the undergraduate level, Caltech, Yale and MIT are easily the strongest. They have by far the most basic science/biology per undergraduate major on their central campuses. If you investigate further, you’ll find that their biology graduates are all accepted to the very top graduate programs or prestigious NIH fellowships, often as PhD/MD students and with full funding.</p>

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<p>Well if that’s the case, then the focus should be on finding the schools that do have research opportunities. We shouldn’t be worrying about whether a school is the top in bio or business or anything else: LAC or Research I.</p>

<p>The fact is that there ARE Research I universities in which undergrads have the opportunity to make meaningful contributions to research. I know that the University of Nebraska has such a program in its Undergraduate Creative Activities & Research Experiences <a href=“UCARE”>url=http://www.unl.edu/ucare/index.shtml&lt;/a&gt;. I’m fairly certain that other large Universities (Kansas and maybe Oklahoma) are also creating such programs if they haven’t been done already.</p>

<p>And just as surely as there are Research I universities that do allow meaningful research by students, there are LAC’s that don’t. </p>

<p>So the lesson for the original poster is: If you want to move on to a PhD go where you can do reasearch.</p>

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<p>Also, the idea of simply using PhD placement is not an accurate representation of where the undergrad school is the best to go to if you wish to pursue such a path. It is simply to much of an individual’s decision and schools get penalized for placing students into great jobs; medical, dental or law schools; and organizations like Teach for America and the Peace Corps.</p>

<p>If you could somehow find data on the number of people who apply for PhD programs from each school and were accepted, or the number of students who enter as froshes hoping to get a PhD, then that would be a more valid estimation of the impact a school has on placing students to PhD programs. But I doubt such data exists, or if it does, is probably not easily collected.</p>

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<p>Caltech and MIT are definitely the top schools in biological science!</p>

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<p>I don’t know about rankings, but it’s always appeared to me that Biology must be awesome at Cornell. Between the College of Arts & Sciences and the College of Agriculture, they’ve got it pretty much covered.</p>

<p>Two of the smartest guys I knew there were bio majors- one in each of these colleges, actually. I don’t know if they even knew each other back then, but they probably do now- since I was told they are both professors at the same [major] school now.</p>

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<p>Cornell has good biological sciences, but most of it is located 300 miles away from the main campus, at the medical campus in New York City. Which means undergraduates have absolutely no access to it.</p>

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<p>Nonsense. Cornell has perfectly good biology programs located in Ithaca- a world-famous ornithology lab, for example. Cornell even has its own marine lab.</p>

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see the post above by posterX; that’s why MIT and Caltech (100% asset to undergraduate research) are the best! Plus, MIT ranks number in the world for technology; therefore, its bio-technology and biomedial engineering programs are the strongest in the world!</p>

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<p>“Cornell has good biological sciences, but most of it is located 300 miles away from the main campus, at the medical campus in New York City. Which means undergraduates have absolutely no access to it.”</p>

<p>I doubt that this statement is correct. I mean the “most of it” part.</p>

<p>On the main campus is:
-The College of Arts & Sciences, with its biology faculty

  • The College of Agriculture, with its faculty
  • The College of Veterinary Medicine, with its faculty
    Additionally, the private Boyce- Thompson Institute for Plant Research relocated to Ithaca years ago; there are probably others as well.</p>

<p>In any event, most colleges in this country do not have a medical school co-located on their campus. And of the ones that do, I wonder how many provide meaningful research opportunities to undergraduate students who are not students in the medical school.</p>

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<p>Don’t be so narrow-minded about what biology includes, MIT2010. Schools like Cornell, Duke, Stanford, Chicago, etc. are inevitably better for undergrad biology because they have strengths in such a wide variety of areas. Schools like JHU, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Caltech, etc., are too quick to specialize, IMHO. I think it’s a shame that people can graduate with a degree in biology without taking a class in botany or organismal biology!</p>

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<p>“Don’t be so narrow-minded about what biology includes, MIT2010” </p>

<p>please dont’ judge me before you know me. I am a very open-minded person. i never say that don’t go to these other good schools; I just want to share the information about MIT’s UROP.</p>

<p>“I think it’s a shame that people can graduate with a degree in biology without taking a class in botany or organismal biology!”</p>

<p>We should never be shameful of ourself if we have tried our best to achieve what we wants; there is no absolute right or perfect way to study or to take classes. Believing in yourself and being confident are what make you yourself good, although others might think your choices are bad. You are too narrow-minded about this, warblersrule86.</p>

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<p>for those of you who are interested, go take a look at this years winners of the prestigious NSF predoctoral fellowships…it has both their undergrad institution and there new graduate institution listed…you can further segregate by which division they won the award in (i.e., biology, chemistry, etc.)…</p>

<p>The majority of undergrads come from Harvard, Stanford, MIT, CalTech , Cornell (2nd after Harvard among the ivys). The majority of students, likewise go to Cal, Harvard, Stanford and MIT (those four by far get the most students) for graduate school…it’s interesting.</p>

<p>cheers,
CUgrad</p>

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<p>Yep, and that’s my precise point. There is no point in going to a school that has lots of research activities, if you as an individual undergrad are not allowed to participate in thse activities. Who cares about that. What really matters is the quality of the research activities that you as an individual are allowed to participate in. As a case in point, there are plenty of large public schools that have plenty of research projects. The problem is that they also have lots and lots of undergrads trying to get into those projects, such that you as an individual undergrad are probably not going to get much access to those projects. </p>

<p>LAC’s may not have big-time research opportunities, but they also don’t have lots of students (both grad and undergrad) trying to compete for those opportunities. Hence, as an individual undergrad, one might say that you may actually be BETTER off going to a LAC than to a major research university. After all, what does it matter if your school has lots of big-time research going on if you are not allowed to participate in any of it because there are too many other students trying participate? It’s like being an injured player for a team that wins the championship. Yeah, your team won the championship, but you had nothing to do with it. You were just there as a hanger-on.</p>

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<p>Warbler, for some time I have wondered why so many college Biology departments seem to have such different major requirements. Like you, I noticed that many programs from reputable schools allow a tremendous degree of specialization at the undergrad level; no plant science, no developmental biology. I’m no science expert, but can a B.S. graduate of such a narrow prograrm expect to get an entry level job in the field, a research position or a place in grad school?</p>

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<p>it is interesting the different requirements
D school for example requires a year of Ochem, for a plain bio degree, some other schools do the same, but some schools only require Ochem if a biochem major.
Some schools have fairly rigorous lab science requirements, other schools have psychology majors, which is generally not grouped with lab sciences, counting with their students in the “science” dept.
While my kids both have specific interests in biology, I have learned from CC, that it is more advantageous to specialize in gradual school, not for example get an astrobiology degree as undergrad.</p>

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<p>Yes, Kitty. For example, I see that undergraduate labs for Genetics, Ecology and even Biochemistry are optional at some major research-level schools. Whereas most/many graduate Biology programs require the labs for admission.</p>

<p>Schools also seem to vary a lot on the math requirement for the Biology major; is it Calculus I and Calculus II or just Calculus I? Others compel their majors to take Statistics IN ADDITION to Calculus II. The one requirement which I believe not enough schools demand is 'Writing in the Major." I once read the website of a U of Washington Marine Biology professor who complained that too many of his students couldn’t write worth a darn.</p>

<p>While we’re on the subject of undergraduate requirements, I don’t like the fact that some state legislatures have begun to mandate that public colleges make “U.S. Government” or “State and Local Government” a core requirement. Shouldn’t students learn about American government in high school? I know that at least Massachusetts and Texas mandate these classes for students at their public colleges.</p>

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Well, of course they can. After all, the average molecular biology lab tech position doesn’t involve any ecology. And graduates of these programs are likely to be interested in cell or molecular biology, so they’re not likely to be applying to graduate programs in EEOB.</p>

<p>I just got the information on undergraduate institutions for my incoming graduate class – out of the 60 first-year grad students in Harvard’s Biological/Biomedical Sciences program next year, 9 of them are MIT grads. Clearly, MIT grads are doing well in the graduate admissions process despite their “narrow” degrees.</p>