<p>Among grad and med school circles, Wesleyan has a tremendous reputation in the sciences. It’s one of the very few LACs with Ph.D-level programs in math, bio, MB-BC, and Physics. It receives more NSF money in a given year than Amherst, Williams and Swarthmore–combined. And it’s med school acceptance rate hovers around 90%. The problem is that it’s hard for the sciences to compete in the realm of popular perception when you have young alum like Akiva Goldsman winning the Academy Award for best movie screenplay; Josh Whedon and Sebastian Junger writing cult classics like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “The Perfect Storm”; or John Turteltaub and David Handler cranking out box-office hits like “National Treasure” and “A Series of Unfortunate Events” within weeks of each other. Let’s face it, it’s hard for science nerds to compete with all those American Studies graduates (another Wesleyan specialty.) The nice part, however, is that for true science devotees, you get to have one of the top programs in the country–all to yourselves; there are only a small number of TAs at any given time, so professors are constantly enlisting u/gs for research. The bottom line: Wesleyan has one of the highest rates of u/g co-authored science papers in the country. So, go ahead and apply. You won’t regret it.</p>