<p>Any ideas? I think I will most likely study science, but I don’t want to limit myself at this point</p>
<p>All three are good, but I would say Yale has the overall edge in terms of undergraduate science and engineering programs. See my overall suggestion of how to evaluate the programs here:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060159004-post48.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060159004-post48.html</a></p>
<p>Yale for sciences is superr. Princeton is a little too much humanities, and MIT is probably more hardcore mathematics than you want.</p>
<p>If you are not sure what you want to study, I think that Princeton and Yale would offer you the best options–they are both strong in almost every department. As to sciences, I don’t know what 08seniors08 is exactly talking about. Princeton, like Yale, is almost universally acknowledged to have extremely strong science departments. According to the NRC ranking and the Gourman report, the Princeton physics department is one of the best in the nation-- here are the top schools according to these sources</p>
<p>NRC ranking:
1 Harvard 4.91
2 Princeton 4.89
3 MIT 4.87
3 Cal Berkeley 4.87
5 Cal Tech 4.81</p>
<p>Gourman report for undergrad physics:</p>
<p>Caltech
Harvard
Cornell
Princeton
MIT
UC Berkeley
Stanford
U Chicago
U Illinois Urbana Champaign
Columbia
Yale</p>
<p>In chemistry, the Gourman report places Princeton and Yale as essentially tied. Here’s the ranking</p>
<p>Caltech
UC Berkeley
Harvard
MIT
Columbia
Stanford
Illinois Urbana Champaign
U Chicago
UCLA
Wisconsin Madison
Cornell
Northwestern
Princeton
Yale</p>
<p>Princeton is weakest in the biology department, although the school is certainly no slouch in this area. Here are the Gourman rankings</p>
<p>Caltech
MIT
Yale
Harvard
Wisconsin
UC San Diego
UC Berkeley
U Colorado
Columbia
Stanford
U Washington
U Chicago
Duke
Wash U St Louis
UCLA
U Michigan
Cornell
U Penn
Purdue
Indiana U
UNC Chapel Hill
U Utah
Johns Hopkins
Northwestern
Princeton</p>
<p>Princeton is currently in the process of a major initiative in neuroscience and the school is planning a new neuroscience building, the Lewis Siegler Institute for Institutive Genomics is doing groundbreaking research at the intersection of biology and the quantitive sciences and there are numerous research opportunities available.</p>
<p>In other areas, Princeton has many many academic strengths. The Creative Writing Department is world-renowned (John McPhee, Toni Morison, Joyce Carol Oates etc.), Edward Albee taught a seminar last semester and the dance department has a passionate advocate in Ze-eva Cohen. Princeton is one of the top schools for the teaching of history (as is Yale), the classics department is exceptional, and many consider the philosophy department the best in the nation (it is ranked number 1 by Gourman).</p>
<p>I think that a choice between Yale and Princeton is essentially a win-win situation and that location, type of campus, general feeling about the school etc. would probably be the determining factors.</p>
<p>All three are good for studying science/engineering at the undergrad level. However, at Yale or Princeton, you might get the benefit of meeting people with a wider range of interests.</p>
<p>
No, you’ll just meet people with a wider range of majors. There’s a difference.</p>
<p>MIT world renowned for engineering, research and science. Princeton world renowned for science and research. Yale renowned for: President Bush and art/theatre?</p>
<p>plus, princeton doesnt have the grad schools, so lots of focus on undergrads</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>People generally major in what they’re interested in…especially at schools like Yale, MIT, or Princeton.</p>
<p>princeton is probably the best bet in my opinion especially if you are not completely sure of what you want to major in at this point. it is very strong in the sciences and also very good in engineering. princeton is also strong in the arts/humanities as well should you interests change. and as chicagoboy12 says, undergrads get a lot of attention</p>
<p>everything is good</p>
<p>Overall all, certainly MIT is the best in both science and engineering. Princeton is also great, but a notch below. Yale is a good place, but can not be compared to the other 2.</p>
<p>In pure math, Princeton is THE BEST in the world. MIT is one of the best, but probably behind Harvard and Berkeley as well.</p>
<p>In physics, MIT and Princeton are among the best, along with Caltech, Berkeley, Harvard, and Stanford.</p>
<p>For other science fields, among these 3 schools, it should be MIT hands down.</p>
<p>For engineering, MIT>Princeton>Yale. </p>
<p>So in any case, picking MIT or Princeton is a better choice than Yale. If you want to learn a lot humanities besides science, or focus on purely theoretic side of sciences, Princeton might be a better choice than MIT. Otherwise, MIT is your best bet.</p>
<p>But you do want to go to Yale if you want to be the president of the country.</p>
<p>Here is the analysis based on the number of faculty members selected into the prestigious National Academy of Science since year 2000 for HYPSM + Berkeley. You’ll see HARVARD is still HARVARD. Stanford is not far behind. </p>
<p>search link
[National</a> Academy of Sciences:](<a href=“National Academy of Sciences”>National Academy of Sciences)</p>
<p>search method: type the university name, then type year.</p>
<h1>NAS membership selected since year 2000</h1>
<p>Institution/2008/2007/2006/2005/2004/2003/2002/2001/2000/total
Harvard/7/5/6/5/5/3/9/7/1/48</p>
<p>Stanford/5/5/1/5/4/7/7/2/6/42
Berkeley/3/1/5/3/6/4/5/6/5/38</p>
<p>MIT/7/5/3/2/4/4/2/1/2/30
Princeton/3/5/2/7/2/1/1/4/2/27</p>
<p>Yale/1/1/1/2/0/1/1/5/2/13</p>
<p>Apparently, Yale has lost the battle in recruiting super star professors when compared to HSBMP plus Caltech. It is a big challenge for Yale to stop the trend of going down hill. Yale is the 2nd richest university in the world. But where did the money go? Apparently, money can not buy everything.</p>
<p>
And certainly MIT students are interested in their majors. But they have a very wide range of interests outside their majors, and a wide range of extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>I don’t think a student will actually find a greater variety of interests somewhere other than MIT, just a wider variety of majors.</p>
<p>I would strongly disagree. I would argue that Yale and Caltech are the
top undergraduate science programs overall, with MIT and Harvard being
close runners-up.</p>
<p>What you might be confusing is quantity and quality. Obviously, places
like UCSF, Johns Hopkins, Stanford and Michigan churn out more papers than
Caltech each year, and are very good, but I would argue that the
quality of Caltech’s program (at both the undergraduate as well as the
graduate level) and the average faculty quality is higher than that of
any of those places.</p>
<p>If you evaluate quality-based rankings, you can see some trends. In
the individual department rankings of the 2006 Faculty Scholarly
Productivity Index published by the Chronicle of Higher Education, 4
of Yale’s science departments were ranked #1 in the nation (and many
others in the top five). For comparison’s sake, 4 of Harvard’s, 3 of
Stanford’s, 2 of MIT’s, 1 of Princeton’s, and none of Northwestern’s
departments were ranked #1.</p>
<p>Another way to look at it is that 13 of Yale’s biological science
programs were ranked among the top 10, versus just 10 of Harvard’s, 10
of UCSF’s, 10 of Johns Hopkins’s, 10 of Duke’s, 8 of Stanford’s, 6 of
UCSD’s, 5 of UPenn’s, 4 of Berkeley’s, 3 of Caltech’s, and 3 of MIT’s.</p>
<p>According to a totally separate source, ScienceWatch 2006 published by
ISI, if you take the average placement of the 100 largest university
science programs among 21 different fields, Yale scored the highest
average placement with a score of 2.67, followed MIT at 3.00, then
Harvard (3.80). Princeton and Stanford were in fourth place. In the
engineering subfield, Yale was ranked #1 in the past two surveys,
which were released in 2002 and 2006. Just above Caltech, Stanford, etc.</p>
<p>In other words, you could argue that Yale is #1 for undergraduate
science – not even just #2 or “top five.” Certainly, the sciences are
a major area of strength for Yale. Obviously, Yale also has amazing
programs in fields other than science which compete for undergraduate
majors. It is generally regarded to have among the strongest history,
political science, psychology, anthropology, English, language and
literature departments in the world, for example. That’s why it ranks
so highly on an overall basis: See this post: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060158922-post45.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060158922-post45.html</a></p>
<p>More anecdotal evidence includes things such as Yale winning more
young researcher (PECASE) awards this year than any other institution
in the United States. Also, Yale’s science faculty have won four
Gairdner Awards just within the past 4 years. The Gairdner is the most
prestigious science award in the world after the Nobel Prize, as about
1/4 or more of Gairdner Award winners later go on to receive the Nobel
Prize in Medicine-Physiology. Yale’s biomedical research program is
world-renowned and rapidly expanding, and in terms of research funding
per undergraduate science student, Yale beats everyone else (except
for Caltech) hands-down. That means plenty of research opportunities.</p>
<p>Anyhow, my suggestion is to throw all of this info out the window and
evaluate the program for yourself. Harvard, Yale, MIT, Johns Hopkins,
UCSD, UCSF, Stanford, WUSTL, Chicago, Duke and others are all
world-renowned for their science research, but which school has the
best undergraduate program? Talk with current faculty and students and
see if they like the program, as well as where they go after
they graduate. Also it is important to see where you would best fit in
as a student. Some people would do better at a place like Wellesley or
Pomona – both of which have incredible undergraduate programs – than
they would at a large, impersonal school like Berkeley, Stanford,
Michigan, Texas, etc. It doesn’t take all that much work to figure out
which school is right for you, but don’t base your decision on what
anyone else says.</p>
<p>where did you decide?</p>
<p>chicagoboy12 wrote: “where did you decide?”</p>
<p>In the shower, of course… isn’t that where all decisions are made?</p>
<p>Here is posterX’s beloved science watch ranking in 2006:</p>
<p>[U.S</a>. University Top Tens - Harvard, Stanford Still Tops](<a href=“http://archive.sciencewatch.com/nov-dec2006/sw_nov-dec2006_page1.htm]U.S”>http://archive.sciencewatch.com/nov-dec2006/sw_nov-dec2006_page1.htm)</p>
<p>Notice that the article titled
U.S. University "Top Tens": Harvard, Stanford Still Tops
.</p>
<p>And the ranking is shown below.</p>
<p>Highest Impact U.S. Universities, 2001-2005
(Ranked by frequency of Top Ten appearances in 21 fields)</p>
<p>Rank Institution Top Ten Appearances
1 Harvard University 15
2 Stanford University 13
3 Univ. Calif., Berkeley 10
4 University of Washington 8
5 MIT 7
6 Yale University 6
7 Univ. Calif., San Diego 6
8 Princeton University 5
9 University of Pennsylvania 5
10 Caltech 5
11 Univ. Calif., San Francisco 5
12 Columbia University 5</p>
<p>Datalook, you didn’t read my post at all. I was arguing that Yale and Caltech are #1 for undergraduate science. And as I pointed out, it depends on what is best for you anyways.</p>
<p>Arguing about whether Yale or Princeton is better for science is like arguing about whether a BMW or a Mercedes has nicer ashtrays.</p>