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I am a Junior in Paxon School for Advanced Studies Highschool and I am greatly interested in Molecular Biology. Because I am attending the third best highschool in the nation I want to aim for the best colleges that offer genetics, but College Fairs dont really help since they only give information on the small colleges and I am a bit clueless as to the what colleges are really good for Molecular Biology.

I also would like to know what are good stats to have to actually have a decent chance of being accepted into the most prestigious colleges in the nation. Currently I have a 3.5-3.6 unweighted GPA and I havent taken the SAT, but I feel I can make around a 1400 without any studying. Also, do colleges look at weighted GPA or do they focus on unweighted because when I get to my Senior year I plan to take about 5 AP Classes and I wanted to know if that was a good idea to take that many hard classes or is it better to stick to easier Honors classes and just make A's in them?

By Massdad (Massdad) on Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 11:43 pm: Edit

Well, if you went to the 1st or 2nd best HS, I might be able to help, but 3rd best is digging pretty deep. On second thought, it would be cruel to leave you uninformed, so here goes (previous was mild humor..)

- First off, in all seriousness, giving your highschool ranking, especially a ranking from a Newsweek article of some controversy, strikes me as poor form. I'm sure others would be pleased to debate that issue with you if you want, but not here. Maybe another thread.

- As a molecular biologist by training, I can assure you that ANY major research university would more than meet your needs and provide challenge. Expertise in the biological sciences, due to ample nationwide funding from NIH, is widespread.

- There is no "best" college for anything. There are highly selective colleges that are wickedly difficult to get into, but most of us adults hesitate to call even them the "best". The real question is "what college is best for you" and the answer to that is likely to be quite a few.

Now the sad truth: An SAT score of 1400 and an unweighted GPA of 3.5-3.6 could pose a problem at many of the most elite universities. I do not know your school or its track record, so I'm only guessing. You may want to have a serious discussion with your GC about your school's college admissions track record.

Regarding your final questions, for most colleges, what counts is unweighted GPA. They'll compute their own with their own weighting if it matters. AP or easier classes? Depends on where you are aiming. If U. Florida, it does not matter. If MIT, it matters a lot. Then again, MIT would expect almost all A's in HS anyway.

By Cornellgrad02 (Cornellgrad02) on Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 10:57 am: Edit

to actually answer your question...

Berkeley
Stanford
MIT
Harvard
UCLA
Cornell

all have phenomenal departments...cornell just began a giant genomics innitiative, the largest of its kind at any university. There are links to pages and pages of info about the innitiative on the cornell home page

By Collegeparent (Collegeparent) on Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 01:09 pm: Edit

Add Yale and Johns Hopkins to that list. Yale's program has attracted private sector bioengineering facilities to New Haven and JHU has a large new genome campus north of Washington at Rockville, Maryland. Check these out too.

By Chris2121 (Chris2121) on Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 03:45 pm: Edit

While not exactly on par with those posted above, NYU is pretty into bio development/genomics as well...

http://www.nyu.edu/fas/dept/biology/

If you go to the "Research" menu, you can see various levels of bio and genetic research

By Barrons (Barrons) on Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 05:50 pm: Edit

Wisconsin has one of the top 10 depts in the US. For anything in the bioscience area it is top notch.

http://www.genetics.wisc.edu/programs/undergrad/index.html

By Massdad (Massdad) on Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 08:33 pm: Edit

Ok, you want lists? Just go here:

http://thecenter.ufl.edu/research2003.html

Pick and choose your criteria.

The truth is ANY decent research university will be good in Genetics. The "best"? it depends on how you define it.

By Polix (Polix) on Thursday, February 12, 2004 - 08:44 pm: Edit

Thx a lot for all the info. I still am confused about the Weighted and Unweighted GPA as well as any information on the way colleges look at highschool.

I looked a bit into Science colleges and Florida and was not overly impressed, but there are also so many great Universities which I dont know about. I wanted to know what, in your opinions, is the best classes for me to take? I dont mind taking AP Classes due to the fact that they are challenging and more valuable to me personally, in terms of overall knowledge and time, than regular honors classes, but I also want to make sure I choose what colleges like to see. I realize that this is different for all colleges, but is there like a general category of colleges that like to see the student taking harder classes and understand if that student doesnt make all A's and another which doesn't care about how many AP classes you take and rather looks at how many A's you can get?

Does my highschool rank mean anything? I know that in Florida, if you graduate from Paxon with a 3.0 and a decent SAT score you can get into any of the colleges due to the fact that Paxon is more difficult than the other schools. In the broad perspective, do colleges tend to care about that kind of ranking or do they just overlook it and tend to focus on grades and GPA?

By Clickspring (Clickspring) on Friday, February 13, 2004 - 12:11 am: Edit

University of Wisconsin-Madison

By Mmhome (Mmhome) on Saturday, February 14, 2004 - 12:28 am: Edit

Washington University in St. Louis...home of the Human Genome project

By Emeraldkity4 (Emeraldkity4) on Saturday, February 14, 2004 - 11:55 am: Edit

High school students in biotech may be interested in what students across the country are doing.

http://www.studentbiotech.org/

My daughter didn't participate in the science fairs but she did become interested in genetics as a junior when Mary Claire King who has pioneered work with mitrochondria DNA in matching survivors of genocide with other family members, worked with my daughters class.


The Gates foundation also just gave the UW $70 million to add to their pot for a genome research center
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/118997_genome24.html