Cornell vs. JHU vs. UIUC

[aralat]

I'm deeply confused to choose one of these universities. My program is chemical biology. Any advice is highly appreciated.

[loginofpscl]

JHU lets you access the med school for collaborations, which would be great if you eventually wanna do cell (or larger) studies. Depends on what you're comfortable with, but Baltimore can be a really stimulating place to live in contrast to corn-laden U-C or the constant cold in Ithaca.

[Faraday]

I would agree with the above poster in that of these three programs JHU would probably have stronger options for coordination with interdisciplinary groups (medical school and biochemistry program). Something else to consider is that Baltimore is a major city, and living there will likely be quite different from Ithaca or U-C. Depending on how much you will be concerned with the location of your studies for the next ~5 years, this might be something to consider.

Edited March 21, 2014 by Faraday

[OverzealousMuch]

I am an undergraduate at JHU, and I work in a chemical biology lab on the Homewood campus. So here's what I can tell you about the program here:

 

The chemical biology research here is pretty fantastic, easily our best division of chemistry. The above posters are correct; it's very easy to collaborate with the med school as needed. One caveat: people in the chemical biology program tend to take a long time to graduate. One of the groups (I won't say which) had a 12th-year graduate student finally get his PhD last year. In my group, we just had our 7th-year graduate and we have a 6th-year and 5th-year who aren't even close to finishing up yet. So you do good research here, but it can be a lengthy process. It probably depends on who you work for and how efficient you are as a researcher. I'd be curious to know which faculty here you are leaning towards. 

 

Also, although Baltimore is definitely more of a city than Ithaca or U-C, it's no sprawling metropolis and some the area around the campus is quite downtrodden and crime-ridden. But if you know where to go and when, Baltimore is a pretty cool place to be for your PhD studies. 

 

Hope this helps.