UT Southwestern or NYU Sackler

[whiteclouds]

Guys,

I am accepted from UT Southwestern Graduate Biomedical Sciences and at the same time from NYU Sackler Biomedical Sciences. Can anyone compare these two programs?

Is Sackler as good as UT Southwestern?

Any idea would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

[NeuroGal]

I have a friend at UT Southwestern in a biomedical related science pursuing her PhD and she doesn't like the program as much due to the intellectual environment. It's apparently a bit alienating as a new student and without many collaborations. That's just one perspective though.

[aes0151]

I don't know much about NYU, but I can tell you about UTSW.

I assume you're talking about prestige and academics/research than student experience. UTSW varies a lot from department to department, so I'll talk about them all separately.

UTSW definitely ranks in the top tiers of academic research universities. Its immunology and genetics program are some of the best. They just got another Nobel winner for immune response (I think? Not sure). It's known for having a large prestigious cancer research program, but it wasn't interesting for me (a little boring). Their neuroscience program started relatively recently and specializes in sleep and addiction. Molecular biology and cell biology are in the middle. They have standout professors here and there, but plenty are just mediocre. They do have strong and reliable funding though so don't worry about applying for grants. It's not a huge deal there while you're a graduate student.

I think Neurogal's friend just had a bad PI. I know for sure that UTSW is all about the collaborations. Everyone's very open to them there. I don't know how reliable that info is. I will say that the graduate school is only a small part of UTSW (since it's a medical center) so it's easy to feel small.

[Pauli]

I don't know anything about the NYU program, but the UT Southwestern program is very well-renowned. During undergrad, many of my friends who studied biochem and other related majors applied to do grad work at UTSW, but I only know one who got in.