UTEP or UALR? M.S. Bioinformatics

[rain3678]

So I applied to 5 schools. I received 3 acceptances, 1 rejection, and the last school said they will not have a decision before April 15th.

 

So in choosing between my 3 acceptances I have a choice between North Carolina State, University of Arkansas Little Rock, or University of Texas El Paso. I have knocked NCSU out of the running as they have the most expensive tuition and cost of living and offered no financial aid. So my choice has come down to UTEP or UALR.

 

I am not sure which program would be better academically. I am currently leaning toward UTEP since their program requires an internship and offers a lot of classes and focus on genomics (which is my primary research interest). However, I am not crazy about the location. My concern with UALR is that they appear to be more focused on the computer sciences aspect of bioinformatics and don't have as much emphasis on the genomics. I am not as familiar with the location. 

 

So I guess what I am asking is if anyone has familiarity with either college and can advise me on this decision. 

 

Thanks in advance!

[bsharpe269]

Well I don't know much about these schools but from someone who is currently in a bioinformatics masters, I can tell you that the programming/database/statistics skills are what companies care about. Companies will hire you based on your ability to program. Definitely go somewhere where toy will take a programming class a semester at least and a database course or two and 2 courses in statistics. A class in next gen sequencing is also good.