What are the best (or at least, a few of the top) undergraduate programs for chemistry in the US?

Where do you live? And have you taken the standardized testing required here?No traditional financial aid available in US for non-citizens so you will have to pay full-freight. I have some ideas and resource recommendations if you want.

And keep in mind that Law school is a graduate school here. As an undergraduate, you take a broad course of study in the different disciplines and then declare a major (such as a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry or a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science.) Then you are off to grad. school.

Ivy League (8 schools and all East Coast – Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, U. Penn, Dartmouth and MIT) gives only need-based financial aid. Other good schools have scholarships (Rice, Duke, U. North Carolina, Emory, etc).

I’m currently a citizen—I’m in Idaho/Utah currently (and would really like to get away). My psat score was 192, I aced math and writing but fell asleep in reading, and my sat scores were all 710. ACT was a 35.

I was thinking of possibly taking pre-law as one of my undergraduate studies… I’d like to get a taste for law before I attempt for a degree.

Also, I’ve heard that Harvard and Yale are implementing new tuition pricing, where if your family makes less than $60,000 the tuition is free, and under $200,000 it costs 10% of your family income. I believe I read it somewhere in The Economist, I’ll post later if I can find it.

Look at SUNY (State University of New York) Stonybrook. They’re on Long Island (East of NYC), and own Brookhaven National Laboratory as well as the mjor regional hospital. One of the top science schools in the mid-Atlantic states. There’s a railroad station on campus that will take you right into New York.

ALSO – it’s a state school, so your tuition won’t break your back even if you’re from out of states.

Duke has a great Chemistry program—especially if you want to end up doing research or pre-med.

I don’t know that the Ivies are that much more expensive than many other top private schools, at least they weren’t in the 90s. I would say just apply to the schools that seem best for you and then wait and see what the financial aid offers are. I spent a lot of time stressing about tuition when I was in high school and ruled out a lot of top schools because of that. A counselor finally got me to snap out of that, and I’m glad they did. I think the economics seem a lot more daunting when you’re a high school student than they really are in the long run, especially if you want to go into science or law.

As for good chemistry programs – there are the obvious ones: MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Stanford, Berkeley, CalTech, Chicago. (I’m coming more from a research perspective than an undergrad perspective) Also some great state schools – Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas.I would say, if any of these schools seem appealing to you then just give it a shot. Good luck!

My advice to my kids has always been,“Go where the money is.” If you get grants etc take it. The JC route is cheap and most people never ask where you did the first 2 years. Good luck and look, look, and look some more for grants etc.