Top 10 Colleges for Biology

Biology is one of the more reliable paths you can take in college. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the biological sciences field employs over 3.5 million workers, with a median wage of $75,000, slightly above the national median of $70,000 across all occupations.  Around 70% of biology-related jobs require at least a bachelor’s degree, and nearly 60% of those employed in the field hold an advanced degree. These numbers suggest that where you go to school and how far you take your education both matter.

To help you make a more informed decision, this blog ranks ten of the best colleges for biology in the United States. Our selections draw from two major ranking systems: the U.S. News Best Biological Sciences Programs, which measures national academic standing, and the QS World University Rankings by Subject in Biological Sciences, which situates these schools within a global context.

• What Are the Best Colleges for Biology in the US?
• Harvard University
• Stanford University
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• University of California, Berkeley
• Yale University
• University of California, San Francisco
• California Institute of Technology
• Johns Hopkins University
• Cornell University
• University of California, San Diego
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Takeaways

What Are the Best Colleges for Biology in the US?

The ten schools listed below represent the strongest biology programs in the country. Each is presented alongside its U.S. News Biology ranking and QS World University Biology ranking for easy comparison.

Note: We averaged each school’s position across both U.S. News and QS rankings into a composite score, then sorted from lowest to highest. When two schools ended up with the same score, we used the U.S. News ranking as the tiebreaker.

Now, let’s discuss each college one by one.

1. Harvard University

Rankings: #1 (U.S. News), #1 (QS World University)

Key Strengths: Molecular and cellular biology, neuroscience, biomedical sciences, organismic and evolutionary biology, interdisciplinary life sciences research

Acceptance Rate (Overall): 4.18% (Class of 2029)

Topping both the national and global rankings, Harvard’s biology offerings are organized under what the Faculty of Arts and Sciences calls the Life Sciences Concentration Cluster: nine distinct concentrations that share a common introductory foundation.

These concentrations are the following: Biomedical Engineering, Chemical and Physical Biology, Chemistry, Cognitive Neuroscience & Evolutionary Psychology, Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology, Human Biology, Behavior, and Evolution, Integrative Biology (IB)/Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Neuroscience. That breadth means you can enter with general interests and find a specific direction as you go.

Undergraduate research access is a genuine strength here, with Harvard running several dedicated pipelines. These include the Summer Honors Undergraduate Research Program at Harvard Medical School, a 10-week immersive for students with molecular biology coursework, and the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program for engineering and applied sciences.

For students considering graduate study, Harvard’s Integrated Life Sciences alliance links 13 PhD programs across the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Harvard Medical School, covering everything from Virology to Systems, Synthetic, and Quantitative Biology.

2. Stanford University

Rankings: #1 (U.S. News), #4 (QS World University)

Key Strengths: Cell and molecular biology, ecology and evolution, marine biology, plant biology, interdisciplinary biological sciences

Acceptance Rate (Overall): 3.61% (Class of 2028)

Stanford’s Department of Biology offers the full spectrum of programs, from undergraduate majors and minors to a coterminal master’s and a PhD.

Stanford’s biology major offers several subplans, including a General Biology track designed for students who want broad exposure before narrowing their focus. You’ll spend your first two years on foundational and exploratory coursework across biology, chemistry, math, physics, statistics, and computer science, then move into advanced electives. For your capstone, you can choose from four options, including an Honors thesis or an Independent Capstone.

For students already enrolled at Stanford, the Coterminal Master’s program lets you stack an M.S. in Biology onto your undergraduate degree. Stanford’s PhD in Biology, meanwhile, runs two tracks (Cell, Molecular and Organismal Biology, and Ecology and Evolution), both centered on research and teaching at the graduate level.

The department is also connected to research sites. For example, the Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, the oldest marine laboratory on the American Pacific coast, founded in 1892, gives students access to one of the more distinctive field research environments in the country. The Carnegie Department of Plant Biology, co-located on campus, adds another layer of research depth in plant and algae biology.

3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Rankings: #3 (U.S. News), #2 (QS World University)

Key Strengths: Molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry, computational biology, interdisciplinary biological sciences

Acceptance Rate (Overall): 4.56% (Class of 2029)

The faculty of MIT’s Department of Biology includes three Nobel laureates, four recipients of the National Medal of Science, 15 Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators, and 30 members of the National Academy of Sciences.

MIT’s undergraduate biology program offers three degree paths. The standard Bachelor of Science in Biology (Course 7) prepares students for research careers, graduate school, or medical school. Two joint programs are also available: Chemistry and Biology (Course 5-7) with the Chemistry department, and Computer Science and Molecular Biology (Course 6-7) with Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Moreover, in MIT’s graduate program, students can pursue a PhD across ten areas, including biochemistry, cancer biology, genetics, immunology, neurobiology, and stem cell and developmental biology. For students interested in ocean sciences, a joint program with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is available. The departments of Biology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science also jointly offer a Master of Engineering in Computer Science and Molecular Biology.

Admitted graduate students receive full tuition coverage plus a living stipend through departmental training grants, teaching assistantships, and research funding.

4. University of California, Berkeley

Rankings: #3 (U.S. News), #6 (QS World University)

Key Strengths: Molecular and cell biology, integrative biology, microbiology, computational biology, environmental and ecological sciences

Acceptance Rate (Overall): 11.43% (Class of 2029)

UC Berkeley’s biology program is notably decentralized. Rather than housing everything under a single department, the university distributes its life sciences across multiple colleges, each with its own biology-related programs.

This structure gives you unusual flexibility. Depending on your interests, you might major in Molecular and Cell Biology, Integrative Biology, Microbial Biology, Chemical Biology, Genetics and Plant Biology, or even Nutritional Science, among others. The Molecular and Cell Biology department alone spans five divisions: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Cell and Developmental Biology, Genetics Genomics and Development, Immunology and Pathogenesis, and Neurobiology.

UC Berkeley also operates an extensive network of centers, institutes, museums, and field stations tied to the biological sciences. The California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, the Berkeley Stem Cell Center, the Center for Emerging and Neglected Diseases, and the Synthetic Biology Institute are among the more distinctive research hubs on campus.

Graduate students can choose from over 20 biology-related programs, covering fields from Infectious Diseases and Immunity to Metabolic Biology to Vision Science. Three designated emphasis programs (Computational and Genomic Biology, Chemical Biology, and Nanoscale Science and Engineering) are also available to students already enrolled in one of the primary graduate programs who want to specialize further.

5. Yale University

Rankings: #6 (U.S. News), #7 (QS World University)

Key Strengths: Molecular biophysics and biochemistry, neuroscience, ecology and evolutionary biology, cellular and developmental biology, biomedical engineering

Acceptance Rate (Overall): 4.75% (Class of 2029)

Yale’s biology program doesn’t require you to declare a specific major in your first year. The four entry-level courses (BIOL 1010 through 1040) serve as shared gateways to all biological science majors, and their prerequisites overlap enough that you have room to explore before committing.

Yale’s biology majors include Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology, and Neuroscience. A fifth option, Biomedical Engineering, is available for students who approach biological systems through the lens of the physical sciences and engineering.

The research infrastructure behind these programs draws from across the university. Yale’s biology enterprise spans the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Yale School of Medicine, and the West Campus, which hosts its own cluster of specialized institutes in cancer biology, chemical biology, microbial diversity, nanobiology, and systems biology.

Other notable resources include the Yale Center for Genome Analysis, the Keck Biotechnology Resource Laboratory, the Yale Stem Cell Center, and the Peabody Museum Collections, which support both research and teaching across disciplines.

6. University of California, San Francisco

Rankings: #9 (U.S. News), #11 (QS World University)

Key Strengths: Biomedical sciences, neuroscience, biochemistry and molecular biology, developmental and stem cell biology, computational biology

Acceptance Rate (Overall): N/A (graduate and professional programs only)

UCSF occupies a unique position among the best colleges for biology as it offers no undergraduate degrees.

Every program here is graduate or professional level, which means the entire institution is oriented around research and advanced training. For biology students, that focus translates into a depth of resources and faculty access that few universities can match at the graduate level.

The biology-related PhD programs span a wide range: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Biomedical Sciences, Biophysics, Cell Biology, Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Genetics, Neuroscience, Biological and Medical Informatics, Bioengineering, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Computational Precision Health, among others. Many of these fall under UCSF’s Program in Biological Sciences, which coordinates admissions and training across related graduate tracks.

The flagship example is the Tetrad program, which covers Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Genetics under a unified structure. Tetrad was among the first graduate programs in the country to formally break down disciplinary boundaries. Over 120 faculty members are affiliated with the program, drawn from UCSF’s basic science departments, clinical departments, and research centers including the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases.

7. California Institute of Technology

Rankings: #3 (U.S. News), #20 (QS World University)

Key Strengths: Molecular biology, structural biology, neurobiology, systems biology, computational biology, evolutionary biology

Acceptance Rate (Overall): 3.78% (Class of 2029)

Caltech’s biology program runs through the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, and its defining characteristic is the degree to which it integrates biology with the physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering.

Caltech’s undergraduate option builds on a foundation in math and physical science before introducing biological concepts, methodologies, and ongoing research problems. Research participation is considered part of every student’s program, and undergraduates can arrange individual research projects with faculty or pursue an undergraduate thesis through Bi 90.

Meanwhile, Caltech’s graduate program covers twelve research areas, which include Biochemistry, Computational Biology, Evolutionary Biology, Structural Biology, among others. Each area draws faculty from multiple divisions across campus, which reflects Caltech’s genuinely cross-disciplinary culture.

The Computational Biology track, for instance, pulls in faculty with backgrounds in physics, statistics, mathematics, and computer science. The Structural Biology program benefits from access to a dedicated Caltech/Stanford X-ray beamline at SLAC and state-of-the-art cryoelectron microscopy facilities.

Caltech also runs three MD/PhD dual-degree programs in partnership with the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, UCLA Medical School, and USC Keck Medical School. These are options worth considering if you’re weighing a combined research and clinical career path.

8. Johns Hopkins University

Rankings: #6 (U.S. News), #17 (QS World University)

Key Strengths: Molecular and cellular biology, developmental biology, biophysics, pre-medical preparation, quantitative biology

Acceptance Rate (Overall): 5.14% (Class of 2029)

Johns Hopkins has long been associated with pre-medical education, and that reputation extends into its Department of Biology in concrete ways. The undergraduate program at Johns Hopkins leads to either a BA or a BS in Biology, plus a five-year combined bachelor’s/master’s option. The BS track requires original research as a core component. Twenty-seven research laboratories operate within the department, each working toward explanations of biological problems at the molecular and quantitative level.

For students on a pre-med track, Johns Hopkins runs advising through the Office of Pre-Professional Advising, which operates separately from the major itself, meaning students from any major can pursue pre-med guidance while completing a biology degree.

The five-year BA/MS program in Molecular and Cellular Biology is open exclusively to Johns Hopkins undergraduates majoring in biology or molecular and cellular biology. The one-year master’s component combines coursework, a teaching assistantship, and an independent research project culminating in a written thesis and oral presentation.

At the doctoral level, the Program in Cell, Molecular, Developmental Biology, and Biophysics draws faculty from Biology, Biophysics, Chemistry, Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, and Neuroscience.

9. Cornell University

Rankings: #11 (U.S. News), #12 (QS World University)

Key Strengths: Ecology and evolutionary biology, genetics, biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology, field biology

Acceptance Rate (Overall): 8.38% (Class of 2029)

Cornell’s biology program runs through the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Arts and Sciences. The major requirements are identical across both, but your overall undergraduate program will look somewhat different depending on which college you enroll in. You can choose your college, select from 13 concentrations, and tailor your specific coursework to match your academic direction.

Roughly 70% of students participate in undergraduate research before graduation. For students aiming to graduate with honors, the Biology Honors Program requires a minimum 3.0 GPA and a thesis grounded in original faculty-supervised research.

Two support programs reflect Cornell’s investment in student access. The Biology Scholars Program targets first-generation college students, providing academic support and career preparation within the major. The Collaborative Engagement in Learning Life Sciences (CELLS) program runs peer-led study groups for introductory biology courses, designed to help students with varying foundational preparation catch up and build confidence early.

Graduate students in the biological sciences at Cornell work across multiple graduate fields, with concentrations like genetics, ecology, evolutionary biology, biochemistry, and structural biology.

10. University of California, San Diego

Rankings: #17 (U.S. News), #19 (QS World University)

Key Strengths: Molecular biology, neurobiology, ecology and evolutionary biology, cell and developmental biology, bioinformatics

Acceptance Rate (Overall): 28.41% (Class of 2029)

UCSD’s School of Biological Sciences is organized into four departments (Cell and Developmental Biology, Molecular Biology, Ecology Behavior and Evolution, and Neurobiology) and offers seven undergraduate majors. These programs are Bioinformatics, Ecology Behavior and Evolution, General Biology, Human Biology, Microbiology, Molecular and Cell Biology, and Neurobiology, each leading to a Bachelor of Science. All seven share a common core of foundational requirements.

For students who want to extend their undergraduate work, the contiguous BS/MS program offers three tracks: Independent Research, Specialization in Biology Education Research, and Specialization in Life Sciences Research and Technology.

At the doctoral level, UCSD runs two distinct programs. The first is a PhD partnership with the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. The second is a Joint Doctoral Program with San Diego State University. Together, the two programs draw from a faculty of over 100 researchers.

UCSD’s research infrastructure supporting all of this is extensive. Shared facilities include a Cryo-EM facility, the San Diego Supercomputer Center for computational work, the Biomolecular and Proteomics Mass Spectrometry Facility, multiple imaging cores, and the Institute for Genomic Medicine for sequencing.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are the best colleges for biology in the US in 2026?

Based on national and global rankings, the strongest biology programs in the country include Harvard, Stanford, MIT, UC Berkeley, Yale, UCSF, Caltech, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, and UC San Diego.

2. What should I look for when choosing a college for biology?

Start with research access. Look at what faculty are actively working on and whether those areas align with your interests. From there, consider program structure. Graduate and professional school placement records are also worth examining, particularly if you’re planning on medical school or a PhD program.

3. Can I double major in biology and another field at these schools?

At most of these institutions, yes. MIT formally offers joint bachelor’s degrees in Chemistry and Biology and in Computer Science and Molecular Biology. Stanford and UC Berkeley both have enough curricular flexibility to support double majors across biology and fields like computer science, chemistry, or public health.

4. Which biology specializations are most in demand today?

Computational biology and bioinformatics have seen growing demand as genomics and data-driven research become standard across the field. Neuroscience remains highly competitive for both graduate programs and industry positions in pharmaceutical and biotech sectors. Microbiology and immunology have also gained renewed relevance in the wake of pandemic-era research funding.

5. What careers can you pursue with a biology degree?

A biology degree opens doors across medicine, research, public health, biotechnology, environmental science, and science communication, among others. Common trajectories include medical or dental school, PhD programs in the biological sciences, positions in pharmaceutical or biotech companies, and roles in government research agencies like the NIH or CDC.

Takeaways

• Each of the best colleges for biology has a distinct identity, so program fit matters more than prestige alone. Harvard and Stanford offer the broadest ecosystems, MIT leads in computational biology, and UCSF is built entirely around graduate biomedical research.
• Program structure varies widely. Johns Hopkins requires original research for its BS, Cornell offers 13 concentrations across two colleges, and UC Berkeley distributes its biology majors across four separate colleges.
• Location creates real industry advantages. Stanford’s proximity to Bay Area biotech and UCSF’s position in San Francisco are hard to replicate, and UCSD’s Salk Institute partnership is unique among doctoral programs.
• Research infrastructure differs significantly, even among top schools. Caltech has a dedicated X-ray beamline at SLAC, UCSD runs a Cryo-EM facility and a supercomputer center, and Harvard operates multiple undergraduate research pipelines.
• The right biology program can shape your entire career trajectory. A college admissions consultant can help you find the best fit and build a competitive application.