Best Colleges for Neuroscience: 20 Programs and What Each One Asks of You

Twenty schools on this page hand out a neuroscience degree. At five of them another department runs the major, and at two of them the major doesn't exist at all.

That's the part nobody tells you at sixteen. Neuroscience isn't one degree with twenty addresses. It's a subject that different universities have parked in different departments, and the department decides whose courses you take, whose labs you can walk into, and whether you leave with a BA or a BS.

One more thing worth knowing before you read a single ranking: on this whole list, the undergraduate major sits on the arts and sciences side of the university. The neuroscience departments inside medical schools, Stanford's included, train graduate students.

The order below isn't a ranking. It's a list of programs worth a look, and the useful columns are the last two: what the degree is called, and who runs it.

Where each neuroscience major lives

The split below is the single most useful thing to know about a program before you apply. A department of its own usually means dedicated advisers, a dedicated course sequence and labs that expect undergraduates.

A major run out of biology or psychology means you're a guest in someone else's department, which is not automatically worse and sometimes means better funding.

Schools with their own neuroscience department or program

Schools where another department runs it, or there's no standalone major

The twenty programs

1. Harvard University

Harvard's neuroscience concentration is run out of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and it splits into three tracks: Neurobio, MBB and Comp Neuro.

The track decides whether you write a thesis. MBB requires research and an undergraduate thesis. The other two leave both optional.

So the question here isn't whether you can do research. It's which version of the major you signed up for.

2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT doesn't call it neuroscience. The degree is a Bachelor of Science in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Course 9, in its own department inside the School of Science.

Everyone clears a 12 unit laboratory subject, and you can swap that for a research subject instead. One course can't count for both.

Computation arrives early. Programming, neural computation and probability sit in the first tier of the major, not at the end of it.

3. Johns Hopkins University

Hopkins is the clearest case on this page of research being non negotiable. The BS requires six credits of research in a participating neuroscience lab, and you can't take more than three credits in a term.

You also take two semesters of Scientific Communication and Mentoring, and you need a C minus or better in every required course.

The major sits in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. The medical school is across town and it isn't where your degree comes from.

4. Stanford University

Stanford doesn't have a standalone undergraduate neuroscience major, and that catches people out every year.

Its Department of Neurobiology sits in the School of Medicine and trains graduate students. As an undergraduate you get there through the Biology major, whose subplans run from biochemistry to neurosciences, or through Psychology or Symbolic Systems.

None of that makes Stanford a weak place to study the brain. It just means the word on your diploma will be something else.

5. University of Pennsylvania

Penn's program is one of the oldest in the country. It started in 1978 as Biological Basis of Behavior and was renamed the undergraduate Neuroscience Program in 2018.

Alumni and a lot of websites still call it BBB, so don't assume you've found two different majors.

It pulls courses from several departments in the School of Arts and Sciences, and it runs from cellular neurobiology through to cognitive neuropsychology.

6. University of California, Los Angeles

UCLA runs neuroscience as an interdepartmental program in the Life Sciences division of the College of Letters and Science.

Ten upper division courses, and no more than eight of them can come from any single department. The breadth is enforced, not suggested.

The capstone is the part worth reading twice. You satisfy it with independent research, or a research lab course plus an extra elective, or neuroscience outreach through DOPA-Team or Project Brainstorm.

7. Columbia University

Columbia's major is Neuroscience and Behavior, and it is genuinely split down the middle: six courses from Biological Sciences, five from Psychology, plus a year of general chemistry.

Transfer credit is tight. At least four biology courses and four psychology courses have to be taken at Columbia, so at most one of each can come from anywhere else, Barnard included.

Seniors on the advanced research track can run their thesis work at the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute.

8. Yale University

Yale's BS and BA differ in one specific way, and it's the one that matters. The BS requires two credits of empirical research, NSCI 490 and 491, with an expectation of about ten hours a week in the lab.

The BA is built on non empirical research instead, or a mix of one credit of each.

Both need at least 18.5 credits and one neuroscience lab, and every senior presents their work in the spring term.

9. University of Chicago

Chicago's basic neuroscience degree is the BA. The BS is the more intensive version and it builds in individual research.

The major is overseen by the Biological Sciences Collegiate Division, while the faculty are spread across the biological, social and physical sciences divisions.

Even on the BA track, third years are pushed hard toward a lab, through internships, fellowships or research for elective credit.

10. Northwestern University

Northwestern's major lives in the Department of Neurobiology inside Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

Six neuroscience units, then a full science spine underneath: biology, general chemistry with labs, introductory physics, calculus, one programming course and one statistics course.

The lab requirement takes two units of research or one unit of 200 level lab coursework. Honors adds independent study and a senior thesis seminar in the winter of your last year.

11. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Michigan's major is run by UPiN, a collaboration between Psychology and Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology inside LSA. Nine upper level courses and two upper level labs.

Read the restriction list before you commit. Neuroscience majors can't double major in biology, biochemistry, BCN, BBCS and several other programs, and can't minor in biology or chemistry.

To declare, you need the introductory biology sequence and CHEM 210 behind you.

12. Duke University

Duke's neuroscience major is not a medical school program, whatever other lists tell you. Duke's own bulletin puts it in the Department of Neuroscience, primarily within Trinity College of Arts and Sciences.

The AB takes 11 courses and the BS takes 14, and every major clears a statistics course.

Research isn't required for the AB. Graduation with distinction is a different story: that means an original project run across two terms of research independent study.

13. University of California, San Diego

UCSD gives you two ways in, and they sit in different departments. Neurobiology is one of seven majors in the Division of Biological Sciences and takes 48 upper division units.

Cognitive Science runs its own BS with a neuroscience specialization, alongside specializations in machine learning and neural computation.

Same campus, same subject, very different reading lists. Look at both before you pick a college on the application.

14. Brown University

Brown is stricter here than its reputation suggests. The neuroscience concentration awards the ScB and only the ScB, so there is no AB route through it.

Starting with the class of 2023, every concentrator completes the equivalent of one semester of independent study, research or design.

If you want the AB, Brown's separate Cognitive Neuroscience concentration is the one that offers it.

15. Washington University in St Louis

WashU makes you say which neuroscience you mean. Arts and Sciences offers three routes: the neuroscience track of the Biology major, a Cognitive Neuroscience major in Psychological and Brain Sciences, and Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology.

Cognitive Neuroscience isn't automatic. You apply no sooner than your third semester and a major committee decides.

Pick the wrong one at the start and the switch costs you courses, so this is a school where the difference is worth understanding before you arrive.

16. Emory University

Emory's major is Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology, and the behavior half is not decoration. It takes a minimum of twelve NBB courses.

Two semesters of biology with lab, two of chemistry with lab, the NBB core, then at least seven electives drawn from different programs, departments and schools.

Emory's point in spreading the electives that wide is to let you build the version of the major that fits where you're going next.

17. Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt builds the lab into the degree rather than offering it. NSC 3861 and 3862 are required courses, and 3862 expects 12 to 15 hours a week in the lab or doing library work, rising to 18 to 20 in a summer session.

The major runs 38 credit hours, and your neuroscience courses have to come from at least two departments or programs.

Honors adds six credits of research and a thesis of roughly 25 to 35 double spaced pages, written across your senior year.

18. University of Pittsburgh

Pitt runs one of the largest undergraduate neuroscience programs in the country, with more than 500 students in the major.

Size is a trade. More sections, more lab space and more people who have done what you're about to do, against a smaller chance that a professor learns your name without you making it happen.

The BS needs at least 59 credits on top of the Dietrich School's general education requirements, and you can't declare until you have a C or better in two biology and two chemistry courses.

19. University of Rochester

Rochester's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences runs two majors, and it states the difference plainly instead of leaving you to guess.

Neuroscience emphasizes biological and chemical investigation of brain function in relation to behavior. Brain and Cognitive Sciences blends biological, behavioral and computational approaches, and leans toward perception, language, learning and thinking.

The Brain and Cognitive Sciences major comes as either a BA or a BS.

20. University of California, Berkeley

Berkeley is the one where the date on an article matters. The neuroscience major launched in fall 2024.

The old route, the Neurobiology emphasis inside Molecular and Cell Biology, was retired at the end of spring 2025 and no new declarations are accepted into it.

Anything written before that points you at a door that's now closed. The new major covers molecular and cellular work, information processing, and cognition.

What a neuroscience degree turns into

A neuroscience major is a science degree, not a job title. Here's where the four common exits lead, and what each one wants from your transcript.

A PhD. This is the route the research column above is really about. Doctoral programs want to see that you have done research, not that you have read about it, and the schools that build a lab requirement into the degree hand you that evidence by default. If you pick a school where research is optional, you have to go and get it yourself.

Medical school. Neuroscience is a popular pre med major, and it is not a shortcut. The AAMC is direct about this:

There is very little difference in median total MCAT scores among those who major in the humanities, social sciences, and biological sciences.

The same guide says medical schools do not require applicants to have a specific major. Take neuroscience because you want it, then check the pre med prerequisites fit inside it.

Industry and research jobs. Berkeley's own program lists where its graduates go: biotechnology, data science, scientific research, teaching and science communication, alongside the health professions. The lab hours on your transcript are the qualification here too.

The other health professions. Dentistry, optometry and pharmacy all take neuroscience majors, and all of them run on prerequisite courses rather than on the name of your degree.

Check the list for the schools you want before your second year, because a missing course is easy to fix early and expensive to fix late.

Frequently asked questions

Is a neuroscience degree a BA or a BS?

Both exist, and at several schools you choose. Yale, Duke, Chicago and Rochester all offer two versions, and the difference is usually research: Yale's BS requires empirical lab research while the BA doesn't, and Chicago's BS builds in individual research on top of the BA requirements. Brown goes the other way and awards only the ScB for its neuroscience concentration.

Do you have to do research to graduate with a neuroscience degree?

It depends entirely on the school, which is why it belongs on your comparison list. Johns Hopkins requires six credits of lab research, Vanderbilt requires two research courses with 12 to 15 hours a week in the lab, and Brown requires a semester of independent study.

At Duke the AB has no research requirement at all, and at Harvard it depends on which of the three tracks you pick.

Why isn't UCSF on this list?

Because you can't apply there as a high schooler. UCSF only awards graduate degrees and has no undergraduate student population, so a UCSF entry on a list of undergraduate programs is a dead end however good the research is. The same logic keeps universities outside the United States off this page.

Is neuroscience a good major for medical school?

It's a reasonable one, but it isn't an advantage on its own. The AAMC says medical schools do not require applicants to have a specific major, and that there is very little difference in median total MCAT scores among students who major in the humanities, the social sciences and the biological sciences. Pick the major you'll do well in, then make sure the pre med prerequisites fit inside it.

What is the difference between a neuroscience major and a psychology major?

Rochester, which runs both kinds of degree in one department, puts it as clearly as anyone: its neuroscience major emphasizes biological and chemical investigation of brain function in relation to behavior, while its brain and cognitive sciences major blends biological, behavioral and computational approaches and focuses more on perception, language, learning and thinking. In practice, the more biological the major, the more chemistry and lab work you take.

Can you just declare a neuroscience major when you arrive?

Often not. Pittsburgh wants a C or better in two biology and two chemistry courses first, Michigan wants the introductory biology sequence plus CHEM 210, and WashU's Cognitive Neuroscience major takes an application to a committee no sooner than your third semester. If you're comparing schools, compare how you get in to the major, not just the courses inside it.

Bottom line

Pick the department, not the name. Two schools on this page will sell you the same word and hand you two different degrees, and the thing that separates them is who runs the major and whether you'll be in a lab before you graduate.

Work out which of those you want first. Then the list above is a shortlist rather than twenty logos.