If you pursue a bachelor's degree in general biology, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #4 most popular program in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 173 schools in the Middle Atlantic Region to determine which ones were the best for general biology students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 14,556 bachelor's degrees in general biology during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great General Biology School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of general biology for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on general biology students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of general biology students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt general biology students go into to obtain their bachelor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized general biology related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for general biology students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best General Biology Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
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ADBLOCK #171
Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study General Biology in the Middle Atlantic Region
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in general biology. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
25 Top Middle Atlantic Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Biology
It's difficult to beat University of Pennsylvania if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in general biology. Located in the city of Philadelphia, UPenn is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
After graduation, biology bachelor's recipients usually earn about $31,055 in their early careers.
Cornell University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in general biology. Cornell is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Ithaca.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the biology program make around $34,500 for their early career.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in general biology has to look into University of Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh Campus. Located in the large city of Pittsburgh, Pitt is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the biology program earn about $33,576 in the first couple years of their career.
University of Rochester is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in general biology. Located in the medium-sized city of Rochester, University of Rochester is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
After graduating, biology bachelor's recipients typically make around $34,390 in the first five years of their career.
Located in the city of New York, Columbia is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
General Biology bachelor's degree recipients from Columbia University in the City of New York receive an earnings boost of around $7,725 above the typical earnings of general biology graduates.
UD is a very large public university located in the large suburb of Newark.
Bachelor's recipients from the general biology degree program at University of Delaware make $6,536 above the average college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Located in the city of Philadelphia, Drexel is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
General Biology bachelor's degree recipients from Drexel University receive an earnings boost of approximately $4,489 above the average income of general biology graduates.
Located in the small city of Bethlehem, Lehigh is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
General Biology bachelor's degree recipients from Lehigh University receive an earnings boost of approximately $12,485 above the average earnings of general biology majors.
Located in the distant town of Lewisburg, Bucknell is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
General Biology bachelor's degree recipients from Bucknell University receive an earnings boost of approximately $5,555 above the typical earnings of general biology graduates.
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Additional Noteworthy Schools
Here are some additional great schools for General Biology students in the Middle Atlantic Region that almost earned our Best General Biology Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region award.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Your choice of general biology for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
