<p>Hey deuxanfants,</p>
<p>I wrote down more about what NU's unique offers on the "NU vs Mich engineering" thread you created; you may want to check it out.</p>
<p>As for your son's leaning toward Duke, I am not surprised. Duke has a gorgeous campus to start with. My concern is your son doesn't have much idea what he really wants to study. While Duke is very good at BME, it's a great choice only if he ends up enjoying this field. ME is a pretty different thing from BME/ChemE; picking ME simply because there's nothing else to choose from at Duke sounds shaky to me. Duke's 3 other disciplines really pale when compared to its BME. I sometime wonder if people in those 3 depts would develop any kind of inferiority complex. ;)</p>
<p>I think I remember you wrote that your son might also be interested in business-related fields. That's precisely why I think NU (or Berk/Mich) is a better choice since it has more disciplines to choose from. BME/ChemE (even ME) are all in top 10/15 and it has a very strong IE program. I'd seen quite a few chemE switching to IE when they found that chem (or other traditional) engineering was too dry and that IE seemed to be a fun hybrid of engineering and managment. Both NU's econ and IE depts are consistently in the top 10.</p>
<p>By the way, the completion of $30 million Ford Motor Design Center should greatly enhance NU's engineering in the areas of design and product development.</p>
<p>Just curious, how was your visit at NU?</p>