<p>Collegebound, best schools for undergraduate Bioengineering and Bio research are:</p>
<p>Duke
Johns Hopkins
MIT
UCSD
Michigan-Ann Arbor
Northwestern
Penn
Rice
Stanford
Vanderbilt
Washington-Seattle</p>
<p>Alexandre's list includes MOST of the commonly recognized "big boys" in undergraduate biomedical engineering.</p>
<p>On the other hand, this rapidly emerging field is in incredible flux, programs and key professors are changing constantly. The so-called "ratings" are only the loosest possible benchmark in this field.</p>
<p>We personally know students at many of these programs, but others who have declined to go to such schools as UCSD, Penn, Michigan, and Northwestern and instead opted to go to Yale, Wash-U, UIUC, Case, and BU.</p>
<p>I'm also not certain that MIT has UNDERGRADUATE bioengineering (although keep in mind that many people who decide to go into things known as bioengineering or biomedical engineering at the grad school level have undergraduate degrees in fields like chemical engineering, electrical engineering, and applied physics). In addition, I think Stanford has just this year started an undergraduate concentration in this field.</p>
<p>For life sciences I'd recommend Johns Hopkins over every IVY.</p>
<p>If you want to do bio research, you should go to the best - Hope College. There is - per student - more undergraduate research published in peer-reviewed journals coming out of Hope College than out of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown, Penn AND Johns Hopkins combined.</p>
<p>"If you want to do bio research, you should go to the best - Hope College. "</p>
<p>I'm sorry...but nobody's going to give up an Ivy education for a Hope College...it just isn't done.</p>
<p>Well, then it isn't about bio research, is it?</p>
<p>If you want to do undergraduate bio research (judged, as far as this stat tells us, by quantity alone) then sure. But somehow I don't think that list of universities you mention is run by such monumentally stupid people that they don't have a clue of what constitutes a good education for someone who wants to devote their lives to biological research--maybe they just don't think that getting names into journals is their ultimate aim, but rather a solid, extraordinary education (which I'm not saying you can't get at Hope). Maybe this is my failing, because I raised two non-competitive types who seek out experiences for their own worth, not for credentialing purposes. (and have kinda skimpy resumes, as a result!:) )</p>
<p>I didn't say those universities aren't good - on the contrary, they are excellent. But if you were to look at the "value-added" at a place like Hope (or Kalamazoo, or Lawrence, or Earlham, or at the high-end Grinnell), I frankly don't think it is close. The students who attend Ivies for the most part would have done just fine wherever they went. When a school like Hope can compete with Yale in the number of studetns doing research, or in medical and graduate school admissions, when they begin with students who are much less "competitive" to begin with, you know they are on to something - and likely something that the Ivies are not.</p>
<p>To be more specific in what I am suggesting: The best students are going to do well regardless of where they go. The question is how well a school will do with its average one.</p>
<p>" The students who attend Ivies for the most part would have done just fine wherever they went."</p>
<p>Yes and no. both my D and I had the experiences of going to schools where we were at the high end of the students, academically. We both could've gotten all kinds of good credentials out of the experience--schools generally roll out the opportunities for their best students. But the expereince of going to school where you're considered odd for being interested in academics, and where people don't talk, say, philosophy or politics just for fun, can be deadening. Some students take the opportunities and run with them, and do great. Others, like both my D and myself, realize that they're drowning in that environment, and end up transfering to some place where they feel more part of a community of like-minded people. For both of us, it was a life-changing experience; we would have survived the first schools, but in a stilted, unhealthy way.</p>