<p>I am interested in studying BME or BioE, however, i have read these may not be the best choices for a UGrad engineering major- the typical ones (EE MechE and ChemE might be better for job prospects). Which of the following schools have strong BME or BioE programs yet also offer strong classic engineering degrees incase BME doesnt turn out to be for me?</p>
<p>Undergraduate engineering specialties:
Biomedical / Biomedical Engineering
(At schools whose highest degree is a doctorate) </p>
<ol>
<li>Johns Hopkins University (MD)<br></li>
<li>Duke University (NC)<br></li>
<li>Univ. of California–San Diego *<br></li>
<li>Georgia Institute of Technology *<br>
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology<br></li>
<li>Case Western Reserve Univ. (OH)<br></li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania<br></li>
<li>Boston University<br>
Northwestern University (IL)<br>
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor *<br></li>
<li>Rice University (TX)<br>
University of Washington *<br></li>
<li>University of California–Berkeley *<br></li>
<li>Tulane University (LA)<br>
Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison *<br>
Vanderbilt University (TN)<br></li>
<li>Stanford University (CA)<br></li>
<li>University of Virginia *<br></li>
<li>Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. (NY)<br>
Washington University in St. Louis</li>
</ol>
<p>Undergraduate engineering specialties:
Mechanical
(At schools whose highest degree is a doctorate) </p>
<ol>
<li>Massachusetts Inst. of Technology<br></li>
<li>Stanford University (CA)<br></li>
<li>University of California–Berkeley <br>
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor *<br></li>
<li>Georgia Institute of Technology *<br></li>
<li>U. of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign *<br></li>
<li>Purdue Univ.–West Lafayette (IN)<br></li>
<li>California Institute of Technology<br></li>
<li>Cornell University (NY)<br></li>
<li>University of Texas–Austin *<br></li>
<li>Pennsylvania State U.–University Park *<br></li>
<li>Princeton University (NJ)<br></li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon University (PA)<br>
Univ. of Minnesota–Twin Cities *<br></li>
<li>Northwestern University (IL)<br>
Virginia Tech *<br></li>
<li>Texas A&M Univ.–College Station *<br>
Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison *<br></li>
<li>Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. (NY)<br></li>
<li>Ohio State University–Columbus *<br></li>
<li>Lehigh University (PA)<br>
Univ. of California–San Diego *<br></li>
<li>Johns Hopkins University (MD)<br>
University of Florida *<br>
Univ. of Maryland–College Park *</li>
</ol>
<p>Case is very good for biomedical engineering. If you have high enough stats, you'll get a 15-25k/yr scholarship there. It's a good deal, especially for biomedical engineers.</p>
<p>You might want to add MIT, caltech, and Berkeley to your list.</p>
<p>Well, it is said that you can always form a trinity in every category and ranking that you can think of. So </p>
<p>Top three Ivy schools: H-Y-P
Top three LACs: A-W-S(watty)
Top three law schools: Y-H-S(Tanford)
Top three engineering schools-
Graduate- Mit, Stanford, Berkeley
Undergraduate Mit, Berkeley, Stanford</p>
<p>I would say the best are Caltech, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, as well as smaller schools such as Harvey Mudd and Swarthmore. Note that the USNWR rankings are based heavily on quantity, e.g., how big the departments are. The other problem with the USNWR rankings is that they don't adjust for changes in departments, e.g., when some departments grow and others shrink in size. Many smaller schools have recently made massive investments in engineering, so when you visit talk with professors and students to find out the real scoop. Generally, you'll find that smaller universities with fewer undergraduate engineering majors offer a better opportunity for more personal attention and more accessible classes. Of course, huge engineering schools like Michigan and Purdue, etc., offer a lot but they also have a ton of competition and you're more likely to get lost in the crowd.</p>
<p>Another thing, what you need to really consider is a "quality" based ranking such as the following, which shows the quality of research being done at each school. For the most part, the list is not a surprise.</p>
<p>If you want to go into BME, your best bet is to get a very strong background in electrical engineering, chemistry and/or physics first. From there you can enter a Master's or PhD program. If you are into the physical side, like MRI design, do general engineering. If biotech/nanotech is more your interest, study undergraduate chemistry first, preferably at a place with a lot of personal attention where you can find a great faculty mentor and do research. Here is a list of the best chemistry departments:</p>
<p>Poster X, Yale isn't average in Engineering and Harvard is not that good. And the OP specifically wishes to major in BME, which pretty much disqualifies LACs.</p>
<p>The OP is interested in studying BME, not necessarily majoring in it. The best bet is to major in a "core" area like physics or electrical (or chemistry), while taking a few BME classes for exposure, either at your LAC or elsewhere, and then later specialize in BME. BME is too specialized of a field, with many different areas ranging from PET design to creating nanotubes. I know many engineers who have gone through undergraduate, master's, and PhD programs in engineering (including BME) and all of them would tell you the same thing.</p>
<p>Also, Harvard, Yale and Caltech are very good for undergraduate engineering and some even have BME majors. They aren't huge engineering factories like Michigan, Purdue, MIT, or UTexas, but in terms of research quality they rank at the very top. You will sacrifice some breadth in return for having less competition and much more faculty attention (which basically guarantees your choice of grad school). Cornell is another excellent option for undergrad.</p>
<p>Of course, your best bet is to visit schools and talk with professors and students - not listen to what the so-called "conventional wisdom" (usually misinformed) or outdated, incorrect rankings say.</p>
<p>I don't know much about Purdue and UTA, but I know MIT and Michigan intimately, and they provide undergraduate education in Engineering that cannot be matched by weaker programs like Yale. You are confusing size with quality. Cal, Cornell, Michigan and MIT all have more than 2,500 undergrads studying Engineering and faculties that only care about research, but the quality of their engineering programs are incredible. Caltech, Harvey Mudd, Rose Hulman and Princeton have small Engineering programs, but they quality of their Engineering programs are also incredible. Yale and Harvard aren't exactly equal to any of those programs.</p>
<p>Talking to students and professors is certainly useful from a social point of view, but not from an academic point of view. I recall hearing Western Michigan students compare their Engineering program to those of Michigan and UIUC. IF a student visiting Western were to follow that sort of opinion, they'd be in for a rude awakening.</p>
<p>Alex summed it up fo nicely for undergraduate engineering schools (big size and boutique size).
For graduate engineering schools, I would add Stanford, GT, and Purdue and couple others to his engineering giants (i.e., Cal, Cornell, Michigan and MIT). </p>
<p>Simply put, for graduate engineering research/education, the breadth (size) is as important as depth !!!</p>
<p>Yale??? Whatever! As a chemE who did his BS/MS at Northwestern/Stanford, I'd never seen any engineering textbook written by someone who attended Yale. At Stanford as a grad students, I'd met quite a few from CalTech but NOT Yale.</p>
<p>mjk88,
You have a really good list already. UMich and GaTech are good. How about JHU? I'd add Case as good safety.</p>
<p>Yale is an interesting case because it has expanded greatly in recent years by hiring entire laboratories away from Purdue, MIT and other schools and giving them brand-new revitalized engineering facilities. It has vaulted up the rankings to the #1 spot in research quality, so as you can see from Sciencewatch, it now has the greatest quality (research impact per professor) of any engineering program out there. But because it used to be smaller, and still is smaller than a place like Purdue, it's true that not everyone knows about it. USNews rankings are based mostly on word-of-mouth "reputation" and therefore are heavily biased towards larger programs, and also against programs that are up and coming or new. The same is true of places like Swarthmore, Smith, Caltech, Princeton and the like, which also have smaller programs, even if they don't have the same high quality as Yale.</p>
<p>You have to really look at your personality if you're persuing engineering. Are you exceptionally bright, very hard-working, and an introverted / independent kind of personality? Keep in mind these kind of people usually end up persuing p.h.d.'s. If you're such a person who will sacrifice anything for the best education possible, these schools are for you.</p>
<p>For EE, cooper union is the best. For biomed., it's Johns Hopkins. For a general engineering program, it's Harvey Mudd College. For CivE and MechE, it's MIT or Cal-tech. For chemE, it's University of Minnesota or MIT or Cal-tech.</p>
<p>Yale has expended? And do you think other universities are just resting comfortably on their dusty laurels? I do not keep up with what's going on at most universities, but I do know that Cornell just completed a $60 million renovation of its Engineering quad and Michigan just spent $60 million on the construction of two new, state of the art facilities:</p>
<p>Yes, other schools have expanded, but you have to consider what they expanded from to see what the change on reputation could be. Consider the following hypothetical expansions:</p>
<p>Yale
100 engineering students, year after year
10 years ago: 20 professors
Now: 40 professors</p>
<p>Cornell
1,000 engineering students, year after year
10 years ago: 100 professors
Now: 120 professors</p>
<p>In both hypothetical cases, if 20 full-time professors and their laboratories were added, a new $60 million dollar building or some other facility would be required. Both Yale and Cornell (or Michigan) have built such facilities, indeed, which is all good. But the impact of such an expansion on educational quality would be far greater at Yale, given that it would cut the engineering student:faculty ratio in half, making it one of the lowest in the country (which, like Caltech, it does in fact have nowadays), and also expanding research opportunities by a huge margin. The Sciencewatch survey I posted above pretty clearly shows that Caltech, Stanford, Yale, Cornell, UCSB, etc., are the top of the league when it comes to engineering research quality.</p>
<p>Sciencewatch is not ranking quality of education or departments, it is merely ranking publications (good or bad) per faculty. I find those rankings highly questionable. Nobody knowledgeable Engineer would ever rank Yale among the top 30 Engineering program or leave Cal and MIT out of the top 5. Sciencewatch clearly isn't ranking universities according to quality. </p>
<p>I noticed that they also leave Michigan and Stanford out of the top 8 for Psychology and yet, Michigan and Stanford are generally regarded as the top 2 Psychology departments in the US. They also left MIT and Caltech out of the top 10 for Physics, which is completely preposterous.</p>