<p>I disagree. Quality rankings are based strictly on the quality of professors. MIT and Berkeley have larger departments and more impact, sure, but on a pound for pound basis, several schools that are usually ranked lower (such as Caltech!) are better in my opinion.</p>
<p>Obviously it's good to have some disagreement on these things. That's why I always reiterate that your best bet is to do as much research as you can - talk at length with students and professors. Don't buy the conventional wisdom.</p>
<p>Poster, I have no issue with Caltech (or other small elite Engineering programs) being at the top. I really don't. I respect Caltech as much as MIT and I think very highly of HMC and RHI. My problem with your statements above is that large programs are automatically impersonal "factories' that provide weaker academic opportunities. I also have a problem with comparing an average Engineering program such as Yale to the Engineering giants like Michigan and Cornell.</p>
<p>I agree with Alexandre. A small engineering school is not really fit for the OP, since many of them do not have strong BME programs. Yale's engineering is also not very good. Stick to schools like MIT, berkeley, stanford, duke, JHU, and case. The OP going to a place like yale for BME seems illogical when he can go to a place like case with tons of money and a far better BME program.</p>
<p>Actually, Yale has a lengthy BME roster of professors now. Visit their website. Yale recently built a huge new building dedicated entirely to the fields of BME. Also, Yale has one of the best medical schools in the country, where a good deal of BME research goes on. Yale is even more impressive when you consider the amount of research per undergraduate science major - in that measure, in fact, it ranks right up there in the top three with MIT and Caltech. But again, visit and talk with people in the programs you are considering. You won't get much help from listening to people who think they have an idea of what the "reputation" of a program is, or who haven't recently experienced the program.</p>
<p>Also, as I said before, I actually am personal friends with a dozen or so biomedical engineers. All of them recommend studying the core areas in undergrad - engineering, physics, chemistry, etc. - and then specializing in BME in your Ph.D. program. BME is a highly specialized field (it's actually a general term for hundreds of little specialty fields which are not all really related to one another, except that they have some relation to medicine), so I would be extremely wary of anyone claiming to have a great BME "program."</p>
<p>I see your point with the undergrad core areas thing. That's what I'm hoping to do. </p>
<p>To the OP: would you consider taking general engineering in undergraduate, figuring out which discipline you liked, and then branching out in graduate school?</p>
<p>If you take general engineering as an undergrad, you can't 'branch out' in graduate school without taking an extra semester of courses. It's not too bad if you know you are going for a PhD. However, a PhD is not required (nor desirable) for most engineering jobs.</p>
<p>Have you checked out Olin? Olin has really good engineering programs for undergraduates...it's in Massachusetts.</p>
<p>Also, for BME, Case and WashU are very good choices, but at WashU that's really the only very good engineering program. Most of the other engineering programs are decent but not great.</p>
<p>Yale for Engineering, now I've heard everything.</p>
<p>Poster, what do you think those US News rankings measure? They surveyed faculty about the quality of various engineering programs, which is exactly what you advocate to do!</p>
<p>Collegehelp's 2004 figures are significantly outdated now, which reinforces my point that departments and schools change very quickly - particularly, like Yale, which now has one of the nation's best BME departments, if they are seeing massive infusions of cash.</p>
<p>Undergraduate engineering specialties:
Electrical / Electronic / Communications
(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></li>
<li>U. of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign *<br></li>
<li>University of Michigan–Ann Arbor *<br></li>
<li>Georgia Institute of Technology *<br></li>
<li>California Institute of Technology<br></li>
<li>Cornell University (NY)<br></li>
<li>Purdue Univ.–West Lafayette (IN)<br></li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon University (PA)<br></li>
<li>University of Texas–Austin *<br></li>
<li>Princeton University (NJ)<br></li>
<li>Univ. of California–Los Angeles *<br></li>
<li>Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison *<br></li>
<li>Rice University (TX)<br></li>
<li>Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. (NY)<br>
Univ. of Southern California<br></li>
<li>Northwestern University (IL)<br></li>
<li>Duke University (NC)<br>
Texas A&M Univ.–College Station *<br>
Univ. of California–San Diego *<br>
University of Washington *<br>
Virginia Tech *<br></li>
<li>Pennsylvania State U.–University Park *<br>
Univ. of Maryland–College Park *<br>
Univ. of Minnesota–Twin Cities *<br></li>
<li>Johns Hopkins University (MD)</li>
</ol>