Thanks all. That is why she chose engineering because she likes math and science and participated in Illinois Science Olympiad last spring making a Rube Goldberg machine. That is what finalized the engineering choice for her.
She chose Biomed only because she wants to work in the healthcare field. She may very well change her mind. I am not going to influence her because I know very well that kids change their major. I changed mine from Economics to Metallurgical Engineering between Freshman and Sophomore year at ISU.
I know she will want to stay in a STEM field because she likes it. She is not a huge Chemistry fan, which is why I think she may ultimately move out of BioMed Eng. Time will tell.
Her twin brother, DS, is going into Chem Eng because he likes all math/science and enjoys Chemistry. For him, this is a good fit because he has always said he wants to go to Med School but he views Chem E as a good route in case he decides not to go to Med School. I think he will stay his course just because I know his interest.
BTW, we are looking very hard at the following schools: University of Minnesota, Ohio State, Purdue, and Alabama.
Does anyone have thoughts on those schools?
Well, Ohio State used to have a special program with the focus of preparing kids for Med. School. OSU also used to have combined bs/md program, but one had to be an NMF to be considered. My D. was accepted to the first one (that included an interview), but she did not care for the size of the OSU and also OSU offered her very small Merit scholarship that was not even close to couple of other offers. D’s finalists were CWRU and Miami (OH), both offered very substantial Merit awards, she ended up attending at Miami (OH) and after learning much more about both places, she still considers Miami as the best fit for her. We are in OH and in our hometown, kids who love OSU usually do not like Miami and vice versa. We visited both several times and few others. You got to visit, talk to current students, check out everything, program requirements, who are in Honors, how large is Honors, benefits of being in Honors, dorms, food service, campus. D. had interviews at several places of her choice because she was applying to bs/md programs. So, before she made a choice, she knew a lot about each. One very attractive side of Miami was also the fact that Honors was a very small program, but it probably changed. Somehow, Miami has a very loyal alumni and they contribute a lot, that is why the Merit offer was much higher. But we knew that even before D. applied, word of mouth type of information from local parents.
Anyway, the choice is a very personal decision making, trusting yourself is the best way.