<p>My daughter has applied to UF engineering program but we have some concerns about the Biomedical engineering program, which is her intended major. They are not yet ABET accredited. It is a highly competitive program and you apply for admission for your junior year. She has been accepted into the biomed program at several other schools as a freshman but remains very interested in Florida. How does the lack of ABET accreditation effect the students? Has anyone graduated from this undergrad program? My daughter is a extremely good student but I'm concerned about how competitive "highly competitive" is.</p>
<p>ABET accreditation is a big deal for engineering. Many employers and grad schools will ignore applicants who are not coming out of ABET accredited programs. That being said, it would be shocking if UF’s new BME undergraduate program did not obtain ABET accreditation. After all, UF is the state flagship school and is generally highly regarded for its other engineering programs. I think the real concern for that program (and my son is going into BME as well next year so I’ve looked at this) is that a student won’t know whether they’re actually accepted into the BME program at UF until their junior year. So, if they go to UF with their heart set on BME, and don’t get accepted junior year, they’re out of luck and probably will feel like they wasted the previous two years, whereas they could have gone to another school and known from the outset they were in the BME program.</p>
<p>I didn’t know UF lacked ABET in an engineering major. That’s really bad and shameful on UFs part. As mentioned above, ABET accredited majors is like a standard. Without it, your pretty much out of use on the big things. If your daughter is certain that she wants to do BME and UF BME is not ABET, then UF really isn’t for you.</p>
<p>^ that isn’t true. The program is new and the ABET process takes a whileM
<a href=“http://undergraduate.bme.ufl.edu/FA[/url]”>http://undergraduate.bme.ufl.edu/FA</a></p>