<p>My son was admitted to both UVA (regular college) and Pitt (honors college). He is planning on studying Biomedical Engineering (with possibly a minor in Electrical Eng) and we are trying to evaluate the merits of the programs offered by each institution. We visited UVA during their recent Engineering Open House and spoke with some of the Bioengineering students and the director of undergraduate Bioengineering programs. We are familiar with Pitt, at least from a campus life perspective, since my daughter is graduating at the end of April from there with a Neuroscience degree. Both programs seem to have a similar selection of course offerings, but we are wondering if Pitt might offer a better range of undergraduate research opportunities (although UVA seems good in this area as well). Both schools are very close in the recent USN&WR rankings. Since we are residents of VA our thought is that if both programs are about equivalent it would obviously make sense from a financial perspective to go with UVA (plus we live only 1.5 hours from C'ville). Of course there is also the obvious difference in the city vs. "small" town campus atmosphere.</p>
<p>Any guidance anyone can provide about relative merits of the two programs would be appreciated. My son seems to have a specific interest in medical imaging although that could certainly change as he moves forward.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>I don’t have too much to offer since I’m a prospective freshman at Pitt next year, but I visited last weekend and sat in on a student research information session. There was a biomedical engineering student on the panel that turned down schools like UPenn and JHU for Pitt. From what he said, Pitt is a top 10 biomedical engineering school; most importantly however, it is quickly rising (according to him). He had a host of research experience, publications, etc. starting from freshman year.</p>
<p>I can respond as a current freshman parent whose son faced a similar decision. My son turned down Johns Hopkins biomedical program to attend Pitt and is 100% glad he did. Pitt’s engineering program is excellent and he is involved in research as a freshman. Pitt is getting a super reputation in the biomedical field, as there are 14 hospitals in the immediate vicinity as well as many biotech firms. Pitt also offers lots of other options that he felt JHU didn’t, such as the ability to get involved in supporting division one football and basketball. The atmosphere at Pitt is not at all cut-throat, which he felt JHU might be. Pitt offers the total package. Not sure if cost is an issue for you, but he also felt it was better to save the cost for grad school. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input. We certainly have been happy with the Pitt education our daughter received there; I am sure their Biomedical Eng program is also top notch. Since Pitt is out-of-state tuition for us and both schools are rated so closely, we are thinking it comes down to a cost and campus life decision. We are primarily looking for whether there is some major difference in the specific coursework. For example, we have heard that Pitt might be better if one is interested in pursuing the mechanical side of Biomedical Engineering (which our son is not).</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>As far as the “bio” side of bioengineering, Pitt is absolutely top notch. If you want to compare the relative size and strengths of the overall biomedical communities, just look at the levels of NIH funding. Pitt is in the top 5 of all institutions (with over $400+ million in sponsored research, UVA is somewhere between 35-40th with $150+ million in sponsored research). Pitt has a much larger and more renowned bioscience community. Pitt is also at the forefront of the tissue engineering field with the [McGowan</a> Institute of Regenerative Medicine](<a href=“http://www.mirm.pitt.edu/]McGowan”>http://www.mirm.pitt.edu/) and the [National</a> Tissue Engineering Center](<a href=“http://www.ptei.org/interior.php?pageID=78]National”>http://www.ptei.org/interior.php?pageID=78). It’s not just mechanical, like medical devices or the things you might have seen the 60 Minutes spots with monkeys controlling robotic arms with their minds or visual cortex implants for artificial eyes. Tissue and artificial organ engineering and cellular therapies (wet lab stuff) are a major thrust of the bioengineering community there. Pittsburgh has a tremendous amount of ground covered in all aspects of bioengineering.</p>
<p>And something to consider is bioengineering is very much a research field, so the having a large variety of labs to choose from, and the ability to get into labs in order to conduct research, is in all honesty, probably more important than classroom curriculum. Practical experience in lab settings is where most of the most important learning will take place, IMO.</p>
<p>Thanks alot for the input wgmcp101. That is exactly the kind of information we were looking for. Do you think the difference in research funding would be as relevant to an undergraduate?</p>
<p>My thinking is that it would be better to pay the in-state tuition at UVA thus saving a significant amount of money for graduate education if needed. Most of the Biomedical Eng. students we talked to at UVA were involved in some form of research, so it seems like the opportunities exist there even if it is not funded at the same level as Pitt. That being said, I understand what you are saying about Pitt since my daughter was doing research there as an undergraduate for most of the time she was attending and that has been a great experience for her.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>UVa makes sense from a financial standpoint. UVa is widely respected and the quality of the education received depends mostly on the student:).</p>
<p>Research funding impacts a couple of different things. The amount of NIH funding relatively suggests the size and breadth of an institution’s research plant. The thing is, lab work in a bioscience field can be very frustrating. Typically a low percentage of experiments actually work, and there is a built in frustration factor. You have to really like the type of work that you are doing, as well as have an actual interest in the particular areas that you are working in. Beyond finding a good lab, doing good work that is well funding and publishing, I think it is important to find a lab that you are comfortable in, and enjoy (you don’t want a the atmosphere in the lab to be oppressive, e.g. it should be collaborative, accepting of mistakes, set up to be supportive of newbies, and open to questions). I of course believe this is good advice when selecting a lab at any stage, but it applies to undergrads too. Therefore, the more of a variety of labs that a school has, the more a student can explore, or even change what they work on if they end up in a lab they either don’t enjoy or ultimately aren’t interested in their projects. The more experience you have as an undergrad, the more focused you can be upon entering grad school. </p>
<p>I’m sure at UVA your son would still get great research experience, he just may not have as much of a selection of labs. Any half decent bioscience program is going to make sure their undergrads are doing research though. I would as suggest perhaps looking through the websites of both schools and see if there is a particular lab/area that really strikes him.It also isn’t a horrible idea to shoot off an email to a faculty heading the lab, convey his interest, and seeing if they are willing to meet to discuss their work further (most faculty love this) or are even willing to have undergrads in their lab (some aren’t due to existing demands on personnel, space or money, but most are).</p>
<p>As far as grad school, if your son is going to stay in the biomedical research area, he won’t have to pay a cent for any PhD level grad school. All bioscience graduate program tuitions are fully covered, and typically you get a stipend to live on. Now if he would decide to go to just to med school (and not an MD/PhD program), that would cost him money. Therefore, saving money really isn’t an issue in these fields.</p>
<p>As MD Mom said, the quality of education often depends on the student, so I’m sure he will do well wherever he decides to go. UVA is a great school, and Pitt is really top notch in this field, so I don’t thing there is a bad decision here.</p>
<p>My son got into UPitt with Full Scholarship, Engineering Scholarship and admission to Honors Program. He was invited to apply to the Guaranteed Admissions Program to Medical School, but got a regret letter. He also got into Biomed Programs at JHU, NWU, UCSD (Regents Scholar) and UC Berkeley (Regents Scholar) and admission to MIT and CalTech - where you choose the department at the end of freshman year. He wants to pursue a MD/PhD program at a top Med school after doing Biomedical Engineering as Undergrad. After visiting all the schools he is leaning towards MIT and UPitt and he has to make a final choice - he has got about 20K scholarship from MIT MIT has excellent Biomedical Research facilities on campus and also a lot more Biomed institutions in Boston. </p>
<p>Appreciate all of your inputs to decide between MIT and UPitt, the pros and cons. </p>
<p>Is there any published statistics /data of which Med Schools UPitt Pre-Med Undergrads are heading to - the data on UPitt PDF is very old.</p>
<p>SidPatel–You might start your own thread on the new topic.</p>
<p>I love Pitt, but in your case would choose MIT. There are many school to school comparisons where the scholarship at Pitt is worth it. Pitt-MIT is not one of them. MIT can be considered the best in the world - you don’t want to regret this chance.</p>