<p>I'm trying to decide between Duke and WashU for BME. I know Duke is more known for the program, but I'm wondering how much renown WashU's BME has/if it is a comparably strong program.<br>
WU is giving me much better FA, and it's closer to home than Duke....I'm completely torn between the two!!
any and all advice welcome :)</p>
<p>On the undergrad level, ranking doesn’t mean anything. Go to the school you like better.</p>
<p>WashU has an excellent BME program anyway.</p>
<p>This is coming from a sophomore BME @ WashU, who chose WashU over Duke. If you want a breakdown of my pro/con list, feel free to pm me. I’ll try to keep it as non-biased as I can.</p>
<p>johnson, can you speak to the rigor, competition, difficulty, etc. for BME at wash u. I’m also a prospective bme at wash u and I worry that it in fact may be too hard or too much work. Thanks</p>
<p>It’s definitely difficult. In BME 140 (the intro class you take fall of your freshman year), Dr Yin derives the Goldmann and Nernst equations on Day 1. In other words, the class sits there and freaks out.<br>
However, if you join a pst group (problem solving team), or at least work with a group of friends/floormates on the problem set, you’ll survive. And the curve is actually pretty good (nearly everyone gets an A or a B).</p>
<p>Definitely rigorous, but I wouldn’t really say it’s competitive. That holds true of all the majors at WashU, at least if you’re thinking of a person-to-person basis. If you need help with something, the vast majority of your classmates would probably help you.</p>
<p>Do they make public or are there any reasonable guidelines for the grading policies at WashU or specifically the BME program? I realize it is dependent on the class and teacher but wanted some comfort that if one studies hard, grading will be fair and it’s not unrealistically hard that students can’t have some fun and enjoy the college experience as well.</p>
<p>My S is slightly concerned about the grading policies and the curving and how tough it really is and what % of folks get A’s, B’s, or C’s or lower. Obviously most of these students are not used to getting C’s or lower. Thanks for any insights on this.</p>
<p>From my experience, if the class is curved, 50-60% of the class will get a B or an A.</p>
<p>There are several classes that fit the 90-100 is an A, 80-89 is a B, etc, such as the math classes, psych classes.</p>