BME College Choice: UPenn v. JHU v. Duke v. Rawlings Scholar Cornell

Colleges and Universities A-Z Duke University
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<p>Hey guys, I was very fortunate to be accepted to the 4 top schools listed above. My original selection was Fisher M&T at Penn, but I did not get in ED-M&T or RD (think my "why M&T" essay was weak smh). I would love to hear some opinions from the gurus, especially those at said schools, on CC about what and where I should weight more heavily in my decision to major in BME at one of these four universities.</p>

<p>At Penn, I know I have a shot of transferring in to M&T, but there are only 5 seats and it is definitely not a good single reason to attend Penn. One question I have is in regards to the value of the regular dual degree program. Is it anywhere near in prestige to M&T? Does Penn have a strong engineering culture, or a strong research focus? I am lukewarm on the latter, as Penn does not have many honors programs, at least the freshman level. It is, however, where I am leaning, since I really love the campus and feel of the place. It would also be great to join the one of the top ranked quiz bowl groups in the country,</p>

<p>At Cornell, I am a Rawlings Presidential Research Scholar, which has superb benefits and sounds phenomenal to me. The only thing holding me back from immediately accepting Cornell's offer is that I am not sure of the flexibility in future the degree will give me and I am not sure of the campus culture. I plan to visit April 17th.</p>

<p>At JHU, I would be entering probably the toughest undergraduate BME program in the world. Every person I've talked to, even professors at top 25 universities, remark "Wow, JHU BME is intense." This challenge motivates me, but I live 45 minutes from JHU. Not great to go to Baltimore when I've been around for 17 years of my life.</p>

<p>Duke is great along the same lines of JHU. Great BME program, and I love the sports (Blue Devil football is rising!). Plan to visit between the 11th and 17th.</p>

<p>CC, what do you think of my choices? I hope you can see that I am torn between a strong desire for a very good technical education, but that I am also looking to get a good business degree if possible (hence my desire to participate in M&T).</p>

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<p>Thanks for that advice. Did you consider the regular dual degree option at Penn in your decision? And does Duke offer any engineering honors programs or opportunities to learn at the business school like Penn does? I’m coming down for BDD on the 21st</p>

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<p>Rancha: My sincere congratuations on these truly stellar acceptances. Obviously, all of these programs/universities are outstanding and, candidly, one could not badly err with any of your options.</p>

<p>Your initial post highlights professional/career and financial maters; that’s understandable, however, please permit me to empansize another CRITICAL element in your decision: your PERSONAL “cultural fit” with the programs and the universities. Your four-year undergraduate education will largely shape your life and your future, you’ll depend on classmates, professors and “the network” for decades, and you legitimately want to enjoy this next – and important – life phase. Therefore, in my opinion you must ascertain which university offers YOUR most comfortable and productive “culture fit.” I believe this is particularly important, since every one of your alternatives will serve you well for a lifetime (this presumes, however, affordability for each option; only you/your family can make that determination).</p>

<p>To illustrate the foregoing point, you indicate that Hopkins’ program is “intense.” Is that good, bad or nuteral for you? Is it so demanding that it would signifanctly compromise your life throughout your undergraduate years, or would you flourish in that environment? Would your colleagues (fellow undergraduates, PhD students, post-Docs, professors, researches, and so forth) provide an enjoyable and productive professional/learning environment? Questions – and their answers – of this sort are, in my opinion, vitial to your arriving at the optimal decision . . . FOR YOU.</p>

<p>In summary:
a) you have only excellent options
b) career and financial matters are very important, but they are NOT the only crucial decision variables
c) your individual “culture fit” is at least as vital, and it is considerably more difficult to determine (there simply are no rankings or quantitative metrics that apply)
d) that “cultural fit” isn’t only critical for your years in undergraduate residence, it will also have a strong influence – for better, or for worse – on you for many decades</p>

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<p>The one thing that I really wished someone had told me when I entered college and went into BME was that not all BME departments are created equal. I don’t mean that some are better ranked or higher quality but that the substance may not be equivalent. BME is such a diverse field that it would be hard for any school to be generically “good” at BME overall. For example, Duke’s BME is considered strong in imaging and photonics with an up and coming program in materials engineering (or at least 4yrs ago this was true) and a goal of expanding into neuroengineering. This probably has to do with the faculty that Duke recruited in the early years and the areas they chose to focus on as well as the leadership of the program and what their vision is. </p>

<p>Note I’m not saying Duke’s BME doesn’t have other fields or researchers or courses and Duke has certainly been making huge strides to give broad coverage (curriculum reform, faculty recruitment, etc). But I feel that a certain degree of specialization is probably found at most schools with a BME program and students should really try to find out more to determine whether they like the department. You can do that by looking at the curriculum, what are the required courses and what are the electives, what concentrations are available? For example, for the time I was at Duke, the required courses (especially upper ones) were very electronics heavy and most of the material science courses were the basic ones with advanced ones being electives, photonics were almost all electives. That says something about what the department wants to emphasize and what it considers to be its stronger suits. Another thing to look at is the faculty. What fields are represented? How is seniority distributed amongst the fields? Where are the junior faculty? That should tell you what the mature strengths are and where the program is currently focusing on building strength. </p>

<p>Anyway, these are just some of my thoughts and things that I wished people had told me and they reflect my priorities. Yours may be different. </p>