<p>I’ve been accepted to both and with similar financial aid packages (full ride-ish). </p>
<p>I plan on majoring in biomedical engineering and potentially double majoring in physics. </p>
<p>I understand that Bowdoin being a liberal arts school will not be as advantageous for me as Emory, BUT my purpose in attending Bowdoin is to take advantage of the 3-2 program and transfer to Columbia/Caltech, which are some of the best schools for my major. However, the financial aid can vary after I transfer. In addition, if the 3-2 plan fails for whatever reason (probably won’t), I also intend to attend grad school right after undergrad, and from what I have heard, where you graduate last from (ie. grad school) is what matters most, so attending Bowdoin doesn’t seem as bad.</p>
<p>On the otherhand, Emory is outright better than Bowdoin for my majors as Emory is one of the best universities for medicine and research, especially with the CDC in Atlanta and other opportunities. If I were to attend Emory, I would stay there for all 4 years of my undergrad and not transfer at all. Although Emory is more prestigious and well-known than Bowdoin for my plans, Columbia/Caltech is obviously more renowned and promising.</p>
<p>I know that Bowdoin’s 3-2 program would be more of a risk than attending Emory for 4 years, but is the risk large enough to choose Emory?</p>
<p>Which would you recommend I attend? Emory for 4 years or Bowdoin with a 3-2 program? </p>
<p>Alot of people are going to say to visit each campus and see where I fit better, but I’ve already considered both environments and the social scene, and I love both universities, its just a matter of academics, prestige, and aiding my future plans.</p>
<p>Choose Emory. If u wanna go to grad school after college/uni, then the 3-2 programme does not actually matter that much.
Plus, Emory is really prestigious for ur major</p>
<p>I have close relatives who recently attended both schools. It depends upon what you want. If you want a LAC experience before getting essentially a pre-professional degree, then the 3-2 experience could be good. Of course you need to consider the cost and extra year of college. On the other hand, it could certainly open other types of opportunities down the road. I do not think a narrowly-focused education is always the best way to go in this era of rapid change and obsolesence, and global competition (the world is flat). A LAC education may give you more options down the road, and enable you to do your job more creatively. You may want to look up what some of the Bowdoin/Caltech or Bowdoin/Columbia graduates are up to now. In a similar program, John Deutch earned an Amherst B.A./MIT Chemical Engineering B.S. He ended up becoming provost of MIT and head of the CIA. These jobs were certainly quite different than his original training in chemical engineering.</p>
<p>One more point-do you want to go to school in a friendly community of outstanding scholars (students and faculty), in a beautiful town in New England surrounded by sea, mountain, and forest, or a larger school where students are generally preprofessional (e.g., premed, prelaw, prebusiness, etc) and more competitive in attitude in a suburban/urban environment? I think you will have other opportunities be live in places like Atlanta but only one chance to go to somewhere like Bowdoin.</p>
<p>More prestigious? I think Bowdoin is somewhat more prestigious than Emory. Emory might be more well known in the south and among laymen perhaps.</p>
<p>I couldn’t agree more. Who thinks Emory is more prestigious? Down Dixie maybe? Unless I was stuck on a certain major available only at a university, I’d take Bowdoin over Emory every day. Over Duke too, and Duke is more prestigious than Emory, if you’re focused on the South.</p>
<p>And really… they’re comparable schools. USNews is ***** - they rank Reed really low simply because they don’t waste their money in ways USNews wants them to. Do what YOU think is right, not what a bunch of elitists tell you is the right decision.</p>
<p>^^I kind of agree with the above, although, the truth of the matter is the OP doesn’t sound like they will be happy until they get into an Ivy League-style university (i.e., HYPSM) as witness this statement:
</p>
<p>Ouch. It doesn’t sound as if they’ll be busy making many friends at either place.</p>