<p>First of all I have a question what are the top ten schools for this major? </p>
<p>Also, is there any college that has Structural Engineering as a major?
I know that Structural engineering might just be a course or something?</p>
<p>Also, I am planning on doing pre-med also, or maybe double-majoring..take that into consideration..</p>
<p>PLease. Please respond... this is really important!</p>
<p>Heh. Good luck with that GPA. Seriously... Why do you want to major in structural <em>and</em> be a pre-med? It's sort of an either/or career option. What do you want to do, slice up people's brains during the week and design long-span bridges in your spare time? It would behoove you to choose one or the other...</p>
<p>Anyhow, in undergrad, structural engineering is typically a concentration within civil engineering. Even in grad school, while I'm a structural engineering masters' student, my degree is going to be an MSCE, or a Masters of Science in Civ Eng. Structural's not just one course, though, it's more through the slant of electives that you choose to take. Instead of taking more courses on water chemistry or finance, you'd take more technically-heavy engineering courses like structural dynamics and advanced structural analysis.</p>
<p>Top Ten Undergrad Civ w/only Bachelors/Masters Programs:
1. Rose-Hulman Inst. of Tech. (IN)
2. United States Military Academy (NY)*
3. Cooper Union (NY)
4. Bucknell University (PA)
Cal PolySan Luis Obispo *
6. Harvey Mudd College (CA)
7. Lafayette College (PA)
United States Air Force Acad. (CO)*
9. Calif. State Poly. Univ.Pomona *
Villanova University (PA)
Virginia Military Institute *</p>
<p>Top 10 Undergrad Civ w/Doctorate Programs:
1. University of CaliforniaBerkeley *
U. of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign *
3. Georgia Institute of Technology *
4. University of TexasAustin *
5. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology
6. Stanford University (CA)
7. Purdue Univ.West Lafayette (IN)*
8. University of MichiganAnn Arbor *
9. Cornell University (NY)
10. Texas A&M Univ.College Station *</p>
<p>(Ref: USN&WR)</p>
<p>But really, with undergrad engineering programs, it's much more important to just choose an undergrad institution with a strong overall engineering program where you feel comfortable.</p>
<p>Still, big caveat with combining structural/civil and pre-med. Your eyes may be bigger than your stomach on this one.</p>
<p>Hey try something more useful if you really got what it takes to be an engineering pre-med. I really couldn't think of a usage for stuctE & med school. Are you going to be designing the wave of the future hospital? You better stack up on bioE too then.</p>
<p>this is a bad plan. civil engineering will be useless for medicine. there's no point to doing this. you can get into a good med school without putting that much stress on yourself. save it for the gazillion years of schooling AFTER undergrad. have fun and get your good gpa high MCAT undergrad and live it up, cuz your not going to if your major or double major in engineering.</p>
<p>wow..is it really that tough?</p>
<p>I am still going to consider a form of engineering as major anyway, Ireally like the field. Being a Biology major would be boring .Seriously.</p>
<p>Anyone else?</p>
<p>I would suggest ME or EE for pre-med. I've seen several take this path. This enables the doctor to have the expertise to design his or her own devices. I agree with the other posts, combining anything civil with pre-med makes no sense.</p>
<p>well yeah its tough. well you dont really have to major in biology either. you can pick pretty much whatever you want as long as you fulfill the requirements for pre-med. </p>
<p>it is pretty difficult to get into med school through engineering, simply because on the average gpa's tend to be a lot lower due to the harder course load. you have to think that most pre-med majors probably take 1 (maybe 2) actually difficult courses (these are usually the pre-med required courses), but they can spend all their time on that one course. however if your in engineering, you're going to have 3-4 courses just as or if not more difficult than that one person. at top med schools average gpa's are near perfect. the average engineering gpa is 2.5-2.7. </p>
<p>BME is a good path to med school if your really bent on doing engineering as well. your statement about biology being boring is kind of a bad thing if you want to be a doctor. engineering is more about logic and being creative rather than rote memorization, however med school/the doctor path is ALL about rote memorization. trust me my dad is a doctor and he has stacks and stacks of books and basically told me that the best med students are the ones who can cram all those books into their mind and spit it back out at you.</p>
<p>Really?? The average engineering GPA is 2.5-2.7?</p>
<p>Dude. I rocked.</p>
<p>But yes to what everyone else has been saying... Civil engineering in particular is very industry-specific, and engineering in general is very difficult to make high grades in. It's <em>possible</em> to pull it off, but it's very, very <em>difficult.</em> My dad, for example, got his undergrad degree in mechanical engineering back in the early '70s and then went on to med school.</p>
<p>Well... he got his undergrad degree in mechanical/aerospace engineering, then his masters degree in mechanical engineering, and then got an ABD PhD in biomedical engineering, and THEN decided to go to med school... He's kinda nuts, though. He currently is the medical director for the molecular imagine center in Dallas, teaches at Southwestern, and, in his spare time, heads up R&D for a teleradiology software company. So... he's still a bit undecided as to what he wants to do when he grows up, but he ain't doin' half bad for a guy who hasn't figured it out yet. =)</p>
<p>However! It was a very difficult path, and I don't recommend it! You'll never get out of school, and your firstborn child will sleep in a dresser drawer for the first year of her life! LOL.</p>
<p>The average engineering degree GPA varies depending on the school and will be indicated on your transcript and I'm pretty sure med schools can figure that out. If the avg engineering GPA is a 2.5-2.7 then the top quartile would probably be like a 3.2 and would be indicated on your transcript as such. The top quartile of easier majors will also be listed on your transcript as well so the med school will be able to decipher that a 3.2 in engineering is equivalent to a 3.6 in econ or whatever. Its the same logic that can be applied to class rank and college admissions, I don't see why there would be a difference. Med schools also know that engineering majors tend to have lower GPAs and will compensate for this (to an extent)</p>
<p>Only top students (not average students) go to med school, top students in engineering do in fact have good GPAs. At my school the average humanities GPA is like a 3.21 and engineering is 3.13. 75% is like 3.67 for humanities and 3.57 for engineering, engineering GPAs do not have to be low</p>
<p>I tend to agree with others that CivE is probably the most pointless form of engineering if you want to go to med school. Just about about any other type would be much better</p>
<p>
[quote]
The average engineering degree GPA varies depending on the school and will be indicated on your transcript and I'm pretty sure med schools can figure that out. If the avg engineering GPA is a 2.5-2.7 then the top quartile would probably be like a 3.2 and would be indicated on your transcript as such. The top quartile of easier majors will also be listed on your transcript as well so the med school will be able to decipher that a 3.2 in engineering is equivalent to a 3.6 in econ or whatever. Its the same logic that can be applied to class rank and college admissions, I don't see why there would be a difference.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ok, I'll bite. I don't know what schools you are referring to, but I can say for a fact that the transcripts of students, engineering or otherwise, at MIT, Berkeley, Caltech, or Harvard carry no indication whatsoever about class rank, or the grade quartile cutoffs for various majors. Im_blue, maybe you can help me out here, because I am almost certain that the same is true at Stanford and Illinois. Ariesathena, perhaps you can also help me out by confirming or denying whether this was the case at your school? Alexandre, can you confirm or deny at Michigan? I can go ask around whether this occurs at other top schools like Princeton, Yale, Duke, Columbia, UCLA, but I'm certain that for the majority of them, the answer will be 'no'. </p>
<p>In fact, let me turn the question around and ask you which schools do you think actually print this sort of information on their transcripts? Then we can head to the relevant section of CC and find out what the scoop is. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Med schools also know that engineering majors tend to have lower GPAs and will compensate for this (to an extent)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It ain't much. Again, take a look at the average GPA's of admitted premeds coming out of MIT, and compare that the average GPA's of admitted premeds coming out of Princeton. I would submit that the student bodies at MIT and Princeton are roughly equivalent in quality, and yet the MIT student body is obviously going to have more engineers. Yet why is it that MIT premeds actually require HIGHER grades than do Princeton premeds to get admitted? Why is that? Shouldn't it be the other way around, if engineers really were getting properly compensated? </p>
<p>In short - I have yet to see any good evidence that engineers receive grade compensation, and in fact much evidence to the contrary. If you can present data that indicates that engineers really are getting into med-school with markedly lower grades than others are, we'd all love to see it.</p>
<p>These statistics are not published on the transcript themselves, they are sent out by the registrar with official transcripts to prospective schools. I know Johns Hopkins, VaTech and GaTech do this (or so I was told with the last 2 schools). I would be somewhat shocked if the schools you mentioned don't have these general info sheets and it would only help them to provide them with transcripts otherwise they would be much less informative (high schools even have these nowadays). I was refering to these statistics when I was talking about med schools compensating for lower GPAs</p>
<p>"Again, take a look at the average GPA's of admitted premeds coming out of MIT, and compare that the average GPA's of admitted premeds coming out of Princeton. I would submit that the student bodies at MIT and Princeton are roughly equivalent in quality, and yet the MIT student body is obviously going to have more engineers. Yet why is it that MIT premeds actually require HIGHER grades than do Princeton premeds to get admitted? Why is that? Shouldn't it be the other way around, if engineers really were getting properly compensated?"</p>
<p>Without supporting data there is absolutely no logic to your argument</p>
<p>I can say for absolute certainty that neither Rice University nor University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign sends anything other than the "This is what the whatever-major undergrad/grad student took, this is the grade they got, this is how many hours the class was... Therefore, this is their GPA" basic recipe transcript.</p>
<p>So, my roommate, a BA Music Major (not the BMus program), graduated from Rice Cum Laude, while I graduated just... well, graduated. This in no way had any correlation to our respective academic strengths. She was good at music, and since she took courses primarily in music and pass/failed a lot of her core requirements, she had a high GPA. I was good at music, and linguistics, and math, and science, and engineering.... and since I took courses primarily in engineering and there was no sense in pass/failing my core requirements as they typically tended to raise my GPA slightly, I had a GPA that... well... reflected the fact that I was a good engineering major.</p>
<p>It chaps my butt a bit, but that's how it is. No mention of what I was up against or how I compared to others.</p>
<p>If you want supporting data, all you had to do was search around for some of my old posts where I discuss this in great detail. I don't think I should have to do your searching for you. </p>
<p>But fine, ask and ye shall receive.</p>
<p><a href="http://web.princeton.edu/sites/hpa/2004.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://web.princeton.edu/sites/hpa/2004.pdf</a>
<a href="http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/preprof.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/preprof.html</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
These statistics are not published on the transcript themselves, they are sent out by the registrar with official transcripts to prospective schools. I know Johns Hopkins, VaTech and GaTech do this (or so I was told with the last 2 schools). I would be somewhat shocked if the schools you mentioned don't have these general info sheets and it would only help them to provide them with transcripts otherwise they would be much less informative (high schools even have these nowadays). I was refering to these statistics when I was talking about med schools compensating for lower GPAs
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ha! Now you're entering very dangerous ground because I'm afraid you have skipped over some of the intricate details involved in the entire med-school admissions process.</p>
<p>Look, first of all, almost all US med-schools, including almost all of the top-tier ones, are AMCAS med-schools, which means that they use the AMCAS grade clearing house for the primary med-school app (otherwise known as the Central app). I submit that many schools, and certainly many of the top schools, will not send any such explanatory letter detailing the grading policies of the school along with your transcript, but even if they did, it wouldn't matter. That's because, except for those few rare non-AMCAS med schools, your undergrad school NEVER sends transcripts to the med-school. Rather, the transcript gets sent to AMCAS, and it is AMCAS that then standardizes and formats your information and then sends a datasheet to the med-schools you are interested in.</p>
<p>Here is an example of an AMCAS datasheet. Note how it contains no information about any class rank, or quartile GPA bracket cutoffs, or any of that other stuff that you cite. </p>
<p>Hence, your undergrad program can send anything it wants to AMCAS, all AMCAS cares about are your transcripts. If it doesn't appear on the transcript, then it's not going to be transmitted to the med-schools. </p>
<p>Furthemore, med-schools make their quickest cut with the primary app. They look over your AMCAS data, which is basically a summation of your grades and MCAT scores, along with some biographical information, and then decide whether to allow you to proceed to the secondary app or to "reject pre-secondary". </p>
<p>Now, if you do make it to the secondary app, now is where something happens which I think is what you are referring to. I believe you are referring to your school's "premed committee" or a "prehealth advisor" letter which is basically a synopsis of the rec letters you will get from the faculty, along with some information about the school itself, in an effort (usually) to put you in the best possible light to get admitted. </p>
<p>However, first off, note, this letter is not sent with the transcripts, because you never send your transcripts directly to an AMCAS school. Second off, plenty of schools do not have such committees and therefore cannot supply you with such a letter.</p>
<p>"PLEASE NOTE: STANFORD DOES NOT HAVE A PREMED COMMITTEE."</p>
<p>"Cal does not have a committee that writes pre professional composite letters and the cover letter on your letter packet sent by the Letter Service states this clearly."</p>
<p>Thirdly, the presence of such committees is, in practice, deeply controversial, because they are sometimes seen by students as obstructionist gatekeepers whose purpose is not to help the students, but to maintain a high premed placement rate of the school by simply discouraging weaker applicants from applying.</p>
<p>" Recent [Johns Hopkins] premed graduate Brett Gutterman felt that [JHU committee members] Fishbein and Savage discourage students who may actually have a chance of being admitted to medical school.</p>
<p>"I feel that they try to demean people who's grades are marginal in order to convince them not to go to medical school," he said. The result is, said Gutterman, that people who could get in marginally with a 3.2 do not even apply. "They think people won't get in, but I personally know people who've gotten in with a sub-3 GPA and sub-30 MCATs." "</p>
<p>Fourthly, even in the cases where a school has a committee or a pre-health advisor designed to help its students (and not just to be obstructionist as may be the case at Johns Hopkins), it obviously doesn't help that much. For example, MIT does have a pre-health advising system. Yet that doesn't change the fact that MIT is only about to get 77% of its premeds admitted into med-school, which does not compare favorably with the ~90% at Princeton, Stanford, Yale, and Harvard. The Princeton data is available on the weblink above, and I have seen the Stanford, Yale, and Harvard data, but it is only available offline at the schools themselves (but you can ask somebody who goes to those schools to verify the data if you don't believe me)</p>
<p>What happened to my pretty structural engineering thread that I understood so very, very well...? (...she asked rhetorically....)</p>
<p>i would also contend that a typical engineering student could move into another major and get a pretty good gpa (probably one good enough to get into med school). so this 'top student' stuff is basically nonsense. yeah its top student by gpa, but that doesn't mean that they're necessarily the best, brightest, or even the most hardworking. so baaassiiccally</p>
<p>engineering as pre-med = gpa rap3.
getting a high gpa in engineering isn't impossible, but it's not going to happen for everyone and its pretty damn hard to do. ALTHOUGH i've met some pretty ridic kids who seem to do it pretty effortlessly.</p>
<p>so aibarr. got a quesion for you. i was on wikipedia and i someone came across a macular degeneration ogg file. it was listed under an aibarr from US illinois and basically consists of a voice citing what it is. what's the deal</p>
<p>???????????????????????????????????????????????</p>
<p>(hdotchar- I do a little narrating for wiki. My grandfather has macular degen, so I have a personal interest in spreadin' the word about it. Spoken Wiki is a cool project... basically trying to get people to record themselves reading wiki entries so that the blind don't have to listen to a goofy speech synthesis entry instead.)</p>
<p>ah ic. i thought it was just some random tidbit of you talking to to yourself. thought it was an interesting coincidence.</p>