<p>These are my options: duke, cornell, jhu, northwestern, brown, dartmouth, uc berkeley and ucla. </p>
<p>I applied as mechanical engineering but now i'm leaning more towards BME. The problem with me is that I'm uncertain about my major. I could switch into a different discipline of engineering or I could pursue business, all the while doing the prerequisites for med school. That in mind, I want a college thats flexible and at the top in all of those three fileds. I know that according to us news, jhu has the top BME while duke is second. But I also know that overall engineering, Berkeley is placed 3rd, (MIT=1st, stanford-2nd). Also, Berkeley is ranked top 3 for business. I also like the idea of attending a prestigious school such as Duke, but I dont know if Duke is at the top of those 3 fields. It bugs me that Duke is ranked #5, while UCB is #20, even though UCB excels in engineering and business while duke doesnt. So why does Duke have such a high rating? Meanwhile, I'm completely ignoring all the other great schools, simply based on one website. If anyone has any advice, please reply, thx.</p>
<p>Advice: start ignoring ranking websites. <em>All</em> the schools you mentioned do great things and will have the facilities and faculties to let you do your thing - whatever you decide that thing is. Check to make sure that all the programs exist that you want, then start basing your decision on things <em>other</em> than rankings.</p>
<p>Duke is ranked at #5 by US News for political reasons. generally, northern schools are much stronger than their southern counterparts. but in order to appease the folks in the south, they have to at least include just one southern school in the top 10 rankings. and duke happens to be the most prestigious school in the south. so there you go.</p>
<p>this is the same deal with college admissions. ever wonder why selective colleges always admit at least one student from a given high school? they do it so they don't **** off the high school and its counselors, with whom they maintain regular contact.</p>
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Duke is ranked at #5 by US News for political reasons. generally, northern schools are much stronger than their southern counterparts. but in order to appease the folks in the south, they have to at least include just one southern school in the top 10 rankings. and duke happens to be the most prestigious school in the south. so there you go.