dilemma

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I made this pros and cons chart for myself between U Rochester, Columbia, Cornell and RPI. I am currently accepted to RPI Biomedical Engineering, and have yet to hear from the other schools. I am extremely conflicted on whether I should go to U of R for BME, Columbia for BME, or Cornell for Biology. Given the info below, and assuming I got in to all the schools listed, where would you go if you were in my shoes?</p>

<p>Pros and Cons</p>

<p>U of R</p>

<p>ACADEMICS – Biomedical Engineering </p>

<ul>
<li> Strong developing BME Program that is ABET Accredited.</li>
<li> Fantastic student ratio- in SEAS there it is almost 1:1, in BME about 4:1, </li>
<li> Strong ties to one of the best Medical Schools in the country.</li>
<li> 3-2 program if I want a M.S. but I will probably want either a PhD or MD.</li>
<li> Helpful professors (I’ve been in contact with some already), who are carrying out interesting research.</li>
<li> Lot of options. I can choose from either Cell and Tissue Engineering, Bioinstrumentation, Biomechanics, or the unique Biomedical Optics degree.</li>
<li> If there is a class that RIT has but U of R doesn’t, I can take the class at RIT for free.</li>
<li> Professors teach all classes, TA’s review.</li>
<li> Great Pre-Med advising if choose to go that route.</li>
<li> A Huge new Biomedical Engineering building will be done by the time I’m a sophomore.</li>
</ul>

<p>AFFORDIBILITY</p>

<ul>
<li> Will probably be the most affordable because they offer merit-based aid, and I am a Bausch & Lomb scholar. Columbia and Cornell do not give merit-based aid, but I could perhaps get some at RPI.</li>
</ul>

<p>AVAILABILITY OF OTHER ACADEMIC INETERESTS</p>

<ul>
<li> Must take at least a cluster in humanities or social sciences, lots of flexibility, under some circumstances I could double major with an engineering degree!</li>
<li> Music Lessons at Eastman offered to all U of R students.</li>
<li> Strong programs across the board, leaving many study options.</li>
<li> Engineering school is fully integrated in the college.</li>
<li> Great newspaper to work for or vocal ensembles to join.</li>
</ul>

<p>STUDENT LIFE, SOCIAL LIFE, and ENVIRONMENT</p>

<ul>
<li> Even male-female ratio – and although girls probably aren’t supermodels, there are girls there.</li>
<li> Heavy workload for the sciences, but manageable.</li>
<li> Rochester seems pretty cool, while not the most ideal college town, there is much more to do than at home.</li>
<li> Frat scene declining, which can be either good or bad.</li>
<li> Freshman dorms are fantastic, although I don’t know about upperclassman housing.</li>
<li> Food is mediocre.</li>
<li> Beautiful campus, on bend on the Genosee River.</li>
<li> Free Bus system so I can see friends at RPI or go to Eastman or downtown.</li>
<li> Free Concerts at Eastman.</li>
<li> Ferry service to Ontario.</li>
<li> Small size, seems like a small community environment, isolated enough from the city, to promote campus events.</li>
</ul>

<p>Prestige and Education Value</p>

<ul>
<li> Definitely not as prestigious as the ivies, but not bad.</li>
<li> 60% go to Grad School, and 10% to med school. That’s amazing.</li>
<li> Name recognition among employers is lacking, but the University if trying to improve that.</li>
</ul>

<p>COLUMBIA – SEAS </p>

<p>ACADEMICS – Biomedical Engineering </p>

<ul>
<li> Great program in BME, with professors who know their stuff. Though I’m worried about how much professors really care about the undergrads.</li>
<li> Very small undergraduate population.</li>
<li> Lots of opportunities for research and the Columbia name opens up a lot in terms of getting into research programs, or internships.</li>
</ul>

<p>AVAILABILITY OF OTHER ACADEMIC INETERESTS</p>

<ul>
<li> The core takes up most time outside the major, but gives a liberal arts education.</li>
<li> Minors are available in only a few subjects for engineering majors.</li>
<li> SEAS is totally separate from Columbia College, and transferring to CC is nearly impossible if I were to ever want to take pure bio.</li>
</ul>

<p>STUDENT LIFE, SOCIAL LIFE, and ENVIRONMENT</p>

<ul>
<li> Incredibly diverse student body, although this is not incredibly important to me.</li>
<li> Tons to do in NYC. Just a metro ride away from anything, just hop on a train and I can be home in 3.5 hours.</li>
<li> Very compact, a huge change from the rural resort town I come from.</li>
</ul>

<p>PRESTIGE AND EDUCATION VALUE</p>

<ul>
<li> It’s Columbia, if I do well, admission to med-school or grad school is great.</li>
<li> Strong pull towards prestige.</li>
</ul>

<p>CORNELL – ARTS AND SCIENCES – Biology</p>

<p>ACADEMICS –</p>

<ul>
<li> Fantastic biology program.</li>
<li> Broad array of courses for a liberal education.</li>
<li> Great reputation as a biology school.</li>
<li> Can pursue biological engineering, from Engineering School after study of 3 years of Bio.</li>
</ul>

<p>AVAILABILITY OF OTHER ACADEMIC INETERESTS</p>

<ul>
<li> Since I will take biology here, there is much more room and option to combine other interests. </li>
<li> Much broader education, which I like.</li>
<li> B.S in biology is a less marketable degree than a B.S in BME</li>
</ul>

<p>STUDENT LIFE, SOCIAL LIFE, and ENVIRONMENT</p>

<ul>
<li> Really nice dorms, and the best food I have ever had anywhere.</li>
<li> Huge student population, I don’t want to get lost in the crowd.</li>
<li> The University is a city within itself, I could be very comfortable there.</li>
</ul>

<p>Prestige and Education Value</p>

<ul>
<li> Great reputation, though my fate would pretty much be sealed for med school.</li>
</ul>

<p>RPI</p>

<p>ACADEMICS – Biomedical Engineering </p>

<ul>
<li> The best BME program out of all that I applied to.</li>
<li> Teachers have a reputation of being very dry.</li>
<li> If I was going only for reputation in BME I would go here.</li>
<li> Brand new state-of-the-art BME facility.</li>
</ul>

<p>AVAILABILITY OF OTHER ACADEMIC INETERESTS</p>

<ul>
<li> People go to RPI for engineering. While there is opportunity to study other things too, it is a very specialized engineering school.</li>
</ul>

<p>STUDENT LIFE, SOCIAL LIFE, and ENVIRONMENT</p>

<ul>
<li> Horrible Location</li>
<li> 3:1 male:female ratio. . . But there are girls at Sage I guess.</li>
<li> Mediocre dorms and food.</li>
<li> Nice campus but nowhere near U of R, Cornell, I even liked Columbia’s better.</li>
<li> Only an hour from home.</li>
<li> Seems kind of nerdy, like they converted a church to a computer lab, now it’s like the shrine to the great tech god. Frats are the only relief.</li>
</ul>

<p>Prestige and Education Value</p>

<ul>
<li>Great engineering school, I could find a job anywhere with an engineering degree from RPI, but is it really worth staying in Troy, in a place that doesn’t really seem like a good fit for me?</li>
</ul>

<p>I also applied to UNION, and COLGATE, but these seem to have fallen out of my top choices, unless something changes.</p>

2

<p>You seem to have already devoloped a bias for U of R. It's an awesome school.
If I was accepted to them all I would go to Cornell for that major.</p>

3

<p>I think you would be better off at Cornell for biology, although the U of Rochester excels in biology/medicine fields. Perhaps you could take some engineering courses at Cornell that would be applicable to biomed engineering.</p>

4

<h2>hey, just a quick notice, if you want i can put some more info on this, but UR is spending heavily (and i mean heavily) on new BME department, trying to get the best professors, make a new building/BME CAMPUS. I was talking to a higher-up about it, and she said that UR is trying to do for BME what they did for Optics, and UR is undoubtedly ranked number 1 for optics. </h2>

<p>Cornell has more of a reputation tho than UR i'll admit, but if you are looking for med school/grad school, UR can be argued as a better approach because you get just as good quality education, i mean its still prestigious and all, AND you dont have to deal with the DEFLATION that is in Cornell, which helps for med school/grad school.
Oh btw, RPI sucks....a lot. The academics is good, albiet extremely challenging, but the over-all jist of it is that it just sucks. I have two friends that hate it there, well one friend, and the other transferred out. The only good thing i heard about RPI was that they have a good bs/md program and academics are good. But not much better than the other schools your looking at, and def. not better than cornell. But i'm warning you about rpi :P</p>

5

<p>Thanks for the input, KhAn_T1m. U of R is putting a lot of effort into the program, and seems to be doing well in tissue engineering, and biomedical optics. </p>

<p>I have had a few emails go back and forth with Professor McGrath. . . .who teaches the upper level tissue engineering classes, and he seemed wonderful to deal with. . . . .he replied to my first email at 1:00 AM the night I mailed it. And the curriculum he has posted on his classes website, seems difficult, yet very fair. I even saw that students have a BME picnic with their professors, and they even participated in a BME society bowl-a-thon. I think that if the professors are that involved in student life, then they will be very readily accessible. The professors are without a doubt top knotch, from schools like MIT, JHU. . . .just to name a couple that stood out.</p>

<p>I am worried because it seems like I'll be taking a gamble on a developing program. Although it seems like the college is already boasting it's BME program, such as at the open house, the one engineering student on the question panel was a BME/Mathematics double major. </p>

<p>I'd just like to be able to tell people I go to the University of Rochester and not have them ask me: "Oh, How do you like RIT?"</p>

<p>Cornell A & S, I like a lot as well, and the same with Columbia. . . . . I just don't know if they're as good as a fit.</p>

<p>I like the fact that University of Rochester focuses on providing students with a broad education, has great med resources, will have great BME resources, isn't intimidating, and feels like a place where I could be comfortable for the next 4 years.</p>

<p>As far as BME being as good as optics, I really hope that happens. It's just been very hard for me to find a wealth of information on BME, if you say I want to major in biomedical engineering to most people, they just stare at you all puzzled and think you want to be in some lab making clones of yourself. So. . . .thanks for the input. . ..this post is way longer than I intended it to be!</p>

6

<p>hhaha most of my posts are like that, it's from our buff typing skills! :P</p>

<hr>

<h2>U of R is not that bad, i'd say around 75% of the time when i tell people where i'm going, they not and give some sort of an aknowledgement like, "Wow, thats a great school." or "Nice school, make sure to pack with extra sweaters, really cold!" Thats the one thing, just has a bad rep for being cold - but everyone i tlak to there says the cold does NOT affect you in anyway, and me being from NJ, it shouldnt matter much to me. But yeah, there are people out there who are not in the circle of academia and these types of people who dont kno wmuch about college (the same type of people who dont know about BME) will think Uof R is some random school like RIT, and only know about Princeton Harvard yale and MIT. But to be honest, once you talk to people from the Better schools, it's surprising to see how many people from the ivies aknowledge U of R or even say that they applied there. So the Rep isnt THAT bad. </h2>

<p>I am in close contact with a BME junior at U of R, he transferred out from RPI, and he absolutely loves BME. A good friend of mine thats going next year to U of R is also pursuing BME, and he did a wealth of research on BME programs and wisely chose UR. The junior friend says that the program -is- well established, although its hard, its also very fun with good profs. Next year, at this time, the BME campus will be finished, and you will suddenly see more professors, MORE research, and a more selective pool of students attending BME program. This is a recipe for sure success! TimurMD is my aim, feel free to contact me and i can hook u up :P</p>

<p>-again this is way longer than i intended to be.</p>

7

<p>Actually while name recognition within the public is not as good as Cornell for UR, name recognition within employers is just as good as Cornell...</p>

8

<p>Just to let you know, Bioengineering is not the same as Biomedical Engineerig. They are very different.</p>

<p>And you can't take Bioengineering from A&S. You would have to do an internal transfer to either Ag or Engineering, but that shouldn't be a problem.</p>

<p>edit: the BME program is very very new at Cornell. Next year is the first year of accreditation for graduate programs. You can only get a minor in BME. They are in the works of setting up an official major for undergrads.</p>

9

<p>Yeah, I know. I applied to Cornell when I was more interested in General Biology. So I'd probably transfer to Ag. and Life.</p>

<p>Yeah, BME = specific to human</p>

<p>bioengineering = broader study of evaluating biological problems in plants, animals, environment, and humans.</p>

<p>My mistake in typing BME for Cornell. . . .thanks for teh correction, but I'm interested in either feild.</p>

10

<p>I agree with hopkinslax, U of R is very well known among employees so don't let the "Ivy League" status of Columbia and Cornell elevate them above a school you really want to attend.</p>