<p>Hi, I want to major in biomedical engineering (premed). I am really confused about which school to choose. So far my thought process: </p>
<p>Duke:
Great BME program, and is also the strongest overall school of the four. It's beautiful and I can totally see myself loving it there...the acceptance rate was low this year and I know I'll have a competitive class!!!! But it's out of state tuition..</p>
<p>JHU BME:
AMAZING BME program, but I've heard horror stories about how cutthroat it is...and it costs as much as a nice house over the four years!!! Also if I didn't like BME, JHU isn't as good for other types of engineering</p>
<p>Cornell:
It's an Ivy.....haha. Yeah. The engineering is probably the best of the ivy league, but still nothing like Duke or JHU. And it's still pretty pricey. (And I'm a Meinig Family Scholar!) </p>
<p>University of Michigan:
Love it already. I live in state and got a full tuition scholarship for four years so financially, it's solid. the BME program isn't the best, but it has a good med school and a good hospital. But it's just disappointing to stay in state when I've worked so hard my whole life....maybe I'm just being immature </p>
<p>So what do you guys think i should do? Thanks!</p>
<p>I would go for Duke or UMich. They have the two strongest points, a curriculum that you seem to like, a lot! And an environment you seem to love.</p>
<p>If you love Michigan, take the free ride.</p>
<p>If you really want to do BME go to JHU - I say it’s the best one out there for the major (you did get into the BME program, right?).
As for Duke - no, it’s not the strongest out of the group. Just sayin’. -.-</p>
<p>JHU and Duke are tops for BME, but Cornell and Michigan rank higher than both for overall undergraduate engineering. At this point though, all four are on the highest playing field for your major, so the differences here are marginalized. Never pick a school based on rankings, it’s a superficial system that has very little application in the real world outside of bragging rights (and even then, only people in the field would know that one school is ranked higher than the other in engineering). If you do well, you’ll be a stand out applicant whether your app says JHU, Duke, or Cornell - it simply doesn’t matter at this point, as all of your choices are highly respect for your field. What matters is choosing a school you will enjoy for the next four years of your life, creating lasting memories that you’ll reflect on for the rest of your life. in addition - look at recruitment. That’s where you’ll likely find your career anyway.</p>
<p>People just have to stop basing major life decisions on a flawed ranking system. It leads to a lot of regret.</p>
<p>Consider what happens when you take your first BME courses and realize you don’t like it, or prefer something else. Or what happens after you get a “C” in freshman Biology.</p>
<p>I’m a BME at hopkins and I have to say I LOVE it. Now, I’m just a freshman so I haven’t taken any of the supposedly ridiculous classes yet… but it’s really not that bad with work and all. There’s lots of nice people here too. Everyones friendly and we collaborate on a lot of our work. The upperclassmen all tell us that they end up getting closer and working together as the classes get harder. I’ve never encountered anyone here being cutthroat either. The main reason I love the BME program is design team though. I got to jump on an upperclassmen team as part of a class. Each team is designing a medical device to benefit people in some way. For our project, we’re probably going to market and sell our product through a startup we’re making. I’m just a freshman - no other school is going to let you get that involved as a freshman. Also, if you want to do research this is the place to be.</p>
<p>Just FYI, there isn’t a BME major at Cornell. There is a Biological/Environmental Engineering major, and you can concentrate in BME or you can minor in BME. I am planning on doing a BEE major with a BME minor.
As a side note, I’ve loved Michigan all of my life (I will admit I’ve worn my Michigan sweatshirt more than my Cornell one). Go Blue.
Oh, good luck too, wherever you go…</p>