<p>sarabay--at the risk of boring everybody else on the thread, let me tell you my Case story. </p>
<p>After the acceptances (and rejections) came in, I thought my techie son had pretty much decided on RPI. But he wouldn't rule out Case without a visit, so up to Cleveland we go (a 75-minute flight from BWI, $99 roundtrip!). </p>
<p>My wife and I were sitting on a bench Saturday morning waiting for him after his overnight. I told her that a part of me was hoping he would pick Case over RPI. She knew where I was coming form. We liked the fact that it was more 'well-rounded' and the atmosphere reminded us both of Hopkins (where we went). I said that I knew that RPI is a good match for him and he would have a blast there, but maybe keep it in mind for his little sister. She isn't quite as techie, and probably won’t be as certain about what she wants to do....</p>
<p>So he drags himself out of the dorm at nine o’clock and we ask him if he wants to stop for some breakfast before we head to the airport. No, he says with a goofy grin, he wants to go to the bookstore and buy a hoodie. In case you haven’t done any college visits, you buy a twelve-dollar T-shirt at each college you visit, but at fifty bucks, the hooded sweatshirts are reserved for your final choice. </p>
<p>Anyway, I still hope my daughter (a sophomore) considers Case….</p>
<p>I am not sure if this is relevant, but when I applied to college 30 years ago, I filled out all application materials and made all decisions on my own (my father only has a 10th grade education, and my mother only finished high school, and neither knew much about college). When I applied to UVa, I checked the box for Engineering and Applied Science, not realizing that it would affect anything (I thought it was just a preference that could easily be changed later). Anyway, even though I got started in engineering by accident, it ends up that I loved engineering and stayed in it through my PhD at MIT.</p>
<p>My daughter also wanted to major in Biomedical Engineering and was thinking of future med school. She was accepted at Princeton and CalTech but decided to attend Case. We narrowed it down to Tulane, Pittsburgh, and Case (all with generous merit $$). I visited Princeton with my daughter and concluded that any of those three schools had better bioengineering programs and local hospitals. My daughter finally ruled out CalTech because she wants to go to med school and we have finite resources (I told her I cannot pay for both undergrad + med school). Fortunately, she is doing extremely well at Case (finishing her sophomore year), will be doing junior year abroad next year in England (paid with scholarship), and has a GPA high enough for med school. She is still deciding which grad school to attend (for PhD and/or MD).</p>
<p>For bioengineering, I liked Pitt, Tulane and Case about equally well. I visited all three schools with my daughter, and I am a fairly knowledgeable judge, in that I was formerly a bioengineering faculty member at Michigan. I would advise applying to Pitt, because with rolling admissions and generous merit $$, you may be able to relieve some pressure early in the game.</p>
<p>Isn't CC great? If only I had discovered this resource before DS applied to college (it all turned out fine, but there would have been less "educated guessing").</p>
<p>Son is a sophomore in the engineering school - Wash U has a very strong BME program in engineering and very strong pre-med program in Arts and Sciences. What sold my son on Wash U was how collaborative the engineering school is - study groups, etc. and almost as important is how easy it is to move between schools and/or double major/minor etc. It's always easier to go from Engineering to other schools than it is to go the other way. Other schools with the same ease of transferring would be Rice, Vanderbilt, Rochester.</p>
<p>I don't know about the other schools mentioned, but I do know that it is not difficult to transfer from Duke's Pratt (Engineering) to Dukes's Trinity (LA).</p>
<p>When we visited Lehigh, one of the things they were very quick to point out was that it was VERY easy to transfer between schools. One can do it an any time without petitioning.</p>
<p>I want to thank everyone for all of their responses- this has confirmed some things we already thought we knew and also opened our eyes to some excellent choices for more of a "safety" school (if there is such a thing!) As junior year winds to a close I'm sure there will be many more questions- hopefully this thread will help some other students with the same "engineering or no" dilemma!</p>
<p>I will add along with the others that we visited an awfully lot of schools and (1) always heard to start with Engineering if you even think you might plan to major in it; (2) never heard of barriers going from Engineering to A&S; almost always heard it is tough the other direction.</p>
<p>The only case I can think of where that would be difficult is in schools where you might be wanting to move to an Impacted Major - say, at the UC's. Then it is difficult. YMMV.</p>