<p>As for Harvard engineering, Harvard’s strengths really lie in other fields, and everything at Harvard is pretty easily employable. There’s no sense focusing hard on one aspect of Harvard (which engineering requires) when the rest of the university is so great. I might tentatively advise the same thing at Duke, but it’s not so clear in that circumstance.</p>
<p>When the time came to apply, the Golden Boy picked out the few most selective schools in the country and tossed them an application. He was roundly rejected. He decided that an MD/PhD track would be easier to get into for some reason despite not having any research experience, so he applied to the five most selective MD/PhD programs. He was rejected again. Eventually Golden Boy had to retake the MCAT and apply to schools which he considered “beneath him” until he got in somewhere. (Actually he’s at a very fine school, but he didn’t think it was.)</p>
<p>Dont you think selectivity was the problem here?</p>
<p>Of course it was. The problem wasn’t Berkeley’s brand-name. The problem was that he was a marvelously bright young man who received no advising and who didn’t pick up any application savvy from the people around him, because almost none of them ended up applying to medical school themselves.</p>
<p>He didn’t have an advisor who could help him with essays, and goodness knows his friends weren’t up to the task. He didn’t have anybody to tell him that a 32 really wasn’t very good for a California resident, and so nobody pushed him to study harder. And when the time came to pick a list, he didn’t have any advisors to help him, no friends to emulate, and no savvy about what the rest of the country looked like. And for the few times he went around the interview trail, he was rapidly outclassed by the Ivy League grads – not because of their brand name, but because they’re used to interacting with peers and he… wasn’t.</p>
<p>The more important problem is what this says about his college experience, too. I don’t know, maybe he didn’t care, but it would have bothered me tremendously to have been in that kind of a situation for four years. Isn’t college more fun when you’re amongst people who can challenge you, teach you, serve as role models for you? Golden Boy never got that experience. And it showed at the end of four years.</p>
<p>I agree with bdm: visit is a must before spending the $.</p>
<p>One other thing: an engineering type who would thrive at UCSD socially, is probably a better fit for Hopkins socially than becoming a Dookie. (IMO, of course.)</p>
<p>@OP, being a parent myself of three kids, either in college or shortly to enter, that $200k price tag for a 4-yr experience at Duke or JHU is simply not worth the money. Being a premed is a challenge and requires a tremendous focus and effort throughout your four years, no matter which college which location what quality of premed advising. At most campuses, you will still have to do it all on your own. AT most state universities and at large private colleges. All of the posters here have attended ONLY ONE college themselves and when they say they are making the best informed advices for you, remember they attended only one UG college, and did not have first hand experience at all other colleges they are mentioning (unless they transferred midway through the college).</p>
<p>UCSD should be a great place to accumulate experiences with the biomed firms in La Jolla? Biomed ranked #5 for UCSD ?? It is no brainer and very easy. At least for me.</p>
<p>2010 NRC Ranking:
BIOENGINEERING</p>
<p>1—UC San Deigo
2—Cal Tech
3—Berkeley
4—UCSF
5—MIT
6—U. of Washington
7—Duke
8—Boston U.
9—U. of Michigan
10–Yale</p>
<p>BIOLOGY</p>
<p>1—Cal Tech
2—UC San Diego
3—UC San Diego (different department)
4—Princeton
5—Rockefeller U.
6—Stanford
7—UCSF
8—Yale
9—Yale (different department)
10–Columbia</p>
<p>Unless the OP actually plans on being a biomedical engineer, nobody’s going to care about the rankings involved. (And nobody ever cares about biology rankings.) I could just as easily point out that a Harvard or a Duke kid is going to be fine on the job market if the OP decides he wants to major in history or philosopy, while a UCSD kid who majors in something like that is going to have a very difficult time.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that you have to figure out whether you think you can become the kind of person you want to be by the end of college. And you’re not going to learn that from an Internet bulletin board. You have to go visit.</p>
<p>*San Diego has the best weather on the planet. Who the heck would want to bother with the crappy weather that other areas have.</p>
<p>A lot of people want to get outside of their comfort zone to grow. *</p>
<p>LOL…the phrase to get out of one’s “comfort zone” doesn’t usually have to do with temperature… It’s about expanding one’s mind…experiencing new theories/new ways of thinking… It’s pushing the boundaries of the mind…perhaps taking some classes outside of one’s typical strengths…such as in music or art or creative writing…or going to the opera or to a symphony…or starting a new hobby/sport that is outside the comfort zone (for me, that would be hiking)…or doing a study abroad in Timbuktu.</p>
<p>Simply experiencing very cold weather after living in warm weather does NOT achieve that. My FIL was the most closed-minded person on earth, and it wasn’t because he hadn’t experience different climates. LOL</p>
<p>*And I don’t think anyone should complain about being in La Jolla…that’s a vacation destination.</p>
<p>On a starving-students’ budget?*</p>
<p>You must not have read the whole thread. He’d be going there for free, therefore he would not be a “starving student”…his family isn’t poor. He’d have pocket money either from parents or a summer job or something. </p>
<p>He’d more likely be a “starving student” if he went ELSEWHERE because his parents’ money would be going towards tuition.</p>
Look, BDM, when you seek employment after college or grad school, the discipline ranking matters more than the general college ranking. And the rankings matter only when you seek new jobs mainly for a few years after you graduate, and then it becomes less important with time. Employers KNOW the quality of programs the lad attended. Duke is a fine school. So is JHU and UCSD. For anything Bio, UCSD is the top in my book and Duke is not (until NRC changes its mind) ;)</p>
<p>Why is the program ranking unimportant? It IS VERY important – the quality of faculty, the quality of research programs and laboratories in the department (which will give the students opportunities for research), quality of teaching assistants who run the recitations and lab sessions, etc. etc. The overall university ranking means little in this regard. </p>
<p>The overall university ranking matters in the general quality of students of the whole campus, the quality of gen ed classes, availability of university-wide resources (such as ECs, money for special projects or summer activities, etc.).</p>
<p>So, the OP has options of getting the TOP-quality product for FREE, and second-quality products for $200k, in terms of the program.</p>
<p>Unless you’re talking about the upper Ivies, sure. Go look at the folks that Wall Street hires out of Harvard and tell me about their majors. In this specific context, it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>Program ranking doesn’t matter because the OP is applying to medical school. They’re not going to care about which bioengineering program he’s at. As I specifically stated:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nobody EVER cares about biology rankings because there are essentially no undergraduate level biologists.</p>
<hr>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is 100% correct. If the OP visits both schools and feels that UCSD can help him grow in this way exactly as well as Harvard (or Duke or Hopkins) will, then I’ll withdraw all objections other than my standing point about how terrible advising is at the UC’s.</p>
<p>But he has to go and visit the schools and talk to the students involved. Nobody on this board can do that for him.</p>
<p>I think bluedevilmike is actually underestimating his alma mater and soon to be mine a little in this case (modesty perhaps?). Out of my group of very close senior friends at Duke, one is a History major who is doing Sales & Trading at JP Morgan, one’s a Philosophy major working for Bain & Company, one’s an Econ major going to Mt. Sinai Medical School in New York, one’s a Biology major going to Harvard Law School, one’s a BME who’s doing his PhD in Physics at Caltech, etc. etc. What you major at Duke has no bearing on what you end up doing. You’re free to study essentially what you want.</p>
<p>Personally, I think if you were to go to Harvard if you get off their waiting list and bite the bullet for $200,000 and forego USCD, then you should do the same for Duke or even Hopkins. The difference between Harvard and Duke is miniscule in comparison to the difference between Duke and USCD. </p>
<p>Go visit USCD and ask current seniors what they’re planning to do after they graduate. If their responses sound even half as impressive as the random group of Duke seniors I’ve just described, then go to USCD and never turn back. Otherwise, you have a very very tough decision to make.</p>
<p>It just so happens that Harvard has a study abroad program in Timuktu’s backyard. UC does not.*</p>
<p>Ha ha…</p>
<p>But, as we know, I was using the name “Timbuktu” as a place that is synonymous with any remote or exotic place. Nepal, perhaps.</p>
<p>That said, I can’t imagine that it’s impossible to do a study abroad in Timbuktu from a UC…many universities are fine with other schools’ students signing up for one of their study abroad programs. </p>
<p>BDM has a point about the pre-med advising at a UC…I don’t know if it’s worth $200k to go elsewhere. It would seem to me that a pro-active student who seeks out the pre-med advisors can get the info they need. The problem may be that you can’t just sit back and expect the info to come to you if they don’t have a first class act in the pre-med advising dept. You may have to pro-active and seek out various info/resources/opportunites by visiting the pre-med advising office once a month or so.</p>
<p>Find out if you can be put on Pre-med office’s list serve for email announcements. I was able to add myself to my son’s pre-med advising office (how helicopter is that!!!). But, it’s great because I know what’s going on…what’s available…research opps…upcoming guest speakers…meetings…when the mock interviews are being held…what’s going on with Committee Letters…etc. I read the all of the Director’s emails because he’s very dedicated and provides insightful info and advice.</p>
<p>I go to a big state school–probably nowhere near as cool as UCSD (and certainly has no prestige factor)–and I cannot stress enough how true this is. If you’re going to succeed at a big state school, you absolutely must be proactive in essentially everything you do. It is so easy to get lost among the numbers or to be on the receiving end of really cookie cutter advice. Success requires a ton of creativity, flexibility, and a certain degree of boldness since you really will have to work to find the resources you need. They’re out there, it just takes some work.</p>
<p>^^^****Its not just state schools. Its also true at some private schools like mine. Which is why I have to come to cc to get advising.</p>
<p>For example, the other day I went in to ask my pre-med adviser about research opportunities at the CDC and she told me to find something on the internet or to contact the CDC’s human resources. The CDC’s human resources department has been telling me for the past 2 years that they don’t like taking undergrads, they only want kids who have graduated college and are working for grad degrees. So I told my adviser that I have been trying to do what she said for the past 2 years and it hasn’t been working. She just told me to just keep trying…</p>
<p>***I am sure this would not have happened at schools like Duke/Harvard, where pre-med advisers personally know researchers at the elite research institutions, like the CDC, that are willing to take students. </p>
<p>On a side note: I decided to start contacting researchers from their individual webpages (screw the human resources at the CDC) and a couple of researchers said that they will review my resume/transcript and see if I can get involved in their work.</p>
<p>FWIW Harvard’s advising isn’t great either due to the decentralized system they use.</p>
<p>EDIT: Oh, I forgot. After I left Duke also moved to a somewhat more decentralized system, too. Also not a good move, although I think they’re still doing okay.</p>
<p>@bluedevilmike constantly refers to Berkeley when he talks about the UC’s. Just because Berkeley is most selective does not mean it holds the best department or university environment for pre-med students. UCSD honestly, is much better than berkeley with regards to getting their students to med school. The reason Berkeley does not send a lot of students to med school is because of GRADE DEFLATION. I hope the OP did his own, more accurate, research and made a well-intended and well-informed decision than one from merely listening to the misunderstandings and misinformation on this board. As for advising, true, small colleges will do better. But I just want people to realize UCSD and UC Berkeley are different and cannot be lumped under “UC’s,” and especially compared using only Berkeley’s statistics.</p>