I’m looking to be a biomedical engineer in the future and am a current junior in high school. I got a 34 on my ACT and am pretty overwhelmed by the college search process. Sometimes I feel like almost every college is thew same, just in different locations. Anyways, here’s a general list of schools I’m looking at:
University of Washington
University of Pennsylvania
University of Minnesota Twin Cities
University of Wisconsin Madison
University of Kansas (in state)
Northeastern
University of California San Diego
Washington University St. Louis
University of Michigan
Any suggestions about these colleges or other colleges in the area for me?
I take it you mean the biomedical engineering area? Well, this has become a very popular degree and many schools have this major. What you have not said is anything about where you are from, what kind of GPA you have, waht tuition and school expenses your family is willing to afford and so on. Without that kind of information it is impossible to give suggestions.
I live in Kansas, but there aren’t any schools here as far as I know that offer biomedical undergrad. I’ve been considering mech major into biomedical grad school via KU, however. My GPA is high enough to be considered at all of the colleges, and my parents said they would help pay for most of my college, depending on the price.
You can do the ME to BME route and many do. The problem with BME as an undergrad is that if you decide grad school isn’t for you, you’re just sick of college for instance, the BME degree will not be nearly as useful as the ME degree will be.
What criteria did you use to compile your list?
I don’t know about a lot of schools on your list, but I can give you a couple of tips. I never recommend University of Washington, or any school without a direct engineering admit for that matter. Not having the certainty that you’ll get to actually do engineering isn’t worth the risk. I’m also not a big fan of Ivy League engineering. With the exception of Cornell, they just aren’t that great.
If you are set on BME and have high stats, I’d take a look at Case Western. They have one of the oldest BME programs in the nation and they are very generous with merit aid for high stats students. My son got $100k and we liked the campus and believe it or not, even liked Cleveland.
My list is compiled of schools where I would enjoy living post college and of regions that are strong in biomedical areas. I know California, Washington, and Minnesota are the larger hubs for jobs in biomedical area.
As @eyemgh says, you can often get a good merit aid package at a private tech university. Case Western is one of the [url="<a href=“http://theaitu.org%22%5DAITU%5B/url”>http://theaitu.org"]AITU[/url] but other have accredited BME programs too.
If your GPA is consistent with your excellent 34 on the ACT, I would not hesitate to apply to the University of Washington. Even if you are not directly admitted to an engineering major as a freshman, as long as you continue to apply yourself to your studies, you would be one of the stronger applicants for admission as a sophomore. I suggest you also apply to the Honors Program. http://depts.washington.edu/uwhonors/apply/freshman/faq/