<ol>
<li>They have the eng specialty you want 2. They have size, curriculum, and resources in your specialty 3. They are ABET accredited (they all are) 4. The better the students the higher the level of teaching 5. successfully produce professional engineers or send students to engineering grad school 6. co-op and internship opportunities 7. research opportunities if grad school is in your future 8. high graduation rate from engineering 9. fall-back majors if engineering doesn't work out for you</li>
</ol>
<p>Both overall strength and strength in your area.</p>
<p>biology and ChemE strength would be good, maybe biomedical too.</p>
<p>Does it have a strong program in the specialty that inerests you? Is the school selective but not so selective that you won't get in.</p>
<p>Not sure about alumni strength...maybe find out about engineering alumni activities sponsored by the school and engineering alumni giving?</p>
<p>I noticed that ChemE powerhouses like Wisconsin and Minnesota were large research universities, would teaching quality be comparable for undergrad or should I check to see if TA teach the classes?</p>
<p>You might want to PM barrons about Wisconsin. But, yes, it is a good idea to ask the eng admissions and department chair about the role of TAs. Good idea. Sometimes TAs are excellent maybe even better than the instructor. At some schools English language skills of the TAs and faculty are an issue.</p>
<p>Biomedical is a different animal than chem. If you are looking to possibly go into med school then you have to look at the schools stats of getting kids into med school from biomed or chem. eng. That was the final selling point for my son going to Vandy. He cant decide between med school and grad eng. Approx. 20% of the biom students end up going to med school, 20% end up being lawyers and 50% end up going to grad eng school all with one 4 year degree. A lot of eng. schools like VT, it requires an extra year to acquire the courses needed in order to go to med school or law school. Just check out all of the schools variables that match your interests.</p>
<p>Nah I'm into Biomed, into Biopharm (apparently its a sea of difference, lurking on CC REALLY helped).</p>
<p>Actually my Bio class forced me out of wanting to go to Med School and into Genetic Research (but I'm thinking of pairing it with my strength in Social Studies and commercialising it).</p>
<p>Perhaps look into grad school placement if you're leaning towards research or job placement if you're leaning towards industry after your undergrad.</p>