<p>Hi, everyone. I know this is the Hopkins forum, so stuff might be a little Hopkins biased, but I hope I get honest answers.</p>
<p>So, here's the deal. I got into Hopkins BME. I also got into Harvard, which offers the Bioengineering conc. However, JHU gave me a 3.5k a year debt, which adds up to 14k over 4 years, with Harvard giving me a full ride.</p>
<p>As far as BME goes, it's definitely what I want to be doing with my life. Not BME as a pre-med, but BME in a ver engineering perspective.</p>
<p>Both schools are prestigous. Harvard in general, and Hopkins BME, the med schools the programs are kind of attached to are just as awesome, so this is turning out to be a hard choice.</p>
<p>Personally I'm leaning towards JHU right now, but Harvard is quite tempting. Any ideas why I should Hopkins over Harvard?</p>
<p>I would say if you were undecided, Harvard would provide you with a broad liberal arts background and some good class in engineering.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Harvard isn’t well known for it’s engineering department and BME is an incredibly reputable department @ Hopkins where faculty from Hopkins Med teach classes to undergraduates. AWESOME!!!</p>
<p>I think if you know that you want BME and you’re interested in engineering as a discipline, BME sounds perfect for you. It’s not uncommon for other students to turn down schools like Harvard and MIT for JHU’s BME department as it is truly a crown jewel at the school. That’s why it has been the #1 department in BME for as long as they have been rating programs.</p>
<p>I suggest visiting if you can. Maybe TanMan can respond here, he’s a BME alum I think.</p>
<p>Both schools are great schools, but when it comes to BME, I would definitely pick Hopkins. Yes, I’m biased as a Hopkins BME graduate, but I’ll try to explain why. I visited Harvard as a prospective student and decided to not even apply, because I really wanted to go to a school that had a strong focus on engineering. At Hopkins, a third of undergraduates are in the School of Engineering, and BME is a (huge) department by itself. At Harvard, you’d be getting a degree in Engineering Sciences with a concentration in Biomedical Sciences and Engineering. When I applied, the School of Engineering didn’t actually exist at Harvard (it was created in 2007, I believe)</p>
<p>Beyond the semantics of how the program is setup (which may not matter to you at all), I think there are substantial differences in the curricula at the two schools. At Hopkins, you’ll take many courses in the BME department, taught by BME faculty and targeted specifically for BME students. Therefore, your thermodynamics course or your control systems course would be taught with a specific emphasis on BME. At Harvard, you’d be taking these classes with all students studying Engineering Sciences. In addition, at Hopkins, after taking a slew of core BME courses, you would then take 6 courses within your specific concentration in BME, allowing you to narrow your focus and gain in-depth knowledge into a particular aspect of BME. On the other hand, at Harvard, after taking all your engineering core courses, you would only take 4 bioengineering specific courses (this is from a quick read of the Harvard website so I may not be 100% correct), and of those, 2 are required for all students, so only 2 are really in your area of specific interest in BME. </p>
<p>If you were unsure about studying BME but were sure you wanted to go to med school, I would say to consider both schools, but I think that with your strong interest in pursing a career in BME, you would be better served at Hopkins. If you have any other questions, feel free to reply or PM me. I’ll try to come back and post more about Hopkins BME later - I’m between classes right now, so my time is limited.</p>
<p>Congrats! I’d also look at your other interests and see if JHU would have those in addition to BME. But tanman sounds very knowledgeable and I may be biased too, being a hopkins student and whatnot. =]</p>
<p>Dude you are so lucky!!! I applied into JHU but did not get in. Anyways I think you should go with Harvard because it is a full ride scholarship. The common person has no idea where JHU is unless they really know their colleges. I think you should go with Harvard because everyone knows Harvard and in the long run you would make more money going to Harvard then JHU. I have a question for you if you dont mind. I really I am curious as to why I did not get into JHU. Could you tell me your SAT score, GPA , your community services, and after school activities.</p>
<p>no offense, but Vanefodom…your post is so ass-backwards it’s not even funny. If you know you are bme, why would you turn down the number 1 program for Harvard’s? this isn’t even a case of prestige because Hopkins BME is number 1 & EVERY ONE in the field knows this.</p>
<p>The Harvard vs JHU thing for making money in the future is just comical. There’s no way to prove that and quite frankly such an assertion doesn’t even make sense.</p>
<p>The only thing I can say is you picked an oddly specific thread to make your first post in yet you have not established any credibility and authority to be giving any advice.</p>
<p>I don’t know about you, but, personally, I am not basing my decision off of money. I want to go where I’ll be happy… even if that means having trouble paying for it.
I got into JHU BME and I think I am going there. I would suggest you do the same. =)</p>
<p>and, <em>idk</em>, please please please don’t post another post… your post count is 123 and I would very much like it to stay that way. =P</p>
<p>If you’ve been here too long… then I’ve been here way way too long. I think I joined the “old” CC in my junior year of high school and still remember the uproar when they changed to this new format/software and reset everyone’s post counts</p>
<p>Hey everyone thanks for your help. Given the fact that BME is where I want to be, and the obvious strength of the JHU BME program, I’ve decided to choose Hopkins.</p>