<p>So, can someone tell me which specific departments WashU is known better for? Like what's WashU's strongest departments? How is WashU engineering program? I'm interested in majoring in chemical engineering. Also, would it be hard to double major if you want majors in different schools? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Not sure about chemical engineering, but the double major question has been discussed thoroughly numerous times on this board. Try searching the forum.</p>
<p>I would pick (or not pick) Wash U because of how you like the school overall. I’ve always thought that comparing the relative strengths of different departments of top flight schools at the undergrad level is a dubious basis for decision-making. Wash U is fantastic in terms of overall academic strength, beautiful campus, and the feeling you get from the student body. Of course, there are other schools that you might find more or less appealing, so there’s no substitute for spending some time there.
That being said, within its engineering school, WashU’s biomedical engineering program is particularly well regarded.<br>
I haven’t heard much about its ChemE department, but have you looked into Northwestern? Overall, Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering is excellent, and given that I know it’s chem dept is nationally renowned (keeping in mind, however, my caveat about comparing undergrad programs), I wouldn’t be surprised if the ChemE program is great too.
Good luck!</p>
<p>Best known for would be BME. Engineering isn’t highly ranked, mainly because it’s a bit smaller than many other programs in terms of faculty and thus fewer grants given. As for double majoring…like Crozet said its been asked a million times on these boards and is easily found if you look at wustl.edu</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the feedback.
The thing is, I’m not completely sure I want to do chemical engineering. From what I know, it’s easy to switch majors at WashU, a quality I definitely need. But if I decided to do chemical engineering for sure, I wanted to know how good or not good the program is at WashU and if it would be better for me to go to a different school.</p>
<p>It’s easy to switch majors, but up until a point. The latest you could probably change an engineering major is the beginning of your sophomore year, otherwise you might need to spend some more time. The program is okay…it’s not like theres ranking of schools by each individual department. Would you like the program? Is the program better than X’s? No one can say for sure</p>
<p>It is easy to double major in different schools. It is more difficult to get a dual degree - will usually take an extra year.</p>
<p>Switching majors is easy, but some majors (like engineering) require taking courses in sequence, so switching into those can be more complicated (may require extra time to complete)</p>
<p>Switching majors in engineering can easily happen as late as halfway through. For example, I could technically switch right now, as a rising junior… instead I’m double majoring because I’m a lunatic (why does it seem like all of us engineering students are masochistic?).</p>
<p>This is because there are so many similar classes the first two years- gen chem (all but one of the majors, I think), physics, math, cse 131, ese 230 (needed for at least 4 majors), bio (chemE’s have to take one semester, so BME to ChemE isn’t all that off), and any humanities classes you may have taken.</p>
<p>Switching into engineering from artsci or somewhere else would be much more difficult past the beginning of sophomore year.</p>
<p>I hate to hijack this thread, but I am taking S to visit Wash U next week. He’ll get the tour, the info session and will attend a break-out info session in the engineering school. </p>
<p>I know he will ask me this: which Wash U undergraduate programs are highly ranked? Not just in engineering (although he’s obviously interested in that–and I see BME has been mentioned) but what about other sciences and even business? I know I’ve seen the Olin business school on some lists, but nothing has really stood out to me as being really “top flight” at Wash U.</p>
<p>Are there any undergraduate majors/programs that stand out out Wash U?</p>
<p>^Jumping on to that:
I saw on WashU’s website that they were number one for political science for undergrad. Is this true? I haven’t seen any mention of WashU anywhere else. I would have thought Georgetown, Columbia, UChcicago to be at the top of polisci.</p>
<p>I’ll let someone else address the undergraduate program, but here is a link to graduate and professional school rankings.</p>
<p>[Rankings</a> | Facts | Washington University in St. Louis](<a href=“University Facts - Washington University in St. Louis”>University Facts - Washington University in St. Louis)</p>
<p>This article is three years old but I think it’ll still get the point across</p>
<p>[WUSTL</a> is top 10 in 19 disciplines | Newsroom | Washington University in St. Louis](<a href=“http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/8536.aspx]WUSTL”>WUSTL is top 10 in 19 disciplines - The Source - Washington University in St. Louis)</p>
<p>“In three separate national ratings — faculty scholarly productivity, black student college graduation rates and the number of National Merit Scholars in the freshman class — Washington University ranks in the top 10.”</p>
<p>Meh, I’m not really seeing any of these three indicators giving WashU a real edge. I mean, that’s great that it ranks in the top 10 for black student graduation rates, but I’m more interested in something that shows me their best undergrad majors. </p>
<p>Here is a nice chart that shows UT-Austin’s rankings for individual majors in their College of Natural Sciences:</p>
<p>[Facts</a> & Rankings](<a href=“http://cns.utexas.edu/about-the-college/facts-rankings]Facts”>http://cns.utexas.edu/about-the-college/facts-rankings)</p>
<p>I’d like to see something similar for Wash U. The best I’ve come up with so far is that the Olin School (again, not a major) is ranked #18. And I can’t even find the source for their own claim that political science is #1.</p>
<p>Scroll down</p>
<p>“…according to Academic Analytics’ Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index (FSP Index), a new quantitative method for ranking doctoral programs at research universities.”</p>
<p>I’m looking for info on undergraduate programs, not doctoral research programs. In fact, I don’t think how “productive” (read “published”) the faculty is always correlates positively with a quality undergraduate education.</p>
<p>ohhh, sorry</p>
<p>That is what I am trying to find: the source for their statement that they are number one in polisci. Anyone have a clue?</p>
<p>There is no source because there are no statistics. It’s close to impossible to rate an undergraduate department. Schools can be rated, but ranking specific departments in terms of undergrad work is something I’ve never heard of and is really meaningless.</p>
<p>Actually, marcdvl, USNWR does rank specific undergraduate programs. I believe they use the same statistical method that they use with regard to national rankings.</p>
<p>Okay I’m wrong then. I still don’t see how a programs ranking affects anything. It’s a small department of a school. You take a fraction of your classes in your major…most are taken in the school. Likewise, there isn’t going to be major differences in terms of what you get out of one highly ranked school versus another. </p>
<p>USNWR factors things like endowment into school rankings. Does this affect the school’s quality? Maybe, maybe not…the important thing rankings give is it differentiates say the top 50 schools from the next 250. At all the top schools you’re going to find top notch programs that don’t differ dramatically. </p>
<p>I, as well as every other Wash U student, has taken classes in over four-five different departments. </p>
<p>Short of asking every single student and professor their thoughts on the department, the information USNWR can get is meaningless. I’m guessing they use information about publications, nobel laureates, number of faculty, teacher to student ratios, etc. This doesn’t affect your undergraduate learning eperience, and doesn’t define the quality of education a program will offer.</p>