<p>monydad - it’s a good post. I shared it on another thread, hope you don’t mind.</p>
<p>My usual commision rates apply.</p>
<p>I say Vanderbilt! It’s cheaper and the weather in the northeast sucks…but the others are really great schools, I don’t think you can really go wrong anywhere</p>
<p>In US News Graduate Biomedical Engineering rankings:</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins is ranked #1
Norhtwestern is ranked #17
Vanderbilt is ranked #19
Cornell is not in top 25</p>
<p>The most bang for your buck would be Northwestern. They have excellent engineering facilities and one of the best biomedical engineering programs. Can you ask to appeal your Johns Hopkins financial aid? You could tell them what other schools you have been accepted to and how much money they have given you, and tell Hopkins that it is your first choice but it is currently not financially viable for you. They may be able to take a second look at your financial aid package and give you more money.</p>
<p>azngod, I sent you a PM that discusses some of the actual experiences (positive) of a student at Vanderbilt engineering, rather than hypothetical suggestions of what might or might not be the case at a southern university.</p>
<p>Vandy or Northwestern! I wish I had your choice…</p>
<p>BTW, these are links to what I was talking about:</p>
<p>post #43 here
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/northwestern-university/685652-help-cornell-vs-northwestern-3.html?[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/northwestern-university/685652-help-cornell-vs-northwestern-3.html?</a></p>
<p>post #85, =reflection on data posted earlier in the thread, here; #134 my attempt at explanation:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/662310-ranking-undergrad-highest-acceptance-rates-law-school-7.html?[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/662310-ranking-undergrad-highest-acceptance-rates-law-school-7.html?</a></p>
<p>2010 US News UNDERGRADUATE Biomedical Engineering rankings:</p>
<ol>
<li> Hopkins</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Vanderbilt</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
</ol>
<p>FWIW, geographical origin of freshman:</p>
<p>Vanderbilt
55% South, 23% Northeast, 14% midwest, 4% West, 2% international (half from Malaysia )</p>
<p>Northwestern:
41% midwest, 23% Northeast, 9% south, 2% west, 7% international</p>
<p>Cornell:
60% Northeast, 11% west, 11% international, 8% midwest, 7% south.</p>
<p>remainders in each case: Southwest/ Mountain states.</p>
<p>I thought that was interesting.</p>
<p>^^^Those numbers are interesting. I was unaware that Cornell was that regional. Geographically, the ‘northeast’ covers a lot less territory than the ‘south’. That is a pretty concentrated map.</p>
<p>FWIW, Vanderbilt reports a 35% increase in international undergraduate applications this year. The low percentage of international students is viewed by some as a weakness; assuming admit/enroll percentages follow the application trend, the situation may be changing.</p>
<p>OP – what is your REAL objective … med school, and biomed ingineering is, in your mind, a great way to get into a top med school, </p>
<p>-or-
Biomedical engineering and then working in the biomed engineering field?</p>
<p>You really have possibly schizophrenic goals. I would suggest you think this through and tell us which of the two options I outlined you would choose if you could not have both.</p>
<p>IMO, basically, the Northeast is densely populated and spills over to the rest of the country. Consequently it is overrepresented in every region. Popular midwest and southern schools will get Northeast spillover, but that won’t generally be the case in reverse, to nearly the same extent. This would tend to make NE schools more regional, all other things being equal.</p>
<p>That’s just my hypothesis, I haven’t tested it.</p>
<p>Cornell’s regional proportion may be yet higher than some other peer NE universities (don’t actually know, didn’t compare) because some of its colleges offer reduced tuition to New York residents, hence New Yorkers are more highly represented there than might otherwise be the case. This might be counteracted in some cases by it drawing better than some schools from regions further afield. For just these three schools, I found the differences in representation from the regions furthest away from all of them- West & International- to be interesting.</p>
<p>But the facts are what they are. There is a regional flavor to all three of them,to various extents, and this is where your classmates will be from. And potentially where a lot of them will go back to. Whether that’s good, bad or indifferent is up to you.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt’s midwest proportion is not that surprising if you think about it, the school is only about four hours from Ohio.</p>
<p>I am wondering about the definition of south in your reference, monydad (if you could link it, that would be good). It seems that Texas must be included in the south, because the number from ‘west’ seems far too low for Vanderbilt if Texas is included as ‘west’. I think Texas sends the second-highest number of undergrads to Vanderbilt. If the South stretches from Florida to Texas, that is a lot of territory, and a fair amount of geographical diversity.</p>
<p>Basically, though, my feeling is that the regional argument is far weaker now than it was 15, or even 10 years ago. Young people, especially young people who attend the kinds of universities being discussed here, are quite mobile. They had better be, given the employment situation.</p>
<p>I spent 15 years of my adult life in MA. At that time, the northeastern natives didn’t want to go or work anywhere else. I have not found that to be so true among people who hail from the west, or south, or midwest. In other words, it is my feeling that graduates of Northwestern and Vanderbilt are quite likely to spread out shortly after graduation. </p>
<p>OP: My advice is always to visit everywhere. Talk to professors, ask specific questions about research opportunities, both during the school year and over the summer if that is a factor for you. </p>
<p>DunninLA: I’m not sure I follow why the two trajectories you have outlined are so ‘schizophrenic’. Biomed. engr. is a tough road to med. school, but plenty of Vanderbilt students are doing it, successfully. As a ‘terminal’ field of study, biomed engr. at Vanderbilt is highly ranked. In either case, this particular student’s list of college acceptances would seem to put him (or her?) among the stronger students, which is always, in my opinion, a significant factor.</p>
<p>midmo, I got the #s from the school websites. I had to group Vanderbilt’s to match the others, for this I used regional descriptions I found on-line. There could be some inconsistencies, since there is no way to guarantee how the other schools grouped. Yes Texas is South, that’s the convention I found used. the only conceivable other place it could be is SW, not West. But that’s not where my references suggested that it belonged. I don’t remember Texas numbers but Vanderbilt has over 1,000 students from Tennessee. And what’s going on there with Malaysia?</p>
<p>
I wonder what the geograhpical distribution of JHU students is.</p>
<p>knock yourself out.
BTW I meant over 100 freshmen from Tennessee, sorry.</p>
<p>whoops, over 1,000 freshmen from Tennessee. </p>
<p>Boy that was hard.</p>
<p>monydad, re your question about the Malaysian students:</p>
<p>I’m not an authority, but the story I have heard from engineering students is that the Malaysian government directly sponsors a group of engineering students (largely if not entirely female) to do an accelerated engineering undergraduate program. I believe these students are expected to finish in three years. They are busy–and apparently not just with classwork. They seem to be active in some of the student groups.</p>
<p>100 freshman from TN: I have come across some complaints that it is getting harder to get into VU if you are from TN, due to the interest in diversifying the student body. That is exactly what I hear from MO students trying to get into WUSTL (Wash U St.Louis).</p>
<p>Not you too. It’s 1,000, not 100. maybe this is catchy.</p>
<p>Better be on your toes in those classes, sounds like pretty motivated students.</p>
<p>^^^100 seems to too low, but 1000 is too high. There were 1600 freshman this year, and 44% are from the entire south, so there is no way 1000 are from Tennessee.</p>
<p>Maybe 1000 undergraduates total out of 12,000.</p>
<p>Regional Breakdown 2009-2010 entering freshman class</p>
<pre><code>* New England 4.4%
- Midwest 14.4%
- South 44%
- Middle States 13.6%
- West 6.8%
- Southwest 7.9%
- U.S. Territories >.007%
- International 8.4%
- Unspecified >.4%
</code></pre>
<p>BTW, this data is from the Vanderbilt web site, and it says 8.4% are international, not 2%.</p>
<p>[ReVU:</a> Quick Facts About Vanderbilt | Vanderbilt University | Nashville, Tennessee](<a href=“http://www.vanderbilt.edu/info/facts/]ReVU:”>http://www.vanderbilt.edu/info/facts/)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m sure there are a lot of motivated students, including my son. But not me. I’m all done with school.</p>