<p>Please enlighten me everyone and be gentle. I went to college to get my nursing degree and graduated 12 years ago, but I never went to a regular university or anything like that. And I'm also minimally knowledgeable about engineering school.</p>
<p>Ok, say when my dgter is ready to apply for college (she's a HS sophomore right now), and she continues to say "hey, I really want to be a biomedical engineer...." and she continues to excel in school and is ready to apply to the colleges that are strong in engineering....well....how does that work?</p>
<p>For instance, do most colleges that are strong in engineering have a separate school of engineering (like I know Duke has the Pratt school of engineering) that you apply to get into), or do most schools strong in engineering just have you join the regular college freshman class and you just take the engineering courses, or what? I know there are some colleges that are engineering schools....period...like Olin. But many are not solely engineering and have other Majors too.</p>
<p>As far as I know, she will have to apply specifically to the engineering schools within the universities. Applications ask for your intended major and you check engineering. The engineering school will then review the application.</p>
<p>Usually you can just go to the websites of any college and gather information on how it works at that college. Typcial:</p>
<p>Universities like Duke, state universities, Cornell, Penn, 100's of others have several colleges within the university -- Engineering, Liberal Arts & Sciences, Business, others. Everybody applies the same way, using the same forms, to the office of admissions (which can go by different names like Registrar, Admissions Department, others). The application will usually ask intended major or particular college you are applying. Your application will then be reviewed by admissions personnel and that may be centrally related personnel or those from the particular college in which your intended major is. In other words, you really don't do anything different from any other applicant except specify your intended major or college. As a freshman, you may be assigned to the engineering college but you are still with all the other freshman in relation to housing, general ed courses, social activities, etc. You will take math and science courses the first year that will also be taken by many not in the college of engineering.</p>
<p>The same applies to "tech" schools, e.g., Rose-Hulman, Olin, except that the application's choice of majors are going to be limited mainly to science and engineering because those schools are devoted to those matters and do not have business, LAS, and other programs.</p>
<p>In most cases you just apply for the school like everyone else. The application will typically ask what the intended major is and this may or may not have an effect on admission.</p>
<p>I know when I applied, to some schools I applied to the general schools, to some I applied to the engineering schools. It depended on the school. I know for Texas and UVa I had to apply to the engineering school (and I think Vanderbilt too...) I dont think I had to apply to a school at Rice or MIT. you just applied with the freshmen class. You may have had to say what you thought you wanted to major in. </p>
<p>This is all sketchy memories from applications fillied out last year, if you PM me to remind me I can look it up.</p>
<p>I have never seen a separate app for Engineering schools for freshmen (doesn't mean there isn't one out there somewhere :) ) even if there is a separate School of Engineering, which there usually is. Most schools have you check your intended major, which will mean Engineering-unspecified or Engineering-BME.</p>
<p>For transfer apps, I am finding it is more common (but still fairly rare) for the Engineering school to have its own application form and process.</p>
<p>My understanding is that there is variety in how separate/integrated the Engineering school is with the rest of the college. At some schools, you feel integrated in and it's just that you take mostly hard science and then Engineering classes. At others, I'm told there is not much inter-mixing. The ones DS looked at were all of the former type.</p>
<p>When my daughter applied to Carneige Mellon, you applied to the school of engineering (Carnegie Inst. of Technology), and the admissions folks told us at an info session that if you wanted to be in electrical/computer engineering, you had to designate that on your application. </p>
<p>I think they're the exception rather than the rule, however.</p>