<p>Speaking in terms of an elite engineering program, I can’t say, so take the following only lightly.</p>
<p>I will be going to graduate school</p>
<p>If you go to graduate school for BME, again I would recommend ME as the foundational bachelors. BME is essentially a specialized mechanical engineering discipline geared towards the human body, and when you specialize in something, you must start with the basics/foundation. I don’t know what corporations think about BS in BME from top 5’s, and it may very well be that they respect them enough that they would allow a BS from one to take on the responsibilities of a biomedical engineer. However, in my personal opinion, I highly doubt it. Corporations are very wary in hiring someone with only a BS in BME (but like you said, this could possibly just be for “most” people). Like I said before, the gentleman I met even went to medical school after graduate school to learn more because the knowledge required is extraordinarily voluminous, so apparently even his graduate degree was not enough. Regardless, if you have no interest in ME, then my opinion for you is to just do it - go forward with BME. Would it be worth it? I don’t think it would be worth it if you just stop with 4 years of undergrad experience, but it would be worth it if 1) you got into med school or 2) proceeded onto graduate school. If I got into a top 5 BME program, would I take it? Yes I would. And you’re right, I was accepted to VT for engineering (had to stay in-state); I was originally going to go to UVa for their BME until I dove further into research & realized the difficulties with BS in BME, so I went to VT since their engineering is better (GO HOKIES!!). </p>
<p>Haha, and thanks for that. Numerically, my hypothetical increase was only 5k off :)</p>