I did some research about BME prospect. I got conflicting data and response. Some data and response I got show that it is rather easy to get job after BME undegrad, others say grad degree is needed.
It seems GT co-op program is very promising for career perspective.
My daughter does not want to go to medical school, this is certain.
If grad school is required we need to take this into account and may mean that it does not make sense to shed quarter million dollars for undergrad degree in top private school.
Purdue has a strong co-op program as well, and the OOS COA is roughly $44K (8th year of tuition freeze). Your D would have a strong shot at honors college there and they also offer a 5 year BS/MS degree for BME.
The one hurdle is there is a common first year engineering curriculum and then a minimum engineering index (basically a 3.2 in the STEM required courses) to transition to major. BME is one of the most competitive as it’s capped at 100 students.
First off you can spend that type of money at any of the better public engineering schools around the country. Since your into researching look up majors and compare Big Ten to Ivy for engineering. Forgot where the study is but you might be surprised on the outcome per major. Plus it’s the individual not the school. Good friend of mines son graduated 5 year bs/MS at Michigan. Couldn’t find a job that matched his interest for about 6 months or longer. Tip top student. Finally got something which parlayed into 4 years at Texas Instrument. Now he just moved to Israel and got a job within weeks in the exact field he wanted.
If you really want to drive yourself crazy look at Reddit and the students that are applying for internships for engineering. They apply to like 50-100 and maybe get a few interviews. Crazy.
You have received great advice here, but it seems as though you are fighting it. Again, trying to differentiate among the top-tier schools based on reported salary figures is a worthless endeavor.
College is four years of their lives, which is not insignificant. Being happy leads to better performance. Figure out where they would be happiest and most comfortable, and you will drastically limit the possibilities. The experience at, say, Penn will be quite different from Rice or Michigan or Hopkins or Vanderbilt or Williams or Dartmouth or Georgia Tech. They are all amazing schools that will provide the same opportunities.
You will also need a list of at least ten schools at that level, since your children won’t be assured of admittance anywhere. So trying to narrow it down to the single “best” option is sort of silly, at least at this stage. Find ten that will work.
I don’t think that the OP is resisting. I think that they are going through the same process that many of us have gone through.
Here is some more ideas to think about. If your DS is good enough to get into JHU, she likely could get merit at CWRU. CWRUs merit max is 30k per year. The merit plus base cost difference is $132k. That $132k can pay for a MSE anywhere. What is better, a CWRU BSE + MSE or a JHU BSE?
FYI, a CWRU BSE will not limit her options for masters programs.
so I can provide some color on being a finance major at TCNJ. First off know its a top business school as rated by Bloomberg I believe it was #33 in the entire country and a top #20 for accounting specifically. Quants and poets ranked it even higher(and that probably the hardest rank to come by). S graduated with high honors finance major and a strong gpa . He was very proactive and had both great internships in NYC and the resulting job offer from a top 4 consulting firm in his Junior year… BTW he was in the exact same internship programs as several from the so called more prestigious Ivies and Nescac schools. Needless to say it has worked out great as school is very much what the student makes of it. Go where the student can have the biggest impact and get the full attention of the faculty. That’s what is truly important
Just saying: many hs seniors don’t truly know what BME is or does. It’s mighty early to be picking a career path. Same for finance.
Of course we look for a sense of ROI. But that’s not just whether a limited set of schools seems to garner better starting salaries.
In our case, we believed the strength of the overall education mattered more, the growth in thinking/analytical skills, knowledge in broad areas, empowerment, etc, were what would make them stand out.
A lot of colleges outside T10 or T20 can do that. USNews doesnt help find where our kids can ‘fit and thrive.’
I think @RayManta has some valid points. Even extremely high-stats kids don’t accepted to top-5 or top-10 schools.
Since money really isn’t an issue. Start with several web searches for the top undergraduate programs in BME and Finance/Economics. Finance and Economics as separate searches might yield different results.
Look for the usual suspects in each category and pick the top 25 in BME and
top 25 in Finance/Economics. I think most of the lists will have good overlap.
I think each of your twins should apply to at least 10 schools. Figure out which schools are reaches, which are matches and which are safeties. The Top 25 will probably yield reaches and matches given the stats you mentioned. Maybe consider 15 schools to apply for each. You don’t have to visit all 10 or 15 for each of your twins. Pick 5 for each. Once they get their acceptances you might only visit the top 3-5 for the accepted student days/overnights.
I think accurate median starting salaries for one school vs. another in a specific program may be harder to come by.
This might prove helpful, but you may hit paywall to see further results. It’s a mobility study, but it does cover median individual income at age 34, and other interesting stats. Just add any college in question and you’ll see some interesting results.
You will whittle down the list by reading the department/college websites, contacting the departments in questions, looking over the possibility for research and internships (co-ops) and do some research on success in job placement, strength of alumni network, etc. You can ask where their grads have worked after school. Lots of BME start off with med school in mind, so that may skew the employment figures.