To supplement to what @PPofEngrDr and myself wrote about Bio Medical / Bio Engineering as an undergrad major option. The field is so vast and interdisciplinary that perhaps no other field of engineering is comparable, except perhaps Electrical and Computer Eng/Science. It draws from Life sciences, physical sciences and multiple areas of engineering such as Electrical, Mech, Bio Informatics, Materials and Robotics.
Just to give a couple of pointers to the luminaries in the area, Susan Hockfield, the previous president (and current Prof and member Koch institute of Integrated cancer research) is a life scientist. Eric Lander, the founding and current director of Broad Institute (joint venture between MIT and Harvard Med School) is a Mathematician by background and education (up till his Ph.D). The field draw such diverse backgrounds of people into it.
It is just not a typical engineering involving instrumentation, Prosthetics, Robotics, Mechanics and so forth but much wider and inter disciplinary in nature.
In view of the above, I would like to draw your attention to the following in deciding whether BME would be a right fit for your D at the said university.
Recommend you to go through the faculty profile of the department there and see where your D sees most overlap with the areas of research they are conducting and her interests in Biology. Ask her to consider if pursuing a particular sub specialization as a career, if need be, would be fine with her (for example Tissue engineering or Bio Materials)
Check out NIH and other funding at the university or department. The more the funding, the higher the chances of getting involved in some real world applications and getting a paper(s) or patent out which will be very appealing for med school application and interviewing process.
I see VCU has significant funding and next only to UVA as per this site. But we donāt know if the funding is more towards i) BME or ii) Biology and life sciences or iii) Med school or iv) kind of more or less evenly split. You may have to do more digging by exploring the site. It is very user friendly, you can click at each of the 230 or so projects undertaken and see who is doing the work at Principal Investigator level (PI)
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA CHARLOTTESVILLE VA UNITED STATES 377 $140,982,190
VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY RICHMOND VA UNITED STATES 230 $82,997,708
VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INST AND ST UNIV BLACKSBURG VA UNITED STATES 93 $29,643,412
Don't be surprised if the admission committee folks are steering prospective students from other fields into BME there. As mentioned earlier by me, stellar departments need stellar students to come and learn from them. So nothing suspicious with that.
Check out how popular the university is at your D's highly prestigious high school. Too many students interested is a flag that they will be carrying the same baggage of ultra competitiveness there which can have some impact on maintaining high gpa. Too few students means you may have to investigate more on why that is the case by talking to the school guidance counselors, past students, parents and even college counselors there. Ideal number of students from your D's school enrolling there would be somewhere between these two ends.
@PPofEngrDr thanks for your info on UIC GPPA. If the UIC total enrollment is 1390 students, how many students are allocated to each of the campuses? I know that the students are assigned to the respective medical school campuses but what are they looking at to evaluate each student to determine which campus and when do they make their decision? ie. is this after first semester of their 3rd UG year after they have submitted their MCAT scores and have completed 2.5 years of UG at UIC?
@positivelybsmd UIC total enrollment, 1390 (I assume it is a valid number for medical college enrolled), is comprise of GPPA (very small portion 43-55 as per GPPA FAQ) and a traditional applicants from anywhere (has additional choice of Urbana, city also has Carle COM now). As per GPPA FAQ, college campus selection is not defined with details rather it states āThe College of Medicine will decide site placement at the time of application to the College of Medicine (i.e. one year prior to entry) based on the content of the application and the performance in the program, similar to the process used for traditional applicants.ā. In that sense GPPA is just like traditional applicant among those 3 campuses among total GPPA pool. 3rd year campus started from 2017, hopefully next year we will have more details based on 1st batch experience. Based on end of 3rd year UG decision time, it is safe to assume like you suggested that application process starts few months in advance.As MCAT is also required for all GPPA candidates,
there is detailed conditions of acceptance available at https://uofi.app.box.com/v/Medicine-GPPA-2019 for this year accepted students, prior years can be found at https://gppa.uic.edu/current-students/conditions-of-acceptance/.
Thank you so much for being very open and sharing your experience! I have several questions about one of the programs. Would it be possible if you could send me a PM so we can discuss this further? I canāt initiate the conversation since I am a new member (only junior members can)
Hi im new to this thread but really overwhelmed at the moment.
I was accepted to Brooklyn/Downstate, Union/AMC, and the program at UMKC so far. Brooklyn is obviously the cheapest since I live in NYC but the undergrad is not the best. Union/AMC is second cheapest but its also in Albany, which is not the best location. UMKC is the most expensive but its six years!
If anyone has any helpful perspectives to share please do because Iām very unsure how to decide which program to choose. Iām also waiting on a couple more results to come out!
@honeyduke31 Best to wait until you have all your options on table. Second you need to provide more details for any one to comment. For example, do money in the equation or not. What are important to you etc.,
Among these 3, Union/AMC appears a better choice if money is not an issue. Otherwise Brooklyn/Downstate with the assumption you are NY resident and may get instate MD fees.
@careerhelp I am new to this site as well. It is my understanding that we need to have 15 posts before we can be allowed to have access to PM (private messaging). Good luck with everything!
Within next 2 (max 3) weeks, all results/ acceptances will be out.
By then you will know your lay of the land.
If possible, visit the admitted student days at your top 3 choices and get a feel for the place.
Remember you will spending atleast 6-9 years there.
No one else can give you a read of the place other than you - this will be one major piece of your decision making process.
Also, join the admitted students FB page of that university; join Snapchat and other school specific social media - ask your questions to the seniors there and get more information.
You can then factor other āobjectiveā criteria like costs, number of years, relative quality of medical school and undergraduate school, location - near / far; urban/ suburb/rural and others.
