<p>While I haven't received acceptance from either school yet, I was wondering which institution people would attend, if given the choice between these two. I live in California, so I would pay in-state tuition at UCSD. Estimations using financial aid calculators actually put Vanderbilt's cost of attendance below that of UCSD for me, so please ignore the issue of money in deciding which school would be better to attend for biomedical engineering. Also, please ignore cultural differences between the two schools in this discussion. I'm only concerned about the educational opportunities that I would have at these schools. </p>
<p>I know that UCSD's program is ranked fourth in the undergraduate USNEWS rankings, compared to Vanderbilt's, which is ranked fifteenth. Is the difference of 11 places enough to make UCSD the obvious choice?</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Vanderbilt is ranked higher overall as an institution (17th, vs. UCSD which is in the 30s). In addition, the fact that it is a private school means smaller class sizes and more opportunities to interact with professors, right? Is better access to professors and resources more important than the lower ranking of the program? </p>
<p>If my goal is to attend graduate school in the field, would I be better off attending one of these schools over the other? Or would my prospects be approximately equal at both? I hope to get some good opinions from people with experience in the field. Thanks for any help.</p>
<p>No, a difference of 11 places is not enough to make UCSD the obvious choice. Go to the school which you would feel more comfortable at and make more sense financially. Your prospects would be excellent at both. Consider though which school would make more sense for you should you choose not to pursue biomedical engineering.</p>
<p>11 places is pretty significant in a field like BME, which does not have many programs to begin with. US News only ranks 50 schools, so while UCSD is in the top 10%, Vandy is outside the top 25%</p>
<p>^I disagree, US News only ranks 20-30 schools in each engineering specialty so it’s not that big of a deal. Look at the schools ranked around Vanderbilt for biomedical engineering (UC-Berkeley, Wisconsin for example, even Pittsburgh has a very good biomedical engineering program). Don’t let people on CC fool you about the rankings, you should go wherever you want and if you perform well at either schools, you’ll get a good job.</p>
<p>Well, first of all your 20-30 school figure is wrong since Electrical, Civil and Mechanical have over 70 ranked at the graduate level alone (for some reason I do not see undergraduate rankings but I presume there are fewer graduate than undergraduate programs). However, BME is smaller and so I really believe US News has ranked pretty much every BME program. I truly believe that the program at UCSD will be more enlightening than the one at Vandy – especially when you take into account research opportunities. If this were an argument between the #20 school and the #31 school, I believe you would have a point.</p>
<p>Not that it’s entirely related to this discussion, but UCSD recently had a stream going where they dissected the brain of this curious guy who had essentially no long-term memory but had a fine procedural memory. <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/health/22brain.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/health/22brain.html</a></p>
<p>it’s your move pierre0913…</p>
<p>notice how the title of the thread says undergrad, not graduate
US News only ranks about 20 schools for its undergrad specialty rankings:</p>
<p>Undergraduate Engineering Specialties: Biomedical/Biomedical Engineering
1 Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD
2 Duke University Durham, NC
3 Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA
4 University of California–San Diego La Jolla, CA
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA
6 University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA
7 University of Washington Seattle, WA
8 Boston University Boston, MA
9 Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH
9 Rice University Houston, TX
9 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI
12 Northwestern University Evanston, IL
13 Stanford University Stanford, CA
14 University of California–Berkeley Berkeley, CA
15 Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN
16 University of Wisconsin–Madison Madison, WI
17 Washington University in St. Louis St. Louis, MO
18 University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA
19 University of Texas–Austin Austin, TX
20 Cornell University Ithaca, NY
21 University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL
21 University of Minnesota–Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN
21 University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA
24 University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT</p>
<p>I made the assumption that there were more undergraduate than graduate programs, which is probably correct in areas other than BME, and hardly diminishes my point that attending UCSD will be more beneficial to the OP. Come to think of it, my alma mater only has a graduate BME program.</p>
<p>Pierre, I know your thing here is to say “go to the right fit”, but it’s just not a philosophy I subscribe to in general. Since the OP is interested in graduate school, undergraduate research will be important to him. UCSD probably has more distinguished faculty, and its name is nearly synonymous with the biological sciences, and so I think he will get better research opportunities.</p>
<p>Better access to better researchers means he can build his CV much faster; I would say that very few undergraduates have much say in where their research ends up. As an example, my first research paper was in collaboration with a few others at my alma mater, and it ended up getting published in a second tier journal. Once I moved to Tech, I joined a good lab and performed about the same as I did for my previous lab, but suddenly I was co-author on Science and other tier 1 journals. It’s a bit unfair, but that’s how things are in academia, and so it makes a lot of sense for the OP to choose UCSD over Vandy. For a BS, probably not so much, but in preparation for graduate studies, definitely.</p>
<p>^alright, let’s just agree to disagree? my thing actually is “go to the right fit if both schools are good at your major”, it’s just my opinion that both Vanderbilt and UCSD are good schools for biomedical engineering.</p>
<p>I decided to go to Clemson because I was pretty sure (and am still sure) that I was going to pursue a major in civil engineering and Clemson was a top 25 school in that field. Despite the fact that I got into Virginia Tech and Purdue which are both ranked higher for civil engineering, I thought Clemson was the best fit for me and it has proved true to that and I am enjoying my college experience. I am pretty confident that a Clemson degree in civil engineering will put me up for success if I work hard at earning my degree and put me in a position along with other VT and Purdue CE graduates. Maybe I’ll change my mind in 4-5 years when I graduate and compare my status with my friends at Virginia Tech and Illinois but for now that’s just my philosophy and I’m just going to do my best academically and make the most of my college experience.</p>
<p>Thanks very much for the help. I have quite a while to decide which one to attend if I get acceptance to both. My only concern is that it’s considerably easier to get in to UCSD than it is to Vanderbilt. Does this mean that the students around me wont be as qualified at UCSD? Or is the difference not that important for my opportunities in the future?</p>
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<p>“Does this mean that the students around me wont be as qualified at UCSD?”</p>
<p>Vanderbilt and UCSD are both just as selective, both of them have “ivy-league talent” students.</p>