Hi everyone, and sorry in advance for the long post! 
As we’re getting close to May 1 decision day, I’ve pretty much narrowed it down to UVa and Georgia Tech. (I was waitlisted at Hopkins, denied at Duke, and I’m still waiting to hear back from Princeton and UPenn, but I think that UVa and GT are my realistic options.)
I was accepted to the engineering school at UVa and as a biomedical engineering major at GT. Finances are not an issue; I’m getting in-state tuition at both places.
I’m very interested in BME, but I do have interests outside of engineering and I’m very open to switching my major if I find something that is a better fit for me. Is this easy to do at UVa? (ex. switching from BME, to, say, a chem major, or even something in the humanities.)
I am seriously considering going to medical school and want to study on a pre-med track. I am very interested in doing research during my undergrad years. I also play piano and want to take lessons as electives or pursue a music minor.
I don’t want to drink/smoke/party, but I still want to have a social life. I’m not extremely interested in the athletics scene or Greek life. I really want to be in a serious academic environment where students have intellectual discussion outside of the classroom. How prevalent is this intellectual culture at UVa? I also want to be able to interact with people outside of my major. This is something that would be harder to do at GT, since so many students are engineers, but how easy is it at UVa to make friends outside of the school that you’re in (A&S, ESchool, etc)?
Taking all of this into consideration (I know it’s a lot!), are there any students that could weigh in on whether or not they think UVa would be a good fit for me? I’ve visited the campus before and did an overnight visit, and I did like it. I’m visiting Georgia Tech this Monday.
Thank you so much!