<p>Hey everyone! I recently found out I received the Cornelius Vanderbilt Scholarship and also have 3000/yr in other scholarship money. That being said, Vandy will cost ~10,000/yr to attend for me. I am currently signed up for Biomedical Engineering. I also received a likely letter to Columbia Fu School of Engineering for the same major, but Columbia ends up costing ~30,000/yr. Looking for any opinions/advice, especially from people who have been through the engineering department at Vandy or had to make a choice similar to mine.</p>
<p>My sister did civil engineering at Vandy and loved it! That probably doesn’t help but just felt like sharing…</p>
<p>My S had a similar choice between a larger cost for UPenn or smaller payment at Vandy for mech engineering. I know he has never regretted his choice of Vandy. You have great choices, congratulations and best of luck.</p>
<p>remembering the guy 7 years ago who turned down Yale to do CV scholarship to Vandy in engineering. He ended up with a masters in engineering in less than five years at Vandy. Have you considered the $ of a masters degree for starters? He enjoyed Nashville. Of course it was hard to turn down Yale. But imagine the debt load he saved especially in this economy. Last we heard from evilrobot, he was working for google and he was a native Californian coming to Vanderbilt in a year where applications were hovering at about 10,000 a year compared to today’s over 26 plus thousand per year. One way to look at that is to note how much the odds of getting that CV scholarship have reduced. Congrats on your amazing offer. Compare all your offers in two weeks, and attend accepted Vandy student day before deciding what is best for you. Use your money to go to another institution for engineering grad degree? that is what this economy dictates imho</p>
<p>Our son completed a mechanical engineering degree in 2010 and had 3 job offers. He’s happily working in Houston. He liked the “small school” environment present in the engineering school. Everyone knew him and his classmates and he felt very comfortable interacting with his professors. The biomedical engineering program is one of the best in the world - we heard that 6% of the world’s biomedical engineers went to Vanderbilt. You have to go visit and see what it feels like for yourself. Nashville is an amazing place to spend your college years.</p>
<p>swimmer726, so happy to hear about your son’s gainful employment in big bold Houston TX. He must have knocked it out! O dad glad your son loves Nashville and Vandy. No one here is knocking UPenn, Yale or Columbia but take a good look at the stats of your peers at Vanderbilt. Every class is full of top students no matter what you are majoring in…so you are definitely getting a big growthy experience at Vandy academically no matter where you went to high school.</p>
<p>We hear the key is to keep your overall GPA over 3.0. Engineering is hard and there are no AP or honors bumps in college! Our son was probably in the middle of his class with a 3.3. He didn’t knock it out of the park academically. He did well and thoroughly enjoyed his time at Vanderbilt. He did participate in Greek life and served as an officer in his group. Even though they were constantly on probation, it was worth his time. He made good friends and was very well-prepared for his engineering job. no regrets…</p>