<p>So I'm planning on going into biomedical engineering with:</p>
<p>20k/year at Tulane
Waitlist spot at Wash U</p>
<p>From what I've know and have researched, Tulane and Wash U are of about equal prestige in BME alone. I just don't know if I should continue to pursue the waitlist at Wash U as it would be much more expensive (and it's hard turning down New Orleans for four years :D).
Any reasons why I should choose Wash U over Tulane if I got off the waitlist?</p>
<p>I'm also looking to be a theatre minor if anyone has any perspectives on that area of study.</p>
<p>No need to worry…you’re probably not getting off the waitlist at Wash U (along with the 10’s of thousands of others who were waitlisted as they are every year)…</p>
<p>Enjoy NOLA and your “saved” money…you will LOVE Tulane…</p>
<p>Of course I’m not positive I’ll get in, but my school has an especially gold relationship with Wash U and by telling Wash U that it’s my first choice, I could position myself to replace other classmates who decide to decline the offer of admission. Hence me asking if I should really place Wash U as my first choice or not</p>
<p>According to recent USNWR rankings for undergrad biomedical programs, Tulane and Wash U are BOTH in the top 25. So it’s hard to know whether or not it would be worth the extra money to attend Wash U solely for its better reputation nationally</p>
<p>I would focus on the expense side of it. Even if WUSTL is a little better (don’t know if it is or not for BME, both are quite good, as you say) it probably is not $70-80K better. Might be a little less than $80K difference because I think Tulane has a very slightly higher COA, but only a smidge. That’s a lot of money to be saving. Make a deal with your parents to put it in an an investment account for you.</p>
<p>We could argue all night long regarding whether or not the rankings are valid. But either way, Tulane absolutely obliterated their engineering school. And while they do have one of the oldest bme programs in the nation, it certainly isn’t anywhere close to the best.
In my opinion, the only good thing about their undergrad program is the requirement to do research; but I don’t even like how they implement that.</p>
<p>Edit:
Ah. I see. The 2006-2007 puts them in the top 25 (same link). But that’s 4 years ago, and the data from those rankings is all from pre-Katrina.</p>
<p>Again, Tulane has completely destroyed their engineering. If you want to do BME, don’t go to Tulane.</p>
<p>Johnson -you obviously don’t like Tulane, but please don’t spread misinformation. The fact alone that they have BME says they didn’t “completely destroy” or “absolutely obliterate” their engineering department, but they also retained chemical engineering. I believe they also have some kind of environmental engineering, but not as familiar with that. Even leaving that last one out, they have two programs, got rid of civil, electrical and mechanical. There is no reason a school cannot be strong in ChemE and BME without civil engineering, for example. I know several current BME majors as well as some recent grads. They are doing just great. The current ones love the program and their research (no idea what you mean about not liking how Tulane implements this), and the grads got excellent jobs.</p>
<p>It is fine to promote the positives about WUSTL engineering. It is classless to tear down another school in the process of the comparison, and worse to spread misinformation. I don’t know how the rankings are calculated, but I can imagine Tulane gets hurt by the same ignorance as you displayed above.</p>
<p>I have nothing against Tulane. For the most part, I really like it. I just really dislike how they cut back the engineering school post-Katrina.
It means engineering in New Orleans is virtually gone for any “top” student. I didn’t even really have the choice to stay at home, which is ridiculous. </p>
<p>But I know Tulane BME very well. I’ve worked in a lab there. I did high school program with the department. I know a ton of the professors. And I know at least a dozen students in Tulane BME.</p>
<p>Regarding this:
, sure, but it’s a huge setback for many students not to have advanced MechE or EE courses.</p>
<p>And I could name several students in Tulane BME who are very upset that they do not have access to said advanced coursework.</p>
<p>
Just a personal preference. I know a lot of people who do like it.</p>
<p>
I have not torn down Tulane in any way shape or form - I’ve torn down how terribly they destroyed a major department, and got away with it without a lot of heat.
Regarding rankings, I actually think USNews is quite ridiculous.
And I haven’t “displayed any ignorance.”</p>
<p>I never said the grads can’t get excellent jobs. I’m sure they can. You can from almost any school, especially a school like Tulane where the career center is very helpful. I also know a bunch of recently graduated students who are now in PhD bme programs (at both Tulane and elsewhere).</p>
<p>Well, using terms like “absolutely obliterate” and “completely destroy”, since they are factually incorrect, seems like ignorance to me. Otherwise we have to call it deliberate misinformation. Both of those terms indicate there is no department or programs left at all, and clearly that is not the case. You certainly may not like the moves they made, that is your right. But you cannot expect to mislead people with terms like that and not get called out on it. I also have to chuckle at the “got away with it” comment. I cannot imagine what you think their motivation was to “get away with” anything. They made hard decisions based on popularity of the majors and costs at a time when things were extremely uncertain.</p>
<p>Given the extremely full schedule of classes a BME has to take over 4 years, I still fail to see how not having civil or mechanical or electrical hurts them. All the material is covered within their BME classes. But obviously, if a student checking out schools feels this is a negative, they are free to go elsewhere. Personally I think it doesn’t harm the program one iota.</p>
<p>Tulane vs Wash U Engineering (my two cents)</p>
<p>Wash U is very much a WYSIWYG situation. Great school, excellent reputation. USNWR show it as top 15, Engineering is somewhat lower, but still respectable.</p>
<p>Tulane is up and coming. It’s ranking is hurt by the mechanical formulae that unduly penalize it for the effects of Katrina. It will surely rise in the rankings in the next rew years.</p>
<p>The issue is what to make of Tulane’s engineering program. It’s much lower ranked than Wash U, but a bit more on rankings below. The biggest drawback that I see is that many incoming students change their minds about the type of engineering they want to study. If this occurs, Wash U will provide greater flexibility.</p>
<p>On rankings – I’m not sure that I really understand what Rankings mean. In engineering, if we’re talking about an ABET program, the majority of the curriculum is pretty much standard. I assume that each school has competent undergraduate teachers. What’s left are research opportunities, and quality of student. I suppose that this may have an impact on ‘reputation’ and ‘employment opportunities’, but you’d have to research this to see whether Wash U grads have an edge in getting jobs, either number of opportunities or in overall employment rate.</p>
<p>Both of these schools provide research opportunities. The standardized test scores are close enough that you’ll have challenging classes, etc.</p>
<p>So, what I think it comes down to is – your perception of the reputation of each school, cost, relative strengths of program, intangibles (such as how you feel on each campus, travel time, etc.) and career opportunities (assuming that you’re not planning on grad school).</p>
<p>Current Wustl BME here. Whilst civil is unnecessary for good BME, EE and Mech E are pretty much critical. BME is not as definite yet as EE/Mech E. It is still very much an interdisciplinary field. BME itself is rather massive, but can be roughly categorized into four general categories:
Biomechanical(ie. engineering mechanical devices/prostheses).
2.Bioelectrical(engineering devices related to electrical systems in the body ie. nerves).
Biomolecular (kinda like material science/biophysics).
Imaging(various imaging techniques used in diagnostics/treatments).
The only way to not have EE/MechE, but still have a good BME program would be if the BME program reproduces many of the essential courses of MechE/EE. Unless they added dramatically to BME, getting rid of Mech E/EE IS EQUIVALENT TO EVISCERATING BME. You can’t design a new leg prosthetic without various mechanics courses. You can’t engineer anything related to a neuron (pacemaker, neural interface, prosthetics) without understanding circuits/electricity really well (as well as control, a topic that comes up in EE/systems).
I can’t judge exactly. If they did add a lot of courses to BME, Tulane’s BME might still be viable/good. If not, it is absolutely deficient.</p>
<p>Plus there are electives at more advanced levels in similar areas. Good Lord, it wouldn’t be accredited without these, and Tulane wouldn’t be able to place anyone anywhere pretty quickly as employer’s learned the program was that lacking, if it was. What a ridiculous conversation.</p>
<p>So basically, they beefed up BME and sacked EE/Mech E. Sounds kinda silly. If BME can use MechE/EE courses, you only need a few extraneous major related courses to have departments in those fields.
IE every engineering department needs fairly similar math requirements. All pretty much need physics. Chem/Bio are there for their respective fields as is. All of a sudden you have more than half the courses necessary for a small deparment. Their curriculum seems a bit more structured than ours. Ours used to allow tracking (which few people did), but got rid of that. Instead, the major is always the same for undergrads in name, but you can take numerous different pathways to get the correct amount of topics units/advanced classes necessary, essentially specializing yourself (ex: you can take more mechanics courses than needed in our Mech E department, and then take a more advanced bme course in limb prosthetics. Or if you are less mechanically inclined, you can do something similar involving EE, among other such options). Although to your credit, I guess Tulane is not BME deficient.
I do have to wonder why they axed the departments. Our Mech E is fairly stable, but our EE is growing rather quickly (I’m not 100% sure why actually). Were they just unpopular, or was it a financial issue?</p>
<p>I can understand how difficult it is for you to imagine the chaos and uncertainty following Katrina. 6 years out things seem so different. At the time the very survival of the university was actually in doubt. I don’t know how popular or unpopular they were, although I have to assume they were not highly populated majors. Absolutely financial issues were involved. Now the university is as strong as any time in decades. Actually stronger in most ways. 5 years ago you would have had a hard time convincing many people that would be the case.</p>
<p>I cannot presume to capture all the complex considerations that had to be taken into account at the time. I know there are plans to add back some majors, like computer science. Don’t know about the engineering ones. Tulane has cooperative agreements with Johns Hopkins and Vanderbilt wherein an Engineering Physics major with a 3.0 after 5 semesters is guaranteed a spot in the CE, ME or EE program at either of those schools. So after junior year they transfer and take 2 years there, and end up with a BS in Physics from Tulane and a BS in XXX Engineering from the other school.</p>
<p>You may think it was silly. OK, clearly you are entitled to your opinion, but it should be an informed one. While I don’t mean this to sound snarky, there were very experienced and intelligent people making this decision at Tulane. Don’t you think it is a bit presumptuous for you to say something like that when, by your own admission, you know almost nothing about the situation then or now? If you are really that curious, talk to Dean Altiero at Tulane. He is very approachable and would be happy to explain it all to you, I am sure. There are also a lot of documents online still. Look up the Tulane Renewal Plan if you are curious enough.</p>
<p>Why? Tulane suffered more than $600,000,000 in damages after the Hurricane. No typo: six-hundred-million dollars. </p>
<p>Tulane had to do what Tulane had to do in order to just survive. Hell, there were elected politicians on the national level advocating not bringing New Orleans as a whole back; Tulane’s fate was in as much jeopardy. </p>
<p>People just don’t really understand what it was like.</p>
<p>Good God, Johnson. You are nitpicking. Would it change anything if the number were $500,000,000 or $400,000,000? As far as Tulane engineering being “great”, I can’t find where anyone made that assessment about either school. You seem to have a penchant for overstating things. Try dropping the hyperbole.</p>
<p>I was going to comment on your statement about Tulane “getting away with it without a lot of heat”, but it was so absurd I decided to ignore it. But since it has come up again, it shows a total lack of perspective on your part. The administration was trying to save an entire university, and you seem to think that their focus should have been on a few engineering programs? Wow. Talk about not getting the big picture.</p>