D25 got admitted to the below , and her goal is to get to 1) industry (as first preference), 2)chance for medical school (second preference) . And lastly 3) research/academia(third preference). We are in silicon valley, here in CA . so 3 out of 4 here are OOS for us.
With these in mind can you please suggest your thoughts for these colleges she got into?
We (parents pay 100% for all of these). We missed doing FAFSA ! ROI is important factor.
Carnegie Mellon - 89K - School of Computer Science [She asked for Computational Biology, although she can do any CS major there, but is not a fan for pure CS!]
2)Georgia Tech (55k) - Bio Medical Engineering
3)UC Berkeley(in-state) - ~45k - College of Engineering- BioEngineering
I’m afraid this isn’t going to be all that helpful :), but all four of these schools have excellent reputations in computational biology/biomedical engineering, and all will open doors into industry - all also have open opportunities for pre-med students, and if she decides a bit later to go in that direction, I think the pivot will be equally challenging at any of them. I don’t think there is a substantive ROI benefit to CMU or JHU - e.g. I don’t think your daughter is going to make back the ~$200K solely because she chose one of those two institutions. The variance there is going to be high - what will matter more is 1) how she does and 2) the macroeconomic climate.
Probably Georgia Tech would be my last choice of the four, if my evaluation criteria was industry + ROI opportunity, but that’s only because the reputation (and especially the network) is somewhat more regional than the other three. But not by much, especially for larger industry organizations, and if your daughter was very driven to choose it, that would be totally fine.
CMU and JHU are certainly smaller and more intimate institutions, which always gives the possibility of more open doors, but Georgia Tech and (especially) Berkeley are so plugged into industry hiring that I think that’s fine. JHU has a well-deserved reputation for an extraordinarily competitive pre-med culture and program: I would worry more about that transition there than anywhere else.
Good news is she can’t go wrong on these criteria for those four schools. Big win!
The math is even more stark than that. The opportunity cost is $200K invested over the length of a whole career.
I would choose UCB in a heartbeat. If you have the funds saved for the others, you’ll be a long way towards medical school should that be the ultimate route.
She should consider what part of the field she wants to work in, since these majors are decently different. An interest in medical devices would suggest a major in Bioengineering/Biomedical Engineering. An interest in genetic engineering/synthetic biology would suggest something a bit more chemistry oriented. Finally, if she wants to do mostly data science, statistics, and coding, she should choose Computational Biology.
I can’t speak for biomedical engineering at GT but graduating in 3 years is very doable if you carry AP/DE credits.
S20 did ISyE in 3 years. He had an internship and co-op so he was on-campus for 4 years. His HS friend did CS in 3 and master’s in 4th. Great for ROI. If med school is on the table I’m not sure if that’s a good thing to use AP credits.
Not that rankings should be the deciding factor but GT was #2 behind JHU. I will say that the dorms and food are mediocre at best. Most kids move off-campus after freshman year. It can expensive but that’s pretty much every campus today.
Agree that you can’t go wrong. My son is at CMU doing bio and comp bio minor and will do a 5th yr masters in comp bio. He loves it and they seem very connected to industry. Can’t speak for the others but can say CMU would likely be a great experience. Good luck and congrats on these great options!
Thank you for all your replies. Since D25’s preliminary focus is Bio(medical)Engineering (with a possibility of med school later) and not pure CS, we are doubting the CMU fit at this point as some of you also have mentioned. So filtered it to these 3 preferences and hopefully will make some good decision too : UCBerk, GaTech & JHU , in that order of preference . [JHU would have gone on top but for the major and price factors now]. Thanks all.