After the craziness of the college admissions I have gotten into some great colleges. My intended major is mechanical and biomedical engineering. I want to do engineering research regarding robotic and bionic prosthetics. Price is not a concern. I am fine with the city or a rural area. I am just looking for other people’s opinion to help in my decision.
Overall, Cornell and Michigan are the most well rounded academic institutions. GT and TAMU are excellent in Engineering, but they are not as well rounded.
In terms of the colleges of Engineering:
Georgia Tech #4
Michigan #6
Cornell #10
TAMU #14
Mechanical Engineering:
Georgia Tech #3
Michigan #4
Cornell #9
TAMU #12
Biomedical Engineering:
Georgia Tech #1
Michigan #9
Cornell #20
TAMU was not ranked among the top 25
In other words, they are all equal in terms of engineering education, but overall, I would give the slight edge to Cornell and Michigan.
Bump
In terms of getting into or changing your major within engineering, assuming that you have been admitted into the engineering division at each school:
Michigan: 2.0 GPA, C grades allows declaring major: https://advising.engin.umich.edu/declaring-or-changing-major/
GT: one free change of major, otherwise may be competitive: http://admission.gatech.edu/change-major
Cornell: varies by major, 2.0-2.5 GPA needed: https://www.engineering.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/departments/main%20area/pdf%20files/Fall-2017%20Cornell%20Engineering%20Handbook.pdf (page 28)
Texas A&M: 3.5 GPA free choice of major, otherwise competitive: https://engineering.tamu.edu/academics/advisors-procedures/entry-to-a-major.html
For the above consideration, Texas A&M is the least desirable school.
Agree with @ucbalumnus. I wouldn’t pay for TAMU engineering right now and that 3.5 to get your major…ouch!
I’ll say this. If you have to take on a lot of debt to go to an out of state school, I would be VERY concerned about price, because that could and would cripple your career options.
That being said, rankings are pretty much meaningless. They’re based on the subjective opinions of analysts. Analysts with opinions tried to predict the presidential campaign too. That didn’t go well. All of these schools are great. I would go for the one that offers you the most money.
Bump
I think it does not make sense to attend UMich or Cornell as they are more expensive by 10-20k per year compared to GTech for Eng. Use that money to fund Grad school education. MBAs at good schools are running around $100k per year!
Since you exclude cost and location (well, they are important factors for most pl), I would choose GT by ranking on major and Cornell by Ivy prestige.