Indecision at the Crossroads - Biomedical Engineering

Applying to College
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I am a parent returning to the college application journey, navigating this familiar path once again, this time with my daughter, after having done so with my son last year.
Some may recall my previous discussion on the top schools for Aerospace Engineering and my son’s academic journey. Following numerous favorable acceptances, he ultimately chose UVA and is he declared it was the best decision of his life.

Now I see myself in the same situation with my daughter, who wants to pursue a degree in biomedical engineering. So far this is her college list and results as of 30 min ago:

  • UNC - rejected
  • Univ of Michigan - deferred
  • Georgia Tech - accepted
  • Purdue University - accepted to Honors College with a $16k merit scholarship
  • UVA - accepted (came out 30 min ago)
  • Virginia Tech - accepted to Honors College
  • University of Maryland - accepted
  • Ohio State - accepted to Honor College
  • Rutgers - accepted
  • NJ Institute of Technology - accepted to Honors College

We are still waiting for:

  • John Hopkins
  • Cornell
  • Univ of Pennsylvania

We live in NJ, making many of these schools out of state and quite distant. We also have a moderate income, and given that we already have a child in college, we heavily depend on financial aid.
Among the schools she’s been accepted to, we’ve visited Purdue, Virginia Tech, and UVA. We’ve also registered for Golden Carpet Day at Georgia Tech on March 24.

I am seeking opinions on the biomedical engineering major, including insights into career opportunities and paths, as well as perspectives on these specific schools.

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What were your opinions of the schools you have visited- the strengths and weaknesses of what you learned about the programs, the school, and the general “fit” for your daughter? Because all of these are great schools and decent programs. Of the three you visited which was most like “home” and why?

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She liked Purdue and of course UVA.
She didn’t hate Virginia Tech but considered it was too isolated.
Probably UVA feels more like home because we went few times during last year.

We are conflicted because programs at Purdue and GT are probably better but UVA is closer (driving distance) and she will be with her brother who is also in Engineering School, so he will be able to guide her and provide her comfort.

Of course price will also be important - but not sure what it is going to happen this year with this FAFSA mess.

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I think your first priority is affordability (unless I am misunderstanding). Can you pay for 2 kids at OOS schools, and when will you know about FA?

Once you have identified affordable schools I would focus on fit and where she would be happy. All of the schools on your list are very good, and at this point it is about doing the research to get your questions answered.

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Yes, FAFSA is not expected to be sent to schools until March. Given that cost is an issue (as it is for all of us), I would personally look at that as well as program ranking and fit. They are all great programs. Ask for, or look on the website for details of outcomes - 4 years graduation rates, where they get jobs, average starting salary, who recruits there. Not sure where you are in NJ, but there are direct flights to Indy from Newark (which I am sure you already know). If UVA is within your price range and she liked it, that might make life easier.

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First off - big congrats.

The student applied to the schools they did - so I assume distance and travel were - involved. You also applied to schools knowing there wouldn’t necessarily be aid. Example - Michigan - you likely weren’t going even if you got in.

I don’t know about your aid situation but UVA is the only that meets need. Are you full pay there? It’s COA is $90K for OOS engineering.

Now it’s one of two publics to meet need. If you have need for your first, does having a 2nd now increase that need? In other words, maybe one kid is $40K but two is $20K.

On the flipside, Purdue is a steal for an OOS school. For engineering, it’s $44K (42K-ish + $2K engineering fee). And you got $16K - so that brings you under $30K (I assume $16K is each year). I had never heard of more than $10K - so that’s a huge congrats.

As much as it’s nice to drive or have kids in the same place or same direction (Va Tech or UMD), nothing matters more than price. Nothing - because if you can’t afford, then nothing else matters.

As for distance - from Wayne, NJ (I picked, my original hometown), it’s 5.5 hours to UVA. Purdue 11.5 hours - so yes, that’s a thing - but what if Purdue is $20K or $60K less.

You really have to get the money piece down - first and foremost.

You need a budget.

I surmise, but don’t know, that if you’re on need at UVA, that they come in deeper as you have two.

I’d start with that.

As for outcomes - Purdue in 2022 was $77K in the major, mostly in healthcare, pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Their job board is hard to use.

The UVA has various salaries distributed by the 10s - with 80s and 90s most common. No way to know if apples to apples…ie if one includes bonuses, etc. And location will play a huge part - moreso than school.

You could ask each school for a detailed career report - that would hopefully be better than their online databases.

Likely both are great…but best of luck.

PS - Purdue hasn’t raised tuition in - forever.

Purdue CCO

Career Data - Student Outcomes | UVA Career Center (virginia.edu)

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IIRC, UVA is a Profile school. The college will make decisions on need based aid based on the data on the Profile. And that should have been submitted already, right?

You have some merit offers already. Do these offers bring these colleges into your price point for affordability?

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You won’t know net price for Ohio State until later. They roll their merit aid out so don’t worry if you haven’t heard anything yet. There is a $4,000/yr engineering fee and the board finalizes the cohort’s price increase over the summer, so keep that in mind as you decide. Technically, the tuition guarantee that freezes costs for the cohort only applies to in state students.

Did she apply to any of the large scholarships at Ohio State like Morrill or Eminence?

Did she apply to the College of Engineering/department/alumni scholarships through Ohio State’s Scholarship Universe?

Has she applied for one of Ohio State’s living learning communities (you don’t have to commit to apply)?

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Congrats on some wonderful acceptances (that Purdue aid is incredible). Also congrats on your son’s great outcomes. I think it will be hard to fully evaluate these options until all your aid offers come in. While the new FAFSA rollout has been a bit of a disaster, our estimated SAI decreased by $5K compared to last year, so maybe it will benefit you too. But it’s thrown a wrench in colleges getting out timely offers.

My son (current freshman like yours) chose to enter undeclared within engineering but was really interested in biomed. So we did quite a lot of research on the career opportunities, etc. He has a low tolerance for risk, which colors his decisions. Compared to the more fundamental engineering majors, it seems to be more difficult to get internships, co-ops, and jobs with a biomed eng major. There are good jobs and the people in them tend to be happy and well paid, but there are fewer openings and they are just harder to get. People in those jobs have degrees in biomedical eng but also the other engineering fields. He’s heard biomed eng graduates express regret that they didn’t do something like MechE, EE, CompE etc. Biomed graduates say the feel like they’re trained more broadly but not as deeply as the other majors. A lot of them seem to enter grad school in part because of difficult job searches.

That is not to discourage your kid. We told our kid he should absolutely do that major if that’s what he really wants. He decided that’s not what he wanted, and that he would pick a different major with the understanding that he could go in a biomed direction if desired. He declared ChemE in his first term and is thrilled with his decision so far. He’ll target pharma if he gets a bee in his bonnet but right now he’s just excited about the huge variety of ChemE careers available. He applied for summer internships and even had 2 interviews this week (he expected to get none). He searched biomed interships as well and anecdotally, there were far fewer than ChemE, MechE, EE, etc.

All that is to say… if my kid knew they wanted biomed, I’d look for who can set them up the best with internships and co-ops. She can get good ones no matter where she goes, and will have to hustle regardless, but some schools have more robust support for this than others. Geography might also be important in this field. There are a lot of medical device companies in Boston, for example, and companies often have certain schools they target for career fairs.

If you go to a school page on LinkedIn, you can click on the Alumni tab, type in “biomedical engineering” and it will give you the list of the top 10 employers. It’s not perfect data, but it helps. You can also browse the big medical device and pharm companies to see where their engineers studied.

These are all great schools and she will get an excellent education and can have a great career outcome from any of them. It might come down primarily to cost in the end anyway, so you can be assured that she’ll be in good hands wherever she ends up. She should not go somewhere unaffordable, because all these schools are great.

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To me, the real contenders would be UVA and VTech, GATech, and Purdue. All 4 are absolutely stellar. Can you afford all 4 or are some bzyobd your price point?
They’re also quite different in terms of location (environnement and access), weather, and vibe. Is there a way for you to visit all 4? Among the reaches, which is her favorite and which among these 4 is the closest to that one?

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Biomedical engineering tends to represent a convergent field. A major more specialized than biomedical engineering (e.g., mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science) may be preferable for aspiring bioengineers, at least for students interested in pursuing technical design and innovation (in contrast to, say, production supervision). Nonetheless, a minor in biomedical engineering could effectively complement the training of any suitable major chosen.

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It’s a fair point - many engineers cross over industries and bio tech is amongst the lowest paid. All that said, you might have biotech engineers at non medical companies just like you’ll have mechanical at aero and healthcare companies although that doesn’t necessarily mean each of their job duties would be in the area of interest.

Highest Paying Engineering Jobs Of 2023 (forbes.com)

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I agree with others that the financial piece is going to be key. I used this data aggregator to get costs of attendance, but it does not take into account any schools that charge extra engineering fees.

  • Georgia Tech: COA around $52k
  • Purdue: COA around $42k - $16k merit scholarship = $26k and honors college
  • UVA: $79k + the extra engineering fee
  • Virginia Tech: About $58k and honors college
  • U. of Maryland: About $60k
  • Ohio State: About $54k and honors college
  • Rutgers: About $38k
  • NJIT: About $40k and honors college

Is your D in consideration for any additional merit scholarships at these schools? Is your family eligible for any additional need-based aid from Rutgers or NJIT, as you’re in-state for those? Apart from any federal aid (Pell, potentially subsidized loans), you’re not going to get any need-based aid from any of the out-of-state schools, except for UVA. So if any of the out-of-state schools are too expensive and the merit aid awards have been finished up, you know which ones are too expensive for your family.

All the colleges your D has been accepted into are excellent. So to me the question, after finances, is where there will be the best fit. So the next thing I’d think about is about the honors college acceptances. Not all honors colleges are the same. What are they like at these schools? Is it smaller classes…including well within the engineering major? I believe that’s the case at Purdue (@momofboiler1 can confirm), but is that the case at the others? Special dorms, or early registration, special research opportunities, or…? Does the honors college have additional course requirements, and if so, how does she feel about them?

Once the benefits of the honors colleges are determined, how much does she value those advantages? For instance, some students have a strong preference for smaller classes while others would prefer to be in large lectures. What suits your D best?

At some schools the honors college admission may be a non-factor in her preferences, but at others it might make a school significantly more desirable.

Based on the visits so far, it seems as though Virginia Tech might not be the best fit, while Purdue and UVA seem to be ahead of it. With respect to Purdue in particular, I will say that Eli Lilly has generally had a strong relationship with the engineering department there.

Frankly, I don’t think your D can make a bad choice here (unless an unaffordable option is selected). All of these are great schools from which your daughter will be able to do great things.

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You have some great options. Congrats! I’m happy to answer any Purdue specific questions. My D had an amazing experience there and with honors college.

My only caution with Purdue is that historically BME has been one of the more competitive majors to transition into from FYE. In my D’s year, they ended up having to turn away some applicants that made the GPA threshold cut off. I believe they’ve grown the program since, but I’d double check with the department.

ColdWombat’s post is spot on about some of the challenges with BME. Again, in my D’s year, it seemed that many BMEs were pre-meds who wanted a fall back if they didn’t get into med school. Those that wanted to work in the bio tech or Pharma industries opted for mech e or chem e, depending on goals.

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This is what we are waiting for - the prices.

We did receive a considerable financial aid from UVA for my son (including work study) - we ended up paying around $30k, which at that time was similar to Rutgers (while Rutgers was $28k - talking about in-state tuition, right ? :thinking: :thinking: :thinking: )

I am not sure how multiple kids in college is going to count this year - apparently FAFSA is not counting anymore.

For Purdue she received the Trustees Scholarship - for 4 years with a min 3.0 GPA
This scholarship puts Purdue high on the list, price wise. However Purdue doesn’t require CSS, only FAFSA so we will have to wait.

GT - this year was 9% acceptance rate - looks like such an honor and opportunity to be there - we know nothing about price

I’m wondering if schools will consider multiple kids in college - in teh CSS form this information is available including how much we pay for college - UVA and GT requires CSS, unfortunately Purdue doesn’t.

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What do you mean by Profile ? We submitted CSS - is that the Profile ?

That merit from Purdue puts Purdue high on the list - but if UVA comes up with a combined price for two kids, should we pick UVA over Purdue or GT despite the fact UVA engineering program is not so prestigious ?

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She applied to some kind of a “full tuition” scholarship at Ohio and got denied - however she just received yesterday, in the mail, merit scholarship from Ohio - $16k with GPA 3.2.

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Wow - thank you very much for the info. I was not aware about less opportunity careers for biomedical.

I forgot about Boston University - she applied regular decision and waiting for the result

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She want to watch the high GPA requirements…most are 3.0.

Hopefully UVA will “batch” the kids together and maybe $30K for one becomes $30K for two or $40K for two.

You also like the directional type thing - easy transportation.

But for now all you can do is wait.

The good news is - it sounds like “worst case” - you have $30K at UVA and $26K or so at Purdue.

Then the question is - if it’s $55-60K for three years, can you swing it?

Wow - you’ve got really smart kids!!!

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Out of teh 4, we didn’t visit GA yet - will visit in March.

She liked VT campus but not the location. So the short list is now - GT, Purdue and UVA.

She liked all of them for different reasons.

UVA
Positive - her brother is there, she met all his friends during family weekend, she likes the dorms (by the way, UVA dorms are newer and better than all schools we visited), it’s driving distance and would be very convenient for our family - same events, same moving in, moving out, same time off.

Negative - UVA is not known for the engineering program is known for business. Not sure how is this reflecting in internships opportunities - my son went to a career fair and talked to some employers but didn’t secure any internship.

GT
Positive - I’m hearing opportunities are endless. The campus is very nice and the labs are stellar. There is some kind of pride graduating from there.

Negative - it’s far from home, dorms are not so nice, program very hard and a lot of mental health issues (according to youtube), mediocre social life

Purdue
Positive - she loved the campus although we visited last summer and it was empty. I’m hearing the recruitment at Purdue is very good, although I don’t know how is it by major.

Negative - I’m hearing there is a problem with housing although maybe for Honors is safe. I’m also hearing the program is like an endurance test - students are complaining on social media that is excruciating.