My daughter is interested in doing BME (non pre-med) and is trying to decide between UW Madison, Purdue and UIUC. I would appreciate any feedback comparing the quality of the BME program and industry placement opportunities post-graduation at these colleges.
Additional complicating factor is that she has a confirmed admit in BME at UW Madison while Purdue enrolls everyone in FYE and she has an admit in Engineering Undeclared at UIUC. Any thoughts on considerations regarding this would be helpful as well.
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Congrats to your daughter on wonderful options!
As much as I love Purdue, if your daughter is sure about BME and has direct entry into the major at Madison , that would be my choice.
BME historically has been one of the most competitive majors to transition to at Purdue because they cap the number of students:
"Our ranking system prioritizes Engineering Admissions Index (EAI) first and then cumulative GPA. The maximum capacity is determined by the number of available seats in our teaching labs. This number varies annually based on a variety of circumstances and is determined usually in January.
For May:
Maximum capacity for incoming FYE students is 150 seats…"
Source: Fye : Undergraduate Program : Academics - Biomedical Engineering - Purdue University.
When my D was a freshman there were some friends who were well above the GPA threshold who still didn’t get into the major. Your D could reach out to the department (contact info in the link above) and ask what percentage of students got into the major last year.
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If you want to be in BME and not deal with the “stress”, then the choice seems obvious.
You should ask each school for their career report for the major - companies, job titles, locations, salaries. My guess is they’ll be similar.
Here’s Purdue’s interactive board. A bit difficult to play with but lots of info (for 2022). Wisconsin doesn’t seem to show a good board (that I can find- hence the need to ask).
UIUC’s report is dated and not really informative.
So ask all three schools - they’ll have. But companies pay by location and job, not necessarily the school.
So I’d confirm all three do ok via requesting a detailed career report (I’m sure they do) and pick the one with your level of comfort on campus - and of course that includes direct admit or not. Did one location stand out to your student?
PS - when you look at salaries by school, not all report the same way - some are salary only, some include sign on or expected performance bonuses - so if you see disparities, read the disclaimers.
Three great choices.
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Wisconsin does require BME students to earn a 3.3 technical and 3.0 overall GPA to stay in the major, so it is equivalent to a secondary admission setup with automatic admission at that GPA: Progression - College of Engineering - University of Wisconsin-Madison
Declaring an engineering major from engineering undeclared at UIUC appears to require a competitive admission process: Declaring a Major - Engineering Undeclared | The Grainger College of Engineering
Purdue see @momofboiler1 post above.
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FYI - Purdue claims that 100% of the students who met the criteria got admitted to BME in the last few years. Not sure if there were students who wanted to do BME and didn’t meet the criteria.
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