Suggestions on School List for an Engineer?

[dfogt]

So I'm a rising senior Chemical engineer and I'm thinking of going for biomedical eng. for my PhD. I think I read somewhere that most schools don't particularly want engineering PhDs, but hopefully some do. Let me know if there are any schools I should consider adding or completely forgetting about.

3.9 GPA
38 MCAT
Plenty of shadowing and good LORs
Decent service, but no medical related
Strong leadership roles: president of my fraternity, EC positions in other major clubs
Here's my biggest worry. I have a year and counting doing some sustainability type research, but it's only dry lab stuff. I also worked at the Fort Wayne Branch of Indiana School of Medicine doing stroke research, but it was only for about a month. Now I don't have any pubs in either, but I was actually conducting real meaningful research (not just lab tech stuff) and I have a firm grasp on what I was doing, so I hope that helps me.

Also, I probably won't be able to submit for at least another week, so I might not get verified all that early, but is it really THAT important if I'm not super late?

Anyway, here's that schools I have so far:
Baylor
Case (have a LOR from an MD from Case that used to be an engineer)
Columbia
Drexel
Duke
Emory
Dartmouth
Indiana (resident and aforementioned research)
Hopkins
MC Wisconsin
Northwestern
Penn St
Penn
Stanford
Ohio State
U Alabama
U Colorado
U Illinois
U Michigan
U Pitt
U Wisconsin
Vandy
Wake Forest
Yale

So far I've already removed Harvard because they require LORs from all research advisers and I only have one, and U Washington because I heard they don't take many out of state.

Any advice would be great. I'm kind of on my own at this. My school doesn't produce a lot of doctors so an adviser is virtually non existent and I don't really know any other premeds.

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[Cokol]

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[dfogt]

awesome! thanks for that. I'm a little worried about schools avoided engineering, so that's good news

 

[angrygunner]

USC has a great engineering school too, and a joint program with Caltech, one of the best engineering schools in the world. It should be fairly easy to get into compared to some of these other schools. Same with Emory, which has a joint program with Georgia Tech, which should be fairly easy to get into because many people don't want to move to Georgia.

 

[byaaaaaaah23]

UCLA has a joint program with Caltech too.

 

[uniqenam]

So I'm a rising senior Chemical engineer and I'm thinking of going for biomedical eng. for my PhD. I think I read somewhere that most schools don't particularly want engineering PhDs, but hopefully some do.

I think it's all how you sell yourself. No MD/PhD program is going to want someone who is getting a ChemE and going to do petroleum engineering in industry; however, if you sell it as ChemE for the sake of improving drug delivery etc in a clinical/translational setting, you'll be fine. There's tons of MDs and MD/PhDs in BME, so if you're going to choose that, I think you're especially golden.

 

[dfogt]

thanks for the replies everyone. I'm actually trying to stay more on the east side of the country so I don't plan on applying to too many cali schools.

I did mention drug delivery and tissue engineering in my app so I hope that helps.

 

[StIGMA]

If there's anyone still looking at this thread, I'm curious about the USC/UCLA - Caltech program. I was warned by an engineering prof. who did his PhD at Caltech that I should avoid this joint institution program because it is near-impossible to get a mentor at Caltech with "outsider" status (apparently because the medical consortium isn't as integrated as it should be.) I'm not sure how much to trust this professor since he tends to have strong opinions in general, and it might be field-specific. (I'm biophysics/BME.)

I have heard great things about the Baylor/Rice and the Georgia Tech/Emory program though!

It's unwise to outright avoid a program based on a single recommendation. This person did his PhD years ago, and it is very likely the program has changed. If you are interested, apply, interview, and talk to the students and faculty yourself.

Also, if you are interested in Georgia Tech but are a little less competitive for Emory, the MD/PhD program at the Medical College of Georgia (now Georgia Regents University) has the same joint affiliation with Georgia Tech (you can do your PhD there).

 

[TheDarkKnight]

If there's anyone still looking at this thread, I'm curious about the USC/UCLA - Caltech program. I was warned by an engineering prof. who did his PhD at Caltech that I should avoid this joint institution program because it is near-impossible to get a mentor at Caltech with "outsider" status (apparently because the medical consortium isn't as integrated as it should be.) I'm not sure how much to trust this professor since he tends to have strong opinions in general, and it might be field-specific. (I'm biophysics/BME.)

I have heard great things about the Baylor/Rice and the Georgia Tech/Emory program though!

Like another poster mentioned, it's probably best to talk to current students. As a recent BME applicant, I thought the joint programs you mentioned (Baylor/Rice and GT/Emory) were both very strong. There are also several schools that have strong medical schools and BME programs.

 

[soundnin]

May I cheat and look at your list please?

The problem for me is that even though I want to attend a program strong in BME, the MD half of my MD/PhD application is so weak that I feel like that it's irrational to hope for that. In particular, I'm looking for programs that weight research heavier than the usual pre-med activities (which are important, to be sure. It's just that when it came to micro-decisions, I tended to sink more time into, say, designing a medical device or eking out another experiment in the lab, than shadowing or volunteering. So if I can find a school with a reasonable BME program and forgives me my faults, that would be awesome, but also totally unrealistic.

i think most md/phd programs weigh the research background heavier than the "typical MD" EC's.i wouldn't say it's a fault of yours - a lot of applicants probably share a similar profile, myself included. i had pretty superficial clinical volunteering/shadowing experiences.