@Mom2aphysicsgeek just pointing out Clemson is known as an Engineering School whereas some may not realize USC or Alabama have engineering schools. They are both their states Univ. of… with a comparable Land-Grant, which is known as the states engineering school. As an engineer, I’ve worked with Clemson, Auburn, NCSU and GaT and VTech grads, all of whose sister schools have engineering (although UNC is only bio-medical). I’ve never worked with any of their sister schools graduates. The USNWR reference was just pointing out it is a higher ranked school in general, top 100 vs the others which are close to 100. And yes, once your career has started your performance will dictate, however getting your foot in the door…
@jllmtw I am equally just pointing out that ranking has not been a factor in my ds’s career, including “getting his foot in the door,” and my Dh, also an engineer, has worked with engineers from a wide variety of schools including Bama. (I don’t know if he has ever worked with any engineers from USC or not. I only know about the Bama engineers bc of being Bama fans in an area dominated by other collegiate teams. Not many Gamecock fans are vocal about football. 
)
Fwiw, my ds co-oped with kids from GT, VA Tech, NCSU, etc. His co-op company offered him and only a couple of the others a job at graduation, not all of the students. Ranking of the UG school was not the factor in the job offer extension. He also did not accept their offer. He had multiple job offers to choose from. Where he ended up deciding to work, he was surrounded by grads from schools like UM, GT, Penn State, and his friend from UCB. Obviously ranking was not the determining factor in their hiring him bc his school is usually RNP (for some reason occasionally it is ranked regionally).
I should clarify that we knew the university our ds attended had an excellent reputation amg employers. Since Dh is an engineer, he knew how the graduates from the program were viewed by his corporation and by others in industry that he worked with. It wasn’t a school chosen without thought.
That really is the main pt. Not how USNWR views the school. For engineering, how does industry view the graduates.
Wow, just want to say congrats to the OP’s son. He has some nice options. I attended Bama for one year, so I can comment on the town. Sadly, I am no engineer. 
OP, does your son care about college football? If so, the choice is easy: Roll Tide. Of course, the football scene for Gamecocks and Tigers fans is also out of this world crazy.
Ironically, all three schools live and breathe football, but any appeal to him as a football fan would fall on deaf ears. He is more into music and programming than sports. I could see him possibly succumbing in the future and getting swept up in the excitement but for right now, he’s just planning to do other things when the whole campus heads for the football field. LOL!
Has he apples to Carnegie Mellon? Between comp sci, engineering and music that sounds like a perfect match.
He just finished his CMU application today. Although we expect very little aid there if he does get in. His reach schools are: MIT, Georgia Tech, CMU, Yale, Duke, Harvard, and Princeton. Because of low acceptance rates and high stats we decided to let him apply where he felt moved. We visited all the campuses… but are pretty realistic about our expectations. His dream is MIT. He spent the summer at Beaverworks and fell in love. But again, is being pragmatic about spreading the risk. We are so happy to have completed the rest of his applications this weekend! Now we can relax a bit and wait for the results. Wishing everyone else all the best in their hunt! I will update when results come in.
He was accepted at USC Honors college!
Congrats! I was just reading about USC this morning. Let us know when you hear about scholarships, etc. My daughter’s a junior so looking forward to following your story.
Congratulations! That’s really impressive 
He was so honored and humbled to find out today that he has been invited to be a Top Scholar Candidate at USC.
WOW congratulations!!!
If CMU, Gtech, MIT… don’t come through, it’s an awesome option to have.