<p>mom2collegekids</p>
<p>I don’t agree with your assessment of the super-competitiveness of the engineering students in the top 25 schools. My experience with Princeton engineering is that, while it is a difficult course of study, students are collaborative rather than competitive. I also know several Penn engineering students and they too don’t seem too competitive with one another.</p>
<p>Unlike pre-med, many engineering students are not going for advanced degrees so their relative GPA is not as much of an issue. In addition, at many of the top schools, engineering students are still getting job offers, so once again, there is no particular reason why students would be pitted against each other. </p>
<p>In terms of the original poster’s question, for schools that are laid back but strong in physical sciences, I would recommend the following (many of which have already been mentioned):</p>
<p>Rochester
Brown (very laid back in general and although not known for the physical sciences, Brown is putting resources into this area)
Michigan
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Williams–very strong in math
Rice
Wash U
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
UVA
Carleton</p>