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Exactly. You’ll be there for 4 years, plus you want to go to a school where the kids that attend tend to be the kind that you’d want to be friends with. If just about everyone is big on Division-I football and the greek scene dominates campus social life, you’re may not have the greatest time if you aren’t into those things. Or, of course, conversely.</p>
<p>To a greater extent than most other majors, engineering is the same no matter where you go because programs are ABET acredited and that specifies the minimum that anyone getting the degree must study. The list is so long it covers most of your 4 years. There are differences, though, in reputation. Its much harder to get into Stanford than San Jose State 20 miles away, and few employers are going to see engineers from the 2 schools as substitutes. So reputation plays some role, but not as much as in most other majors.</p>
<p>You need to think about career path, too. I think at the Ivies and similar schools most kids graduating with engineering have gone to jobs on Wall Street where analytical skills are in demand and they like to recruit from top schools. If you actually want to work as an engineer you might be better off at a school where that’s what the grads do. More employers are likely to recruit there, you’ll see more examples of kids in the years above you getting internships and the like, there will be a larger alum network of working engineers.</p>