Hi,
I recommend you make an appointment to talk with the career placement offices at these schools about “true” placement stats and opportunities for co-ops/internships. You don’t need to necessarily visit in person, although I found that to be most productive. You just need to make it clear what you want to discuss, ask who is the most appropriate person to discuss it, and make an appointment via phone, webex, or in person.
Why do I say “true” placement rates? There are usually two sets of numbers universities maintain. The actual placement rate of all their graduates (“true” rate) and the results of a survey they send to their students after graduation or give them at graduation. This second number can be wildly slanted as kids happy with their placement results are much more inclined to return the survey. Unfortunately this false, survey based, numbers are what most institutions advertise. They are forced to. If they post their “true” numbers in the face of their competitor’s false numbers, they would appear horrible places to attend.
The only place you’ll get the “true” numbers are from career placement offices. This… and only this… will satisfactorily answer your question. What you’ll get here on the forum might be worse than the false, survey based, numbers. You’ll get a bunch of unqualified opinions, mostly based on the respondent’s opinion of particular schools. What you really need are actual stats.
While you’re doing this, watch out for the regional versus national appeal story. The assumption is colleges with a national appeal are more valuable than colleges with “only” a regional appeal. It’s an old wive’s tale. Particular schools claim to have national appeal because of the wide spread distribution of their graduates. Unwitting parents and students eat it up. If you do the research, and I highly recommend that over taking my word for it, you’ll see these schools, with small exceptions, are in areas whose industry simply cannot absorb the rate of graduates. These are schools where kids come from all over to attend. After graduation, they are literally forced to go back home and find a job. The travesty is their “true” first year placement rates are typically below average, so parents and students are actually getting the exact opposite of what they thought they were getting. It’s sad.
Again, you should do your own research on this, because you’ll have to back it up to just about any other parent you repeat this to. The placement offices will also have geographic distributions of students. You’ll find, with little variation, students tend to stay regional when the school is in a rich opportunity area and tend to spread out all over the place when their school was in a region which could not absorb them.
IMHO, the best chances for internships and co-ops for the largest segment of the student body are from those colleges surrounded by a rich and vibrant industrial environment. These schools usually have a large list of companies looking for interns and co-ops locally. If your child will attend a school in the middle of nowhere (with respect to their industry), your child either needs to be in the very upper percentile of students or be prepared to work very hard finding their own internship opportunities.
Kindest regards.