@camom13, I was not implying that more classes is defacto better in isolation. It is simply another factor that must be placed into context. I am also not a fan of giant lectures and over utilization of teaching assistants. I do believe however that if that choice was binary, I’d choose the better equipped, deeper curriculum, every day. Notice my response said “among the schools listed.” They are all smallish schools, not the UCBs or the Michigans of the world. My intent was to show that some of the very small programs represent a massive, and in my mind, unnecessary, compromise given the choices out there.
Fortunately, there exist what I feel is the holy grail in engineering, schools with good toys, complete curricula, smaller classes, irrespective of the overall university size, and little use of TAs. Lehigh, Rose-Hulman, HMC, WPI, Case, RPI, and Cal Poly are all strong examples.