My son has a tough decision to make between 3 really good schools; U of A, Miss St, and Ole Miss. They all have positive qualities and are 3 very different schools/campuses. Ole Miss has the Center of Manufacturing for Excellence ( CME) - great for ME and nice facility,Miss St has CAVS - fabulous building,and U of A the science and engineering building - on the heels of Miss St… All have nice merit packages. Right now , if my son had to decide, he said he could not do so. All 3 tie! # 4 is U of Arkansas. I am also the same - 3 way tie!
Make ranking system of what’s most important to your son and you like proximity to home is worth 7 out of 10 points, dorm quality 6 out of 10, cost 7 out of 10, etc. Then add them up and see which scores highest to your needs and determine whether it would be a good fit for all your needs
Since all the schools are probably ABET accredited, they all meet that minimum standard you want in a ME program. As Bobbx123 said, try and rank the other variables but it also gets down to fit. My son was accepted to both Univ of Rochester and RIT, they are 20 min from each other but he felt he fit better with the UR students.
My son was also accepted to RPI and while he felt the program had better labs and materials, he just couldn’t see himself being there all 4 years based on his interactions with the students he met.
It may be subtle but since your son will be there hopefully all 4 years, he should imagine himself there for that time.
I agree with @Lakemom, it’s all about fit. Quality wise they are the same. Look at things like class size, where graduates tend to get jobs, extracurriculars, both academic and non-academic. The great news is…he’ll do great and be happy at any of them. The bad news is…no school, repeat NO SCHOOL is without flaws. It might be the campus food, it might be the dorms, maybe the registration process, hopefully not, but maybe a teacher or two or three. No matter which one he picks, he’ll be well served. In the end through he’ll go with his gut. It may take up until the last day, but he will figure it out. Good luck!
“All have nice merit packages. All have nice merit packages” - I assume these these schools all have stats-based admissions / scholarships. It’s really nice to know this early in the game. GIve it some time and perhaps more visits. It will probably turn out that there is “no wrong answer”, but maybe one that seems the best fit.
Oh - one good research point would be GPA required to keep the scholarships. Engineering students often have a low-ish GPA freshman year, especially compared to high school.
Have him answer the question “Can I live here for 4 years?” Similar to other suggestions, if there is some feature of the school that is unacceptable, then take it off the list.