<p>My twin sons, wife, and I have visited 10 colleges this summer and covered over 3,000 miles. Man the west is spread out :)</p>
<p>I asked the boys to take a week, review the visits and review their pre-visit choices. They needed to still include any colleges they are still interested in but we are unable to visit. These included out of the way schools, like Alaska -Fairbanks lol, or reach colleges that we could visit if they are accepted and a money offer is included. I asked them to focus on the Enginering programs not an overall school ranking or other mumbo jumbo.</p>
<p>They came up with these guidlines</p>
<p>1) Engineering major must be ABET certified (amazing that this eliminated quite a few schools)</p>
<p>2) Must be above average on the number of students passing the engineering exams.</p>
<p>3) A good track record of placing graduates into the top graduate engineering programs.</p>
<p>4) A good opportunity for some research work as a junior or senior. (this really hurts some of the large public state schools)</p>
<p>5) Students have solid internship oppotunites available to them. </p>
<p>6) Job placement history is good upon receiving the BS degree.</p>
<p>7) Loans will be saved for Graduate school so a minimum of debt is occured during the undergraduate years.</p>
<p>I thought this was a good list. We were suprised on our visits on how many of the professors, even at the large highly ranked schools, told us where you got your undergraduate degree is important and we are the best but the Graduate College choice is way more important than the undergraduate.</p>
<p>I think the boys are down to about 10 -12 schools. At least now they are ready to begin looking at applications and a few essays to write. I hope they apply to no more than 8. </p>
<p>They would like to get some merit aid so there are some 2nd and 3rd tier schools included that have well regarded engineering programs and that give money to OOS high acheiving students. </p>
<p>Anyway just sharing my experiences.</p>