I have visited both UMD and Pitt (one son is in Computer engineering there and one son is still in high school who wants to attend Pitt.) One main difference is the first year program at Pitt. At Pitt, you basically all take a common year, no matter your intended major, with one general engineering class. This can be very good if you are undecided on your major but bad if you would like to start taking classes in your major freshman year. At UMD, computer engineers, for example, already take Java programming and an EE lab their first year. At Pitt, computer engineers wait for their sophomore year before doing any of these classes. Again, I’m not advocating one approach or another, it just depends on your preference.