<p>I have never heard of TAs teaching courses (unless you count a lab or a recitation section). This would not apply to the better state universities the OP mentioned.</p>
<p>Everyone's experience is different. I went to a large state university (University of Florida), but the chairman of my department took me and two other of the top students in our department out to dinner every Thursday night for six months to discuss our graduate school plans, etc. I do not know how many students at private engineering schools were that fortunate. I just happened to have an excellent chairman (who has, unfortunately, passed away).</p>
<p>Comparing the experiences of two different students at two different colleges is certainly insufficient to make accurate generalizations.</p>
<p>dmd77's mentioning of UWashington washing students out of engineering is consistent with my experience. Students do actually flunk out of state universities. At MIT, I knew a number of students who transfered out of EE or CS and ended up majoring in management (I also knew some very bright students who majored in management because they wanted to) because they could not maintain respectable GPA's, but I did not know of any students who received worse than C's in their courses, even if they had not grasped the fundamentals (according to their responses when I tried to tutor them).</p>