<p>One thing to be aware of: as far as the courses and course material that the student will take in engineering, math and science to qualify for a degree, colleges offer more or less the same. The Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) approves programs colleges offer and the ABET generally follows a uniform process which sets out courses required and what needs to be taught in those courses. All those you list have accredited EE programs and thus all will be offering to teach essentially the same thing. Where programs differ is research facilities (and all you list are good in that category), and teaching style and how they deal with students, quality of professors, and opportunities to do research as an undergrad and those are often unmeasurable except by generalizations. For example, large universities are going to have large classes and the personal touch will be less than small tech colleges but then many students are more atune to and prefer the large university atmosphere. Large universities will also have more courses taught by teaching assistants than full professors, but that is not necessarily a bad factor because often the TA's are better teachers than some of the full professors. Put another way, every university will have a number of excellent teachers but then every one of them will also have lousy ones (and the lousy ones can often be the nationally regarded professors known for their research). Moreover, particularly in engineering, math and science, you will run into teachers from foreign countries who struggle with the English language and are thus often difficult to understand (in fact, you will find at virtually every university, some who are totally incomprehensible). At large universities you can often schedule around that problem because each course has more than one teacher.The thing is that all the ones you list will have both their plusses and minuses in those regards.</p>
<p>Some rely on USNews national rankings that would put Stanford, UIUC, Cornell, Carnegie, and Texas at the top of the ones you list for EE, but that does not really mean much, and all the ones you list are highly regarded. It is in fact difficult to say that any one college you list is any better than another in undergraduate EE. If I were to view the choice I would probably do it like this: you are from Texas, UTexas means in-state tuition that will be lower than the others listed and it has a nationally recognized engineering program. Thus, what if any justification is there to choose another over Texas? That decision ultimately depends on what do you like and can afford. I would probably immediately eliminate UIUC (which is actually one of my favorites being from Ill) from your list because to me it makes little sense to go to another state's public university and pay high tuition when you have an excellent public university where you are. You also have location factors. For example, any of the midwestern schools you list (UIUC, Northwestern, and Wash U) are going to be heavily occupied by students from the midwest with the Chicago area a major feeder and will be cold in winter. How well any particular Texan will like that area is unclear but it is a significant factor to consider. The same applies to those eastern schools, except that Vanderbilt and Duke are more southern in nature in both student population and weather. Additionally, I would question Hopkins and Penn because of their locations in questionable areas in their respective cities. Ultimately, my meanderings would likely lead to the following, particularly for visits: Texas as a top choice because it is excellent and much lower in cost than any of the others; Rice if it can be afforded because it is nearby (an easy visit), a great college; Stanford if you have a chance to get in because it is a national top college, has a campus envied by most, weather is agreeable year round, and its location is near a large number of employers who hire electrical engineering graduates; I would then probably consider an "eastern" trip to Princeton, Duke and Vanderbilt, the latter two because they are still southern schools in excellent locations, and Princeton, because, like Stanford, is considered by most to be at the top of everything. The rest would be in the category of visit if you just have to find out if it is a possibility to consider. Also note that I would probably make some additions to the list you have. Virtually all the schools you list cannot be considered "safeties" for anyone because of low admission rates. Texas is an exception as long as your son is in the top 10% of his class, which guarantees admision, but be aware that does not necessarily guarantee admission to engineering and thus it still is not a lock as a safety. He may need on his list one or two schools that would be virtual certainties for admission to engineering, if he is top 10%, like Texas A&M.</p>