Which ECE Program/School: UD honors, UMass honors, UW, MD College Scholars, UVA

I’ve posted this before, but I’ll put it here again in this thread. The short answer is among the schools you list the choice isn’t going to make a difference for ECE.

EE programs are acredited by ABET so the content is going to be much the same at any college. The reputation of engineering colleges is much flatter than that of liberal arts programs. There are a few elite schools such as MIT and Caltech, then a broad middle which engineering employers view as pretty much the same. At the lower end would be schools with weaker students where the curriculum might be softened a bit. That doesn’t seem to apply to any of the schools you list.

What is going to matter for the future of EE student is what they do. Did they work hard to earn good grades? Did they take part in coop or internships? Doing well is pretty much an automatic offer from the employer, and other employers love to see students that know what they’re signing up for. To some extent club & project participation in college also helps.

Another consideration worth be thinking about – what happens if the student decides against EE? Are they still at the right college? Nationwide about 1/2 of all students starting college as engineers switch to something else. www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/what-prevents-many-ee-students-from-making-it-to-professional-careers is an example link, the percentage has been like this for years. The rate likely is lower the more qualified the entering students. EE undergrad is heavily theory-based and is built on pretty much 4 years of more and more difficult calculus. For a variety of reasons people decide EE isn’t for them.