<p>Houstonmom - There are many strong engineering programs that would allow a student to get into a top engineering school, assuming he/she has an awesome GPA, top GRE scores, and stellar recommendations. Your summer visits will get the ball rolling for which attributes are most important to your son (rigor/intensity, size, city/rural, diversity of majors, etc). </p>
<p>From my research, Mudd and Cal Tech and MIT are among the most intense schools. Students should pick them because they really want that kind of enviroment. These schools don’t necessarily ensure better grad school options. In fact, I read on the CC threads that MIT discourages “in breeding” (accepting its own undergrads) for some of their programs. Also, deflated GPA could be an issue… but I think that is a bigger factor for med schools than for engineering grad schools.</p>