College prestige importance or lack thereof for various majors, career paths, and graduate / professional schools

Yeah, I also thought of mentioning Dartmouth along with Chicago. But their BA/BE-degree approach indicates at least some effort to accommodate students who end up wanting to go into Engineering, whereas as you point out, Chicago really has just a small niche program.

Yale is definitely not a relative standout in this area either, but as you point out, it was nearly on its way to extinction before Yale decided to revive it. There are now a reasonably significant number of people graduating with Engineering degrees (more if you include CS, which has joined the School of Engineering & Applied Science).

Again, I would agree Yale Engineering today is not a recruiting target in the way the much longer-established “top” Engineering programs are, and may not be for some time, if ever. But the recent resource allocations are documentable, as is the growth of the majors. And anecdotally, I have repeatedly heard Yale seems to be doing well these days in placing its graduates in top Engineering graduate programs.