It’s definitely worth looking at Cal Poly. It’s just beyond your high end cutoff in size, but it really feels smaller. They have a very good ME program where grads walk with quite a bit more hands on experience than they do from the average program without compromising theory. This is due to the fact that every class has a lab except for the most theoretical graduate level classes like Continuum Dynamics and Viscous Flow. There are more than 80 labs in the College of Engineering alone. Classes are small (the largest lecture hall on the whole campus is in the business school; it holds 200) and since there isn’t a doctoral program, they don’t use TAs even for labs and discussions. Almost every one of my son’s instructors held a PhD. School spirit is high. Students always look happy. They have D1 sports, but they aren’t awesome, unless you are into soccer. The Cal Poly UCSB game routinely gets over 20,000 attendees. It’s standing room only at both schools. Lastly, it’s in an idyllic location on the Central California Coast, north of Santa Barbara, South of Monterey. To get an idea what students are doing there for clubs besides the typical SAE and concrete canoe (national champs 2010, 2011, 2012) stuff, check out PROVE Lab and CubeSat. Good luck!