“I would be wary of any program with competitive admissions to a major, or a “winner take all” weeding process, especially if there is no attractive back-up major.”
This issue caused us to change DD2’s college search from a focus on public flagship engineering schools to Lehigh and Case Western where the schools have the capacity to allow engineering students to choose their own major.
Engineering is difficult enough without the pressure of needing to be in the top 10 -20% of students to get into major x, or if she decides to transfer because a different area of engineering is more interesting than another. I do not think that this level of stress is constructive.