How far do your geographical and size limits extend? Harvey Mudd College is an excellent, private, STEM school. It is ABET accredited and all students live on campus all four years. It is small (< 900 total students), but is part of the Claremont Consortium (~7000 total students). Most HMC students take some portion of their humanities/social science classes at the other campuses. Harvey Mudd’s engineering is very highly ranked among undergraduate-only programs. If this is of any interest to you, more specific information can be provided.
Yes, it is a combination of the above list, but it really refers to all of the intangibles. Another big thing that is missing from this list is the type of students at a particular school, but I am really trying to identify schools that meet the residential requirement right now. At the end of the day, it’s going to come down to a combination of several factors, and it may be that no one school checks all of the boxes. As I look at our current list of schools, we are missing the smaller, residential schools. I am really hoping to find one smaller, residential college that offers decent merit aid. We have a few bigger state schools that check the affordable category!
ABET is only really relevant in a few engineering majors with a few employers. I worked my entire career (degrees in EE and CS) without need for ABET. Our S (Stanford BSCS 2020, MSCS 2021) has zero need for ABET.
ABET accreditation per se is important for PE licensing (most common in civil engineering, but sometimes in other engineering where engineers sign off on designs of things used by the general public) or when using the degree as a prerequisite for the patent exam. Many people in computing and non-civil engineering do not pursue these things due to not needing them for their work and careers.
Otherwise, it functions as an indicator of meeting a minimum standard of quality of educational content of the degree. This is obviously much more important for colleges like CSULA than it is for colleges like Stanford.
What does “type of students” mean? For example, do you mean such things as fraternity and sorority participation (high at Bucknell) or other social-scene-related factors, or something else?
It’s not really one thing. It’s the overall makeup of the student body and the vibe of the school. Are the students well-rounded? smart? friendly? tolerant? Do they party? Are they motivated and driven? Competitive? Artsy? Rampant drug use? Are they religious? Some of this is also driven by location - typically west coast schools have a different vibe than schools in New England. Basically, I want to know if it is a place I can see my daughter (and where she can see herself). As I said, it’s the “intangibles,” and I am not even sure if I can tell you exactly what constitutes the perfect fit. What I can tell you is that we will know when we have found it. We are trying to focus on schools that have a more intimate feeling at the moment. After my daughter applies and hears back from all the schools, we will weigh the pros and cons of each school to decide on the best place for her. I want to make sure that she has options when the time comes. Right now, she has two competitive schools on her list, and both of them will likely be too expensive (our EFC far exceeds what we can afford), The rest of her schools are big state schools that are affordable. I would like to try to find some schools that fill the middle ground.
We don’t have any geographical limitations. I am actually quite familiar with the Claremont Consortium as I looked at it when I was applying to colleges many moons agom and it’s been on our radar for my daughter as well. My dad is actually a huge proponent of Harvey Mudd. 
I will let you know if I have any specific questions as we get a bit further into our search. Thank you!
Another parent here suggesting Rice. Very strong engineering program but the kids are required to take classes outside of engineering as well. They have “distribution requirements” that require each student to take so many hours in 3 different distributions (arts/humanities, social sciences, and science/math). As another parent said, students are guaranteed 3 years on campus but many stay 4. And even if they live off campus they remain members of their residential college and can hang out and eat there so you still are part of the residential community. It’s a very walkable campus.
My D is a sophomore bioengineering major living on campus and plans to stay there all 4 years at this point.
In regard to type of student there, I’d say there really isn’t a type. There is no greek system. There are kids that party but there is no pressure to do so. Overall the student body is very diverse and tolerant. They have sort of a “you do you” attitude. It’s a very collaborative environment. Kids are competitive with themselves, not each other. D has friends that I’d consider artsy, some that are religious (some not at all), some very driven while others are laid back. While it’s in Texas it doesn’t feel at all southern (something my midwestern daughter was worried about).
The merit situation is fairly cut and dried assuming you have “typical assets”.
The difficulty here is that:
A. Generally, a visit may encounter a non-representative sample of students, which may result in these kinds of intangibles being seen as different from what they actually would be to a student there day to day. If your tour gets a guide who is a partying fraternity member, competitive pre-med, artsy art major, stoner, very religious student of your religion, or very religious student of some other religion, that may affect your perception of the college.
B. COVID-19 and any campus restrictions could significantly affect the kinds of things that may be observable on a visit, or even if a visit is possible.
Since the Claremont schools were discussed favorably, and my quick scan above had some of the smaller east coast schools…Swarthmore is ABET accredited and has housing for all 4 years. It’s also very convenient to Philly airport (15 mins, almost all highway).
How certain is the engineering focus and how robust should the non-engineering options be?
My D is a Senior at Purdue and lives on campus. I don’t know if a full 50% live on campus Senior year, but campus/fraternity/sorority/Cooperative housing certainly has a majority of students in total. And I’m pretty sure housing is available/guaranteed all four years.
She moved from the standard 2 person Freshman shoebox dorm room to a 3 person apartment Sophomore year and then a 4BR/2BA apartment for the last two years. Of the 5 of her/roommates, 4 are in campus housing Senior year. All are in Engineering.
She had to take at least 18 gen ed credits - Intro psych, cog psych, global politics, a current course in global medicine/disease/pandemic history, plus a certificate in Entrepreneurship. Along with the Engineering-required writing and speaking courses.
The engineering curriculum takes up most of her schedule as with most engineering schools, but there are opportunities/requirements for other courses to be well-rounded/prepared (as most engineering schools also have).
Have you considered Olin College of Engineering? Students are required to live on campus all four years and therefore develop a very tight-knit community. There are liberal arts classes offered at Olin, but you can also cross register at Babson and Wellesley. Fit is very important and the application process involves a weekend visit where both sides get to assess that piece. For the right student it is an amazing place.
Agree 100% that Olin is a great place for the right fit, but OP stated they were looking for a medium sized school…and Olin qualifies as tiny.
We were there for an open house 5 or 6 years ago, and part of the difficulty in their process is the multi-step application. It takes so long that you can’t ED1/2 anywhere if Olin is your first choice, so you put yourself at risk in other locations by applying. The other issue a few years ago was that they had deferrals, siblings (which they appear to focus heavily on) and gap year commitments that made a class of 80 turn into just over 60 open spots for the following fall.
Great place and amazing students, but a lot of extra steps to get in.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Rennsalaer Polytechnic Institute
Case Western Reserve University
Rose Hulman Institute
Northwestern University
U of Pennsylvania
Washington University
Thank you for all of the suggestions. While I have not responded to everyone, please know that I am reading and looking into all of the schools that have been mentioned!
We were told a lot of WPI students move off campus after freshman year.
Great post! Right there with you on several fronts. What type of engineering?
We are wanting much of the same things. Need a grocery on campus or close by dining options, bussing system, activities locally, etc…
Our student is considering Montana State (excellent on all your fronts & a lot of snow!) Tier 1 Research. Brand new engineering buildings. Small school feel with an airport close by. Some of the nation’s best college food in Rendevouz dining hall.
Univ. of Alabama Huntsville (very nice suite housing/sits on nation’s 2nd largest research park). TBD on food/groceries.
Rose-Hulman is out for us - not close to other dining options/grocery.
Student did not like the dorms we saw at Harvey Mudd and it’s very clear there is a certain kind of “Mudder”. You are either one or not. Depression has been an issue in the past. They are addressing. Cannot declare major until end of sophomore year. Best admissions talk we have heard.
Student has added RIT in Rochester, NY for many reasons.
Had Case Western on for awhile but removed; seemed very livable.
CO School of Mines would meet your needs and may offer enough merit.
I think Rice and Notre Dame are amazing on so many levels.
We are also looking for schools that accept all to most credits acquired in HS and will stack scholarships.
One thing you might look into is ecumenical housing if it fits for you. Our student’s back up school is Oregon State. She’d have enough credits to go in as a sophomore and could move straight into a girls house with 44 girls and a house mom that is faith based and 2 blocks from the university and live there all 4 years. They have a cook, etc…
OSU and Corvallis are extremely livable. Great free bussing system. Walk to downtown shops and grocery or bike. I am very curious to see if UAH and Vanbilt offer that same level of community access and livability.
One thing you might consider is how covid is impacting housing. Sometimes living off campus offers way more flexibility. I am on some college parent pages and seeing schools that are handling it well and others, not so much. Being stuck in student housing might equate to testing all the time. Our student is super vigilant on covid and will remain so, but if a school is not handling testing well it can really present challenges for students - not just put a crimp in their relationships. For example, if they are concerned you might test positive due to exposure do you have to go into quarantine immediately or can you wait for actual test results? How fast is the school testing and getting results, etc…?
WPI’s CDS section F1 says that 94% of frosh and 60% of all undergraduates live on campus. That suggests that about half of non-frosh live on-campus.
https://www.wpi.edu/sites/default/files/inline-image/Offices/Institutional-Research/WPI%20CDS%202019-2020_7-24-20.pdf