<p>Undergrad engineering is not all that hard for a college to be good at. The big differences you will see in quality are at the grad school and research level, and these are what the reputations of colleges are largely based on. </p>
<p>Having a brilliant researcher for Circuits 101 will probably not help you learn the material, in fact it might hurt if he’s good at research but not teaching (more common than you might think). On the other hand, having a weak researcher for your PhD advisor could be devastating.</p>
<p>One of the best researchers in my group is a Bama undergrad with a PhD from MIT. He thinks his undergrad experience at Bama was quite good. OTOH, I don’t have any PhDs from Bama in my group, in fact I’ve never even interviewed one. It’s worth noting that we have almost no researchers with advanced degrees from non-AAU schools, but many with undergrad degrees from non-AAU schools. <a href=“http://www.aau.edu%5B/url%5D”>www.aau.edu</a></p>
<p>We just hired a new researcher who went to Illinois State for undergrad (however for physics, not engineering), which is a school I had never even heard of. But he got his PhD at Northwestern and did a post-doc at Yale.</p>
<p>This is not to say there are no differences in undergrad education quality, just that they are less substantial than grad-level differences and less probably than popular opinion would have you believe.</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids and @BobWallace you guys are extremely helpful! This is all great information and definitely things that I will be keeping in mind, thank you! I really appreciate settling the argument over UA as an engineering school, that was something I was very worried about as I leaned so strongly towards the university. </p>
<p>Also, do you think that the SATIIs would offer physics and a math the same day? I’m not sure what maths there even are… I’ve taken up to Calc II, though, so I’m sure I would be fine for anything they offer as long as it wasn’t something off the wall. Do you know how the multiple tests in one day works? Does one take them at set times, i.e. a physics test would definitely be at 8, a math test would definitely be at 11, or do you just sit down and take them one right after another?</p>
<p>Again, thank you all so much for your help!</p>
<p>Also, @mom2collegekids when you say Auburn, you mean Auburn University, right? I actually qualify for more merit aid there, total, than UA but was questioning how strong their engineering program is. Any insight other than what you wrote above?</p>
<p>Auburn is a very good engineering school. It is actually the traditional engineering school for the state of Alabama, but UA has been investing a ton in their engineering programs to attempt to rival Auburn. </p>
<p>Auburn has more different engineering majors than Bama, but the gap is narrowing.</p>