@acme - I don’t know much about Penn State, other than that it is a very good (and very large) engineering school. My son is a freshman at MU studying mechanical engineering with possibly a dual major in BioEngineering. He turned down several larger engineering schools including home-state Arizona and Arizona State in favor of Miami. He really liked the smaller school feel at Miami and the focus on undergraduate education (no PhD programs). So far, he is very happy at Miami. His professors have all been good and it has been easy to meet with his advisor (unlike my older son who is an engineering major at Texas A&M, who can’t get even get an appointment).
A few stats, my son had a 3.55/4.0 GPA from the number-two high school in the U.S. He had a scored a 33 on his only ACT sitting (36 Science, 35 Math). He passed 13 AP exams with an average score or 4.54. His extracurriculars were pretty good, but not great.
My son was accepted into Miami Honors, but I don’t see that as important as at the larger public universities. Miami is already strongly focused on undergraduate education and all students are part of a living-learning community.
You will see it on your visit: Miami’s campus is one of the nicest we visited and Oxford is a very nice, little college town. Oxford is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but so is State College.