I think we met at PSU & MD (my son is a redhead also :)). He was accepted to the same schools - except he was wait listed at VT. While he would have loved to go to Boulder, he also didn’t get any $$ and it didn’t make sense. Maryland and PSU were his top 2 choices & your perceptions after both visits align with yours. The engineering programs are so similarly ranked that we went with Maryland as its in state for us. My friend who is an engineer & does hiring for an international company says Maryland , VT and PSU are all equally highly regarded. He is a PSU engineering grad :).