I’ve become the PSU forum champion after the previous one passed the baton to me, so I’ll speak more about that but it doesn’t mean it’s better.
First, are you a junior or senior?
Second: if you’re a senior and applying only now, it means the Honors College at either university is no longer accessible to you since applications closed a while back.
In fact, you may want to apply to both universities because Engineering may be “full” by the time they get to your application - Pitt is rolling so they’ve been accepting students since August and Penn State had a Nov 1 EA deadline and a priority deadline on Dec1.
Both universities are located in very different environments.
Pitt is located in a really cool neighborhood of a major US city, Pittsburgh. You have access to professional sports, concerts, museums… You can easily access internships if you stay all year round. The student body has about 20,000 undergrads and the campus is compact.
Penn State is much larger and has a huge campus, with an arboretum and a stadium at one end, and new buildings and a golf on the other. It’s directly in the middle of a college town with anything college students may want from brand stores to boutiques to restaurants and clubs. They have a very strong “brand” throughout the mid Atlantic (roughly, NYS, PA, MD, VA) and their career fairs are booked a year ahead of time at least because companies want to make sure they have PSU interns but these typically take place elsewhere, over the summer. They also have a big football team that has enthusiastic supporters, alumni return just to see the games, the Stadium has more than 100,000 seats and even more people tailgate outside (in my opinion this is a downside but many people seem to think it’s a really cool part of Penn State.)
In Pittsburgh Steelers are a bigger deal than the Panthers, ie., there professional sports>college sports.
Pitt’s selection process emphasizes test scores compared to Penn State, as long as they’re provided, in that grades and scores are considered more or less equally, however it is test optional so you don’t have to submit them; Pitt is known for favoring high test scores so if you have 1450+ it’s definitely a good move to submit.
Penn State looks at GPA×Rigor for 2/3 decision, 1/3 is everything else (scores, essay, ECs…). They want most of your classes to be Honors, AP, DE or IB (for the best chances, out of 24+ HSclasses, 15+ should be honors/AP - as long as your school offers them) and they mostly want As. So if you have solid grades in a rigorous curriculum you’re better off with PSU.
If your GPA is under 3.5 you will probably be admitted to a “branch campus”, which can be a smaller, relatively residential, comprehensive university (Behrend,Altoona, Harrisburg) or an even smaller, commuter campus (don’t accept it) for your first 2 years before you can automatically transition to the Main Campus, the one I described above, also called University Park.
They also like to see a proof of math competency if you’re applying to the Colleges of Engineering, Mineral Sciences, or ITS - can be an AP Precalculus score, a DE grade…
You can also apply “DUS” meaning “pivot to anything”: you çan tell your adviser what you want to major in, take the relevant classes, and if you do well declare the premajor and if you don’t do well the DUS adviser helps you figure out what else you can major in with the classes you took (you can also directly apply to the premajor and have a Premajor adviser - premajor means you’re in your 1st-2nd year, Major means 3rd-4th). You can apply for Fall/UP and Summer/UP.
If your application doesn’t meet the cut off for your major, you’ll be admitted to a branch campus but you can ask for “reconsideration” for another, less competitive major and your application is reconsidered for Fall and Summer start. In short you have 4 chances to get in. There’s an entire thread over on the PSU forum and since December it’s mostly about reconsideration 
