<p>"Biomedical Engineering (ranked 12th) and Virginia Tech is ranked.</p>
<p>Oh, forgot. VA Tech has no BME program."</p>
<p>Oh no, well Virginia Tech is officially horrible… not. The OP stated he wants civil or mechanical engineering so why does this matter?</p>
<p>Thickfreakness, the UC has just announced that it’s cutting freshmen students, including transfer students/applicants. So, things are probably looking good there next school year, if you’re concerned about over-crowding.</p>
<p>Another vote for Clemson. School spirit there is as good as anywhere else in the USA. And alumni carry it on…</p>
<p>The differences between Virginia Tech and U Virginia for engineering are tiny. Engineering is certainly a much bigger priority for Virginia Tech as an institution, but I ask those in the engineering world----would you conclude that Virginia Tech graduates are getting significantly different or better opportunities than those from U Virginia? I doubt it. </p>
<p>But for spirit, Blacksburg is a pretty special place. Virginia Tech is very much like Clemson in the family feeling it engenders in students and graduates. U Virginia is less this way and historically more in personality like a private school than a State U.</p>
<p>No school fits better than UT Austin, period.</p>
<p>Top five civil, top ten mechanical, top ten overall for engineering, and no other school in the top ten for any of these categories can match UT’s athletic programs. UT has an infectious school spirit and an incredible social scene.</p>
<p>^^^You don’t have a hockey team!</p>
<p>The biggest knock on UT would be nearly everyone is Texan. Schools like Michigan and Wisconsin have a much more national student profile, and hockey. Wisconsin had Top 20 football, basketball and hockey programs this year with sellouts for nearly every game in all three. And the engineering programs are good too.</p>
<p>Austin is quite nice–I lived there for a few years back when The Rocket was still pitching for UT and John Elway played right field for Stanford. Lots of legends on the diamond that day.</p>
<p>Let’s cross reference the top engineering schools with top sports programs.</p>
<p>I think it pretty much comes down to this:
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Michigan still has a lot of in-state as well.
Wisconsin basically only has Wisconsin and Minnesota students, since Minnesota residents get in-state at Wisconsin.
Texas population and size is bigger than Michigan and Wisconsin combined, so there’s still a lot of diversity.</p>
<p>^^^ Way to miss Virginia Tech. Great sports program (Anunal top 20 football, top 2 ACC; solid basketball, 3rd ACC IIRC) Top 10 Civil, top 15 Mech</p>
<p>" like the idea of 20,000 screaming students decked out in school colors and the camaraderie a school like that has. " It doesn’t get much better than VT</p>
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<p>Our D was just accepted into VT engineering, but she prefers UVa. If you look at a VA magnet school like Thomas Jefferson and see where their students go, three times as many go to UVa as VT. Part of the reason is that many of them expect to do graduate work and they see UVa as a better fit.</p>
<p>^^^That must be true because engineering is better at VT.</p>
<p>VT is good, but heavily skewed towards football. I would group it with Purdue, Wisconsin, and Berkeley. </p>
<p>But VT would NOT beat out Texas in terms of Sports + Engineering, since UT-Austin is better than VT is both.</p>
<p>“VT is good, but heavily skewed towards football. I would group it with Purdue, Wisconsin, and Berkeley.”</p>
<p>Either you are saying that any of those three schools aren’t better academically than VT, or that Purdue is not good in basketball. Either way you are wrong. Berkeley>UT in engineering for sure!</p>
<p>Excluding Minnesota, Wisconsin still has 25% OOS for undergrad. I don’t know where you get your info but it’s WRONG. I lived in Austin a few years and the differences between somebody from Dallas vs Houston is mighty small. The biggest difference would be small town vs city kids and rich vs poor.</p>