<p>Of the top tier schools, which have smaller classes with advisors and professors who get to know the students? </p>
<p>Son is applying–800 critical reading; 710 Math; 720 writing. </p>
<p>Interested in Environmental / Hydrological engineering, but not absolutely sure, thus schools that allow/require you to choose a major later are preferred. Also not absolutely sure about engineering so ability to switch important. </p>
<p>For various reasons he is considering or has applied to: MIT, Cal Tech, Cornell, Princeton Stanford, University of Virginia, Rochester Institute of Technology, Harvey Mudd, Cooper Union, Rose Hulman, Northwestern, Drexel, University of Pennsylvania, Cal Poly SLO, Colorado School of Mines. </p>
<p>Due to experience with older children we know the highest level schools (MIT, Cal Tech, etc) are a lottery even for the best qualified, so we want to have some good “likely” schools with small classes and accessible professors. </p>
<p>We are California residents and “low income” so need based aid important.</p>
<p>BTW older son is going to Cal State Fresno–a typical mediocre state school, but one with a good Geomatics engineering program–school = 20,000+ students Geomatics program = c. 60 students in the whole department. He has had many classes with just a few students.</p>
<p>If small (freshman and sophomore) class sizes are a criterion, go to each school’s web site and put “schedule of classes” in the search box. Often, the capacity and enrollment in each class will be listed.</p>
<p>Don’t forget to check whether the desired engineering degree program is [url=<a href=“http://www.abet.org%5DABET%5B/url”>http://www.abet.org]ABET[/url</a>] accredited – this is particularly important for civil and environmental engineering.</p>
<p>If your son is competitive for admission at the schools you list, he would likely be competitive for “Engineering-Undeclared” at Berkeley. This would allow your son opportunity to explore and more easily change majors. The Blue & Gold Opportunity Plan will also make Berkeley cheap for you if “low income”. </p>
<p>A 710 math score will hurt his chances at top-tier Engineering schools if that ends up being the major he declares for himself. He really doesn’t need to add any more reachy schools to his list, since he is a little top-heavy already, but I would add Rice if class size is important.</p>
<p>Engineering does not revolve around small discussion groups, so I personally don’t quite see the need for small introductory classes. Some of my best classes, in fact, were large lectures. Looking back, I don’t see much correlation between size of class and quality of class. Just sayin. YMMV.</p>
<p>I visited Carnegie Mellon and although some first year classes are certainly larger, the fact that it’s a smaller school may be what you’re looking for.</p>
<p>I’m appreciating all the comments including those (like rogracer) that note that large classes may not be bad. If you are bright and you want to get through lower division classes quickly it may not matter. But . . . there is another aspect. I started studying engineering at UCLA in 79 (long story I switched to something else later). I had huge classes–many, NOT ALL, were no better than watching a video. TA discussions sections varied some good some not good. I know I would have preferred smaller professor taught classes which I later experienced. Sometimes TAs can be very good–if they have recently struggled through similar material they are in a position to help struggling students–but if they are “brilliant” and never had problems, they just “don’t get” why students are struggling and don’t know how to help them–whereas a good teaching professor with many years of experience with students of all types will know how to help each student, struggling or not in a smaller class.</p>
<p>A family friend who is Dean of Engineering at a local university reccomends Bucknell. Excellent engineering program ina smaller environment. Beautiful campus.</p>
<p>Look at Olin! Very small, good funding, unique academic design (no tenure, no separate departments), and consistently ranked in the top20 in a wide array of categories-- everything from best classroom experience, students study a lot, and best engineering at an undergraduate-only institution to best food, dorms like palaces, and happiest students. It’s project-based learning and their students can interact heavily (academically on interdisciplinary projects as well as socially) with students from two nearby colleges-- one a powerhouse business/entrepreneur school and one a top liberal arts college.</p>
<p>My friend toured and said it was pretty different but really interesting.</p>