The biggest suggestion I can make about deciding which school for ME is best for you is to take a look at the school's course catalog and spot classes that you might find interesting. Especially look at electives, as these are often very different from school to school. You might need a good idea of what you might find interesting and what means what beforehand, but I don't think it will hurt to look.
Also look at other parts of the course catalog. Specifically, look at math, aerospace engineering, physics courses. Most schools let you take some electives outside of your major. This is how I am taking a combustion class even though the ME department doesn't have one for undergraduates.
If you're interested in possibly attending graduate school, take a look at current areas of research and make sure at least a few of them sound interesting to you. Some schools allow you to work on your Master's degree while you are finishing your undergraduate degree. Some credits will even double count. They have a program exactly like this were I go.
I'll offer my experiences with the University of Maryland, College Park. This might read like a rant, but I want to say it.
The mechanical engineering department is full of highly qualified researchers and educators. My main complaint is that my classes tend to cover less than what the syllabus states due primarily to some kids being stupid. I don't suspect that this is unusual for the majority of schools.
One of the guys who teaches the lower level engineering classes likes guns and will give a lecture on the basics of terminal ballistics when asked. He's a cool guy.
What UMD does well, they do well. But they absolutely fail in some areas, and I wish I understood this fully before I attended. I would have planned better at the very least.
Crime: College Park, MD has a fairly high crime rate. A guy robbed a bank the other day in broad daylight! That's still a rare event, but it says something about the area. I never expect to be robbed, but I acknowledge the possibility. I rarely carry anything of value.
Housing: UMD has the worst housing situation of any university that I am aware of. Perhaps only 1/3 of the undergraduate students live on campus due to a shortage of on-campus housing. Housing prices in the area are also absurd to the level of extortion. Expect to pay $500 to $1500 per month. I'm not certain that this is unusual for big universities with shortages of housing, but it's something to examine.
Traffic: Route 1 is often a parking lot. Drivers around here are absolute idiots too. My brother used to ride a bike to the university, but a week or two ago while he was riding on a crosswalk he was hit by a guy who ran a stop sign. The guy promptly drove off too. My brother's okay, but he's still recovering. This is just one example of people's complete incompetence in driving here. Also, on a similar note, parking at UMD is absolutely terrible. It's both expensive and inconvenient. I suggest riding a bike if you must commute while here. There are some excellent bike trails in the area.
The students: UMD is a fairly large public school. Many (perhaps most!) of the students are rich kids from Montgomery County, MD, New York, or New Jersey. Likewise, they are spoiled brats who can't seem to enjoy life unless they're drunk out of their minds and annoying someone else in the process. Maybe this fits you. It sure doesn't fit me. With this being said, as UMD is a large school, you can find normal people who think these others are silly.
Sports: I'm not big into sports, but I'm always amazed by those who are huge Maryland fans, especially in basketball and football. We do have some good teams like soccer, but the ones that get the most attention are basically terrible. Football had a 2-10 season last year. I joke that they could fire the football coach, pay me 1/4 of what he asked for, and I'd get the same results. Basketball was good at one time, but they stink now.
I suppose UMD might be good if you like to laugh about how bad some sports teams are.
There are many nice things I could say about the university.
They recognize that they have a very significant commuter population and they have a very extensive FREE bus system. I don't take the bus too often as it's usually crowded, but it's something to note.
I've also found the libraries here to be very adequate. Nearly everything I couldn't find here or in other universities in the University of Maryland system I could get via interlibrary loan for no cost. The only things I could not find were very obscure papers I did not expect to find.
There always is something going on. There are many little newsletters and websites that detail things happening on campus. I've often found that I'm angry I can't go to two events because they either conflict with each other or my schedule!
There are a huge amount of student groups, and starting one is pretty easy. So you almost certainly will find people with similar interests.
The university is near Washington DC, which opens up a lot of opportunities for employment. There are a lot of military research labs and defense contractors in the area. NIST in Gaithersburg is fairly close too. I've also found that getting a job in a lab on campus is very easy. To top it off, the engineering school has a career services place that runs little seminars on the entire process of getting a job (including tips on resumes, interviewing, following up, etc.), hosts employers from time to time (Google is coming next week! That's mainly for computer engineers, though), and runs a website where employers can post job openings (for summer internships, coops, and real jobs). This is one of their best services.
The location also is good if you want to go to something in DC. A lot of interesting things happen there, I hear.
So do I suggest UMD? Maybe, maybe not. I think it depends on what you want to get. Either way, I hope you find my post to be helpful, even if you only use it to focus on some problem spots I've identified.
