I've posted this in comments a few times, may deserve its own thread:
I have a friend that is a project leader at a very prominent engineering firm. They run internships and used to take applicants from Harvard, MIT, and more local state schools. Over the past decade or so they have completely dropped the Harvard & MIT students. He said they're useless. Even in these STEM fields they don't teach the students how to do actual engineering. Instead, the students started coming in and demanding to do projects on "racism in engineering" and garbage like that. They refused to do the projects that they were brought in to do, and whatever basic engineering tasks they were assigned to do, they fucked up. We're talking extremely basic stuff here. Everyone got tired of hearing about 'patriarchy' and 'race theory', so they took all the internship slots and started giving them to the state school kids that probably come from working-class backgrounds. Those kids actually had work-ethic and knew what they should.
What curriculum, or what is he interested in? That can change what school he should go after.
In the South/East, Virginia Tech, NC State, Georgia Tech have (had) great programs and they have loads of programs to network students into a pipeline for great companies.
Almost any good state school will be good, it's all about what the student wants to study, and making sure that's relatively in alignment with the school program.
For now, he likes electrical engineering, but he likes chemistry and is taking AP Chem currently. He has only had one programming class, but it's not like he's seeking it out in his free time. We have V Tech on his list, but were turned off because GT is in Atlanta. He lives in quiet suburbia now lol. Thanks for the ideas.
VT is a solid school. College town that dies when school is not in session. Good connection to giant corporations.
NC State is similar, good city and a feeder to RTP (Research Triangle Park) which is a computer, biotech, pharma, Electrical Engineering hub. Lots of opportunity.
For majors, chemical engineering is solid but can be hard to get started into industry unless you go pharma or get on with a big company. You really don't use a CHE degree. Electrical engineering has great opportunities.
Thanks so much for the feedback. My husband and I have medical backgrounds, so engineering is not something we know much about.