The advice that in the end people initially pursuing diverse double majors generally end up having to choose one is generally sound. Indeed, when the interests are this diverse, it is a case of pursuing a double degree, as a B.S. is not a B.A. for a very good reason. As you point out, the advice may not apply in this specific case, but in my experience of advising incoming students, even in most potentially exceptional cases, the general norm rather than the exception prevails, and one can usually not be sure of the exception prevailing until after the fact.
If he is really intent on pursuing both, I would suggest Maryland. While generally one gets a better education by being challenged by the best peers one can find, so being in the top ranks of a school is detrimental, in this case I would think that it would be useful as the dual interests will prove challenging enough (this is spinning your post 56 in a direction which you anticipated but did not do). If, however, the Harvard Classics department is able to provide recent examples of students who have successfully pursued similar doubles there, this would reduce (though not eliminate) the relevance of the point.
That said, it has been said (I do not know how accurately) that the hardest thing about Harvard is getting in, which might eliminate the point.
Classics is also a good pre-seminary degree and if done well—integrating most, if not all, of languages, philosophy, literature, history, and patristic theology (there are a few programs that do include the last) —a very good degree for people who will be dealing with people. I am guessing that your son’s competence is in the linguistic end of things—today very good Latin or a level of Greek that exists is one of the goals of such a program, while a century ago, it was an admissions requirement.
I would also echo Mad Dawg’s concern on the quality of chaplaincy etc, and suggest that this, while generally relevant, ties particularlly into classics considerations, if the program is well-integrated. A few 20th century popes made the point that one’s education in Catholicism needs to be porportioned to one’s educational level, and that one major problem in society is that this is not happening, which applies across the board. In areas that are most pertinent to the faith, such as philosophy, it is doubly true. If the classics department does include a serious philosophical component, he should have ready access to a Catholic mentor who is competent in these areas. There is an Opus Dei presence around Harvard (or at least there was two decades ago and I doubt very much that it has gone away) which will include at least one, and probably multiple, people capable of aiding in this area—like every religious movement in the Church, Opus Dei has strengths and weaknesses, and philosophy is one of their strengths. The classics-engineering double actually sounds like classic Opus Dei (particularly the engineering).
Like Mad Dawg, I greatly respect the eastern province of the OPs, but given all that you have said about Hopkins, I doubt that would off-set the rest.
I have no idea about Maryland in the chaplaincy area, but this is worth considering and talking through. Especially if Maryland’s chaplaincy is awful and he opts to go there, the talking through can be profitable. I went to a school with a pretty bad chaplaincy, and for the handful of us that worked to change things, the experience was undoubtedly good (I went onto seminary and now teach theology) but a great many (most) fell away completely or became/remained cultural Catholics with cultural habits and virtually no belief.
I hope that is helpful.
I'm a little bit surprised at the expressions of skepticism toward a double major (or degree, as the case may be). The only school to which my son applied that discouraged this was Princeton, which flat-out said it isn't permitted. My impression of Washington University in St. Louis was that they weren't keen on the idea, either, but nonetheless, they have formal structures in place to support double majors.
Conversely, we've received nothing but encouragement from the other schools to which my son applied, including Harvard, Yale (where he was rejected), Hopkins, Notre Dame, Maryland and UVA.
We have been to several open houses at Hopkins, and a large minority of the students there double-major, often with one humanities field and one science or technology. In fact, our guide at one open house was a junior double majoring in biomedical engineering and something else (but I've forgotten).
Notre Dame actually has an entire program devoted to supporting students who double major in both STEM and humanities fields.
Maryland also has formal support structures for double majors, and the folks there have communicated that they're pretty happy about his choices.
As I may have mentioned before, my son's admissions officer from Harvard wrote my son a personal note of congratulations, and specifically mentioned his intentions to double major in classics and engineering, and that the school welcomed that. We think perhaps his intention to double major played a small role in his acceptance.
All of these schools make use of the results of the AP exams to either grant credit toward the degree, or to exempt students from introductory-level courses, making it much easier to get the upper-level credits needed for two major fields.
"If he is really intent on pursuing both, I would suggest Maryland. While generally one gets a better education by being challenged by the best peers one can find,..."
You may be underestimating Maryland a little. Although the general population of the university isn't near that of Harvard, the median CR + M SAT of the Honors College is 1410. Many of the courses these students will take will be Honors College-only with maximum enrollment of 20 students per class. The program to which my son was accepted, which is a subset of the Honors College, has a median CR + M of 1500. These folks will live together and take part in activities together during their time at the school.
Not everyone admitted to Maryland is a top-flight student, but the school is large enough to be able to attract and enroll a critical mass of such kids.
As for catechetical/theological concerns, I don't really have any. We're a homeschooling family, and we're used to DIY learning about and practicing the faith. If we'd have depended on the local CCD programs or local Catholic schools, my kids would be much weaker Catholics. In fact, when they were younger, our pastor (who approved their homeschool religious curricula every year) would remark, “I wish I could get our CCD program to do this stuff you're doing with your sons.”
I have little trust, and place no reliance on outside resources in this area. They have failed us to date, and there is no reason to think they're going to be any different moving forward.
Maryland is said to have a very active and healthy Catholic community on campus. That being said, I don't think it's particularly oriented toward a deep exploration of the faith, intellectually. I've been told, including on this thread, that Harvard has a thriving “underground” Catholic community.
“I am guessing that your son’s competence is in the linguistic end of things—today very good Latin or a level of Greek that exists is one of the goals of such a program, while a century ago, it was an admissions requirement.”
He's good with the languages. He wrote one of his application essays to Notre Dame in Latin. They accepted him, so it must not have been too bad.
He's also actually read a fair bit of the important works and authors, both Latin and Greek. He's studied a lot of history, and has studied the cultures of the classical world, as well. But he has a facility for languages. A little bit of time with them, and he's able to parse out the grammatical structures pretty quickly, and then, it's just about adding vocabulary.
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