I agree with the other comment. Outside of top ivy schools, a degree is a degree. Try to find a college and program that match your interests and visit if you can. For environmental science, I'd want to know what sort of hands-on fieldwork they do and other out-of-the-classroom options. Take a look at their program descriptions.

CoA is a nice school but way over priced and from the people I know that went there, didn’t give them any kind of a leg up compared to other graduates. UNE is a good school but also very expensive. UMaine is well known for getting students hands on experience throughout their degree process. Honestly, what really sets one application apart from another after graduation is grades and hands on experience in and out of the classroom. Internships are everything in environmental sciences field. If you have any questions feel free to message me.

Hey there, I do not live in Maine BUT I do have a degree in environmental science.

Unfortunately, a degree is NOT a degree in environmental science. There is so much variation inbetween schools, and some schools are more rigorous than others.

If you end up in state or federal government work, they will usually check your classes and GPA, even 5+ years into your career. There are some unfortunate cases of this, where people with PhDs are missing undergrad classes for the job they want and they have to go take an undergrad class to qualify. I have seen this with wildlife biology PhD holders who are applying for entry level wildlife biology positions at the federal level with botany classes, because you need 9 (or 6, I can't remember) credit hours of botany to qualify for a federal wildlife biology position, and many undergrad programs don't require botany classes.

Take a look at the schools in question, and look at their curriculum. Take note of a couple things- do they have a good stats class? Do they teach GIS (geographic information systems)? Do they have topics you are interested in?

Also, sit down and think about what you want to do with this degree, because it's a very broad topic of study! Do you want to do soil science? Then make sure the schools have soil science classes! Water quality? Then look for water quality and aquatic ecology classes. Ocean? Waste management and recycling? Energy? Climate? Wildlife?

A note about wildlife- if you want to work in ecology/wildlife biology/zoology, do that major instead. All of these fields are very competitive, so having the right major is key.

Also, networking is VERY important in this field. Unfortunately, you often don't know how a school is about that until you get there or if you're lucky, you run into someone from those schools. I didn't go to them, so I can't answer that, I'm sorry. But! You can PM me with other questions, and I encourage you to check out r/environmental_science as a start, and potentially other places that relate to your interests within the field. There's a subreddit for everything these days!

In most fields once you have your feet wet with some work experience, where you got your degree won’t really matter all that much. Umaine is a decent school with a decent reputation, but it’s also in my backyard, so I might be biased.