<p>in my opinion if you go anywhere in the top 50 or so it's all about how well the schools fit you, and not how "elitist" (did you mean "elite"? elitist isn't a good thing; it means people act like they're better than everyone else) the schools are. i don't mean to impugn the caliber of the ivies but i don't think your chances of success will be seriously hurt if you go to berkeley over princeton.</p>
<p>that was beside the point... all i said was overall, princeton is a better school than northwestern and i found it weird that kyledavid thought otherwise... but of course good fit is what really matters.</p>
<p>Caltech is a lot better than Georgetown and Princeton is easily better than Northwestern. Caltech engineering is better than Harvard engineering though, so when you compare individual fields, things change. Berkeley is up there with Caltech and MIT for engineering and chemistry, but for other things (English aside), private schools might be better.</p>