Love NU, which is where S24-5 is attending. However, I just posed your question to my University of Washington CS S20 who now works at Amazon. He said it doesn’t matter what he thinks, but objectively, Carnegie Mellon, Berkeley and Stanford have the best programs. He said NU isn’t even mentioned in CS circles and isn’t going to bring the prestige that NU would bring in other circles, as it would for my non-CS NU student, who is a dual degree music and liberal arts. My son said employers won’t really care where you’re CS degree comes from although there’s an advantage to attending colleges on the East coast if you wanted to go into finance; West coast, however, is where you want to be for the big tech jobs and connections.
In terms of financial aid, NU is need-based, no loan so we still qualified for aid even though we didn’t think we would. I’m actually pushing for S25 to apply to NU because with two in college, it may be cheaper for him to go to NU than to our state college.
Last thing, S20 didn’t get into his dream school and ended up in his last choice school which led him to CS (even though he just was in pre- med). He is so happy! If you do apply to your dream school, allow yourself to explore other interests. Make sure wherever you go has endless options for you just in case you change your mind. It happens often.