<p>I've heard that Rose-Hulman has great engineering programs as well, at least according to USNEWS. I often feel that those rankings are biased in one way or another, but there's good correlation.</p>
<p>MIT is always an excellent option. The other schools that I was impressed with from that standpoint were</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd, Olin, Caltech, Stanford, Princeton, and in that order according to the Muddslinger rankings :D</p>
<p>We seem to have migrated south and west of your original starting position, but seriously, take a look at these schools.</p>
<p>Also remember that you can find MIT-class opportunities at just about any first or second tier engineering school, provided that you seek the right opportunities. If you're really into semiconductors, for example, you might want to look at Lehigh University. Since the school is less competitive, as an overqualified candidate you could pretty easily intern at their Center for Optical Technologies - a brand-new, 40,000 sq. ft. semiconductor fabrication, assembly and research facility. I took a tour after doing some introductory level research at the University of Wyoming and was awestruck at the sheer volume of million-dollar devices. So there's a little anecdote about opportunities :)</p>
<p>If you want to "go with the flow" to get your education, here's a (probably a very incomplete) list of peer institutions that would deliver a comparable education:</p>
<p>Mudd, Olin, Stanford, Caltech, Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia... yea the list goes on from there :)</p>