<p>University of Arizona has a good engineering department. It would make a nice safety for you. Probably Univ of OK has decent engineering, too. However, that being said, I would imagine that you will get merit aid at one of the top schools you already have on your list. The best school for you would be MIT, but since it’s not warm and sunny, I would choose Stanford, Rice, CalTech or Harvey Mudd. Poke around the academic section of the web sites for these 4 schools and look at the course work - both required and elective. You may find a difference in the amount or nature of required courses. Check out the research being done by the professors in your dept and see if it appeals to you because you will be taking higher level courses early on and the better courses will be the ones taught by professors with interest in that area. For example, for computer science, if the research is in compilers and languages and like it is at Rice, those courses will be the best. Likewise, Rice is strong in bioengineering and nanotech.</p>