In CS, you won’t have trouble getting internships because of location, and commuting into Boston daily from Brandeis would be a long trek (it’s not really conveniently close), so I don’t think its location is too much of an advantage. I had it on my list originally but it quickly fell off. It’s also not incredibly strong in CS. For a comparable school, I would say BU would offer more or less what Brandies does with a better location for you and a better CS program from what I know of each.
Glad to hear on NEU of course! I wouldn’t say I seriously dislike anything, but there are minor annoyances to be found anywhere. When it comes to certain things, there can be a lot of administrative bureaucracy here - you can pretty much do whatever you need to, but it may take 4 different meetings and being referred around until you find the person that can actually help you with what you need. It’s referred to as “The NU Shuffle”. Given the complexities of co-op (and how that fits together with financial aid, changing your schedule, graduation, etc), I think it’s understandable. It also shows through in stuff like the housing lotto, etc. In pretty much every case I’ve heard, it works out in the end at least.
While I would of course would be very biased and would love to recommend applying ED, my caution against it in your scenario is that I think you have the ability to reach even higher, and it would likely not feel good to get an acceptance to Harvey Mudd but get stuck in ED, especially given that you won’t have a financial excuse out of it since you will be able to afford it. I think if you visit and apply EA, Northeastern will be a high match for you, not a reach.
I don’t want to give you too much confidence because you never know in admissions, and the other situation of “I missed all of my reaches” is a fair concern too. It’s also early in the existence of ED for Northeastern, so it’s unclear how much o a boost it gives. Here’s how I would frame the question of ED at Northeastern: Which is the worse scenario - getting into a school like Harvey Mudd after being accepted ED, or being rejected from both and going to (insert your #2 option with higher acceptance rate here)? The answer to that comes down to how you see Northeastern compared to your #2 below it, and how much more you like your reaches.
Your list has a lot of similarity to mine when I applied - it came down to an EA acceptance at NEU while awaiting decisions at Stanford and Mudd. In the end, the gap between how much I liked NEU and those two was pretty small, while I really preferred NEU to the other schools where I was accepted. Depends on your situation.
Hopefully that helps you weigh it all a bit when it comes time to decide! Of course, I’d highly recommend Northeastern and especially for CS. There’s been discussion of the list upthread, which is biased towards large programs and those close to Silicon Valley. That list is actually a reflection of all employees, which means it’s a bit dated. They also crunched the numbers on new-grad hires, and Northeastern ranked #21 there despite located on the east coast. I think that speaks a lot to Northeastern’s strength and rise in CS.
Glad my posts were helpful! Feel free to message me with any more questions about these schools - I looked at a lot of them personally and have friends/coworkers that go/went to a few of these (BU, WPI, RPI, U of Michigan, RIT). Of course, visiting yourself is always preferable 