Apparently, cost is not too much of a concern for you. If you enjoy a high degree of school spirit and the college experience, definitely consider a school in a big sports conference such as the PAC 12 (Stanford, UCB, UCLA or USC in CA, Univ. of Wash); Big Ten (Univ. of Mich, Illinois, Purdue), Big 12 (Rice, Univ. of Texas), ACC (Georgia Tech, Duke), etc.
S, after freshman year, transferred from a UC to USC. Coworker’s D chose Univ. of Wisconsin (Big 10) over a UC. S’s friend, CA residence, is choosing Purdue computer science over UC San Diego computer science for this coming Fall freshman year. With the big time sports, it is like day and night. If the UC’s were UCB or UCLA, both with a high degree of school spirit, maybe going to another school would not have happened.