Things may have changed since I was at Purdue, but what @ucbalumnus says about Purdue wasn’t true then and I don’t think it is now. CS is not part of the school of engineering at Purdue. It is in the school sciences and the path from freshman engineering to CS will involve a transfer application. Unless you are thinking Computer Engineering, which is in the school of engineering. I’ve said this before when people use the “you don’t even know if you’ll get into the engineering school you want to after Frosh Engineering” argument. The benefit of this system is not what is experienced at schools that have open direct enrollment into a program like say Computer Science at UMD. My eldest is a student there and there are way too many CS students at UMD for the department to handle effectively. At Purdue, you will not face that after your first year. The department is sized to a certain amount of students. So, if you study to learn and try your best you will most likely get your department choice. If you make wrong choices (like I did) you won’t, or are less likely to do so.
Purdue also has a great innovative thinking President who has managed to keep tuition the same price for 7 straight years and offered innovative ways to offer aide in the form of interest free future donations once you are in the job market to replace interest barring loan programs.
Also, nationally, I think Washington and Purdue will have a better rep then UMASS and WPI. In the highly populated NE, maybe the other way around or at worst all are equal.