<p>Thank you for all your thoughtful replies.</p>
<p>First off, I am interested in mechanical engineering. Secondly, by city I mean any densely populated area that is known for its 'city life' (NYC and Chicago are my top two picks). Because my parents value academics over location, I will probably only attend a school in or near a city if it is really selective.</p>
<p>Currently, my top two picks (colleges I think I have a good chance at being accepted to) are Northwestern and UC Berkeley. Unless there is somewhere with a better ME program, it looks like these two options will bring me closest to the city.</p>
<p>I don't expect all my criteria to be met. I just want the right balance between academics and lifestyle.</p>
<p>How about BU. less selective then your other choices but could be a safety</p>
<p>George Washington in DC is very much in the city, and the internships you'd get there would be more unique than other cities. But they're not really well known for engineering</p>
<p>Northeastern University would be a good safety for you</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd, Cal Tech are near/in Los Angeles</p>
<p>stanford for sure for one of your reaches (it is for nearly everyone). They have the top mechE program in the country for this year, and ithas been going up in the rankings in the past few years. also look in to usc...alhtough this is for graduate, they made the top 10 cut this year for engineering overall. this probably says something about their ug eng. as well</p>
<p>^for graduate ranking, don't use overall ranking; look at department ranking instead. usc is top-10 in the overall ranking because of the criteria used; i have explained this in other threads before and it's a long story. the simple way to look at this is just recognize the fact that usc has no top-10 department and that its peer assessment scores given by deans and recruiters are relatively low. </p>
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any densely populated area that is known for its 'city life' (NYC and Chicago are my top two picks).
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<p>Given that the OP likes NYC/Chicago and San Francisco, Los Angeles is probably not a good fit anyway. Los Angeles is a huge city but it's also a very car-oriented one. The public transit is a joke; it's very differnt from the other three cities.</p>
<p>You can walk into Boston from MIT in about 15 minutes or bike in 5 minutes. Most MIT fraternities are actually in Boston. It is definitely urban.</p>
<p>^I agree. Boston is very similar to San Francisco.</p>