<p>1) caltech, harvey mudd
2) stanford, berkeley
3) cornell, carnegie mellon, UIUC
4) purdue</p>
<p>This is in terms of quality of education.... not prestige... If you were to look at prestige then i am pretty sure stanford is at the top. But let me ask you this question: Will you rather go to a school with the BEST engineering/math/science programs in the country, or go to another school that has a higher prestige and better reputation globally? (Now i am not saying that Stanford is bad, obviously it is also very good, but i believe that it cannot be matched with the intense curriculum of caltech and hmc.</p>
<p>I would personally choose caltech and hmc above all, that is for engineering/math/science. Ciao :D</p>