What Criteria Should a Young Hacker Apply to College Choice?
stcredzero: Don't choose a college.  Choosing a college means you are choosing a particular brand of credentials.http://www.paulgraham.com/credentials.htmlInstead, the best thing to base your choice on is people.  The next best thing is environment.  Are there particular professors who you look up to who would want to mentor you?  Is there a high potential for meeting the kind of people who will inspire you?  Do you have good evidence that being in that environment will inculcate something valuable?  (And starry-eyed reminisces of an alum are not good evidence.  Lots of things can happen at an institution in a decade or so.  Get current information.)(Another way to put it -- the reputation of a school is marketing.  Doesn't it seem wise to corroborate that with more direct measures of value?)