Choosing a college
lleger: An important thing to note is that college admissions is really a terrible, fairly unscientific process.  You're clearly qualified, so getting rejected shouldn't be a terrible thing for you.To answer your first apprehension: being around like-minded people is incredibly important.  Graduating from one of the best high schools in the nation, I was around people who were intellectuals so there was always wonderful discussions to whet and kindle my growing mind.  Two years later, I'm at the local state university whose stigma is entirely accurate.  Few people—even in the honors college—are true intellectuals.  Living here has been an intellectual nightmare for me, and I can sense my acuity and mental agility suffering.However, I really didn't have a choice.  My family could not afford to send me anywhere else.  Basically, the situation I got stuck with was this: paying $40k+/year for a wonderful, private institution or paying $0/year (including room and board) and getting compensated a stipend for the local state university which still made USNWR's top-tier colleges list.And really, if you're going for engineering, then you're going to learn the same thing anywhere.  I'd argue that illustrious universities really aren't a frugal choice.  Graduating debt free is really going to free me up financially to start up my company instead of needing to find a job right out of school to fund myself.  Also, the local state university offered a lot of options for testing out of classes, so I'm graduating in three years, as opposed to four.One more thing to consider: student life.  You don't want to be miserable, even if it's cheaper or a better school.  I've known to many of my peers who went to their dream school and then hated their life.  Consider spending time on campus and getting familiar with the local scene.Good luck.