<p>Well, if you’re going in to engineering, Mines is a fine option, so you can chill (still don’t understand why decisions are nerve-racking or why colleges are a problem if you got in to a good school for your interests; care to explain?), but if finances aren’t a concern, you could consider applying to other schools that are easier for internationals to get in to than your targets but are still highly regarded for engineering such as UW-Madison, UIUC, Purdue, and GTech. Their list prices for internationals are slightly lower than NU/WashU/UMich/CMU as well.</p>
<p>BTW, if you’re worried about being among academic peers, be aware that the kids in the top engineering schools will generally be as smart as the kids at many top schools (and employers know that).</p>
<p>For instance, the average ACT of entering UIUC Engineering students is 32+ (<a href=“About | The Grainger College of Engineering | UIUC”>http://engineering.illinois.edu/about/</a>) . . . which is the same as CMU’s average ACT (<a href=“Carnegie Mellon University Overview | CollegeData”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=204</a>) and higher than UMich’s average ACT (<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=379”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=379</a>) though no doubt the ACT score of the average UMich Engineering student is higher than that.</p>