<p>Stanford and MIT have an edge in visibility in CS. Stanford is also local to Silicon Valley, an advantage for recruiting by smaller companies looking for CS majors (unlike GAFAM, smaller companies don’t have the resource to recruit everywhere).</p>
<p>However, you need to consider your personal fit, academic and otherwise, at each school. For example, MIT, Caltech, Chicago, and Columbia have fairly heavy core or general education requirements (not the same, of course), while Brown has no general education requirements beyond two courses designed as writing intensive courses.</p>
<p>Caltech in particular is reputedly extremely intense academically. Caltech requires high school calculus as a prerequisite; its frosh calculus course is proof-based (take a look at the lecture notes here: [[Ma1a</a> - Fall 13 - 14] - Calculus of One and Several Variables](<a href=“http://www.math.caltech.edu/~2013-14/1term/ma001a/][Ma1a”>http://www.math.caltech.edu/~2013-14/1term/ma001a/) ).</p>
<p>Non-academic factors include the social scene. Are fraternities and sororities, or similar organizations like Princeton eating clubs or Harvard final clubs, of interest to you, or something you would rather want to be small enough a presence that you can easily ignore them?</p>
<p>Do you prefer an urban, suburban, or rural environment? Stanford is in a suburban environment on the edge of a rural area (with hills and nice places to hike and bicycle), but some of the other schools are in big cities (with the usual big city life).</p>