<p>For someone considering engineering, VT or UVa will offer virtually identical long term opportunities as the privates and your ROI will be significantly greater. </p>
<p>The Ivy’s, with selected departmental exceptions at Cornell and Princeton, offer engineering programs that are measurably inferior to programs in the general sciences, humanities and SS’s AND inferior to engineering programs at any number of top state universities. </p>
<p>If you had an IB career planned, sure, there could be argued a ROI advantage holding that Dartmouth or Princeton sheepskin and alumni list of connections. If grad school in any form is on the horizon, you as an individual leaving a state school (though probably not your graduating class as a group) will fare just as well as you would with a degree from a better ranked private. The job you get will have almost everything to do with the quality of that grad program and your performance there - your undergrad experience a mere footnote.</p>