Lisa, you already have children on both coasts, so I’m sure you have reasons for focusing on California. I’m interested in how your visit to Harvey Mudd goes. It would seem like a great match. Cal Tech is a reach for anyone, but it has the advantage of being closer to top medical facilities in LA. Although these are both highly competitive, she has the advantage of being female in an engineering world where more than 75% of undergrads are male. Colleges would like it to be 50:50, so doing the math , it’s obvious that she can compete for admission at even the most competitive colleges.
Speaking only from my point of view, if I had a daughter with a rare genetic disorder, I’d want her to be in Boston because that’s where the best medical facilities in the world are and where they are doing cutting edge medical research. I am admittedly biased because my wife is in remission from cancer after being treated at Dana Farber over the past year or so.
Coincidentally Boston also has extraordinary opportunities in engineering. My list would start with Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering. It’s only 25 years old, but it’s like no place else. It’s tiny (about 400 students), but it’s not isolated. It’s campus is an extension of the Babson College campus and the two schools have shared facilities and cross registration. Combined, they have an undergraduate enrollment of almost 3000. They also have cross-registration with Wellesley College, 2 miles across town via campus shuttle, and with Brandeis University 20 minutes away.
Olin’s collaboration with Babson was important from its inception although they have remained separate institutions. They share the same philosophy of integrated, hands on learning. Olin was founded in response to a call from the National Science Foundation for a reform in engineering education, which saw that engineers needed to have business and entrepreneurial skills, creativity, and a recognition of the social, political, and economic context of engineering. Their educational model focuses on students working in teams in the same way that engineers in industry do. All of what I’ve just described is also a hallmark of education at Babson College. You can find more here: https://www.olin.edu/about/history/founding-precepts
Practical details include the fact that Olin has a major in Electrical & Computer Engineering, all students receive a scholarship, and it is very difficult to gain admission (16% acceptance rate last year). Your daughter is a very strong student and as I said above, females are in demand at engineering school but are also in short supply. Supply and demand.
Another small engineering college in the Boston area is Worcester Tech (4700 undergrads) Not as difficult for admission and not as close to Boston (45 miles). We had a young woman from California post here last year, who turned down Cal Poly SLO in state in favor of WPI because she fell in love with it after visiting there. She’s now a happy freshman there with no regrets. MIT (4600 undergrads) and Tufts (6500) are always better known engineering options options in the Boston area. Neither is large. An interesting contrast is that the engineering school at Tufts, the larger of the two, has about 600 students, only slightly larger than Olin.
Best of luck with your search. Your daughter sounds like an incredible young lady. Any college would be lucky to gain her interest.