<p>My son was accepted at UChicago but not at Northwestern last year. Seems completely arbitrary to us. He chose the full ride at Auburn in Chemical Engineering. I doubt spending all the extra money to attend Northwestern or UChicago (which doesn’t even have an engineering degree) would be an unnecessary expenditure. If going to a “top tier” school is important for non-academic reasons–e.g.,making connections, the"prestige", etc.–and money is no object, go for it. For us Auburn fits the bill and the educational experience at the Honors College is as good as NU or UC.</p>