One can also search Inside Higher Ed’s website with the school name for some intel.
Update on my son’s friend - he did get into Cal!
Colleges and universities commonly are in the midst of developing or implementing a strategic plan. Usually it can give one a sense of institutional priorities. Can be revealing. The student newspaper or local newspaper might even cover it and related controversies. Sometimes meeting minutes from various college committees or shared governance groups are also online. Poking around in these documents can alert you to issues you might want to learn more about as you consider the school. Also, Glassdoor.com can be revealing. Take everything with a grain of salt, of course.
@Ballerina016 - in terms of where people end up after MIT - both DH and I are from “flyover” country and we met at MIT, then went to Caltech for grad school after we married. We visited Stanford for grad school possibilities too, but did not actually like it as much as Caltech for fairly frivolous reasons (climate, architecture). Of the places we’d lived, and some we had not but visited with job offers (e.g. Seattle, Philadelphia) - we loved the Boston area the most, and by then I did have some family who had relocated here, so we came back.
I don’t think you can predict where your kids will end up - lots of my MIT friends did return to their home states (NY, FL are where I know the most). Some will follow jobs, particularly in academia. And yes, some do stay in the Boston area. If your daughter marries my son and she wants to move back to southern CA, I will encourage it and also retire there to never have to shovel snow again, but I can’t help beyond that. 
One of my worries is that if DS goes to Princeton, he may end up living in the NYC area which I don’t like much for a variety of reasons. But that’s way down the list of issues for SS Indecision!
@Undercovermom1 - you should call the school’s health plan people - I did this for P and it was very helpful. They said that all students can use the services within the P health center regardless of coverage, and the school’s plan is only for outside-of-school providers, for which our Blue Cross would work fine as well (and can avoid “balance billing” if they are in the local BC network). I believe MIT is similar. However, Yale seems to be different.
Being that we are talking about decisions, here’s our dilemma. S wants to go into investment banking(IB). Cal has one of the best business schools (Haas) in the country and makes it much easier to enter into such a difficult field. S likes UCLA and will major in Business Economics. UCLA is not as attractive to Investment Banks as Cal and places a much smaller number of students in IB (15-20 in comparison to around 100 @ Cal). He likes UCLA because of its location, he knows people there, and feels like it will be fun. I had him talk to some business major students at Haas and they all told him to go to UCB, but he still wants UCLA. If he goes to UCB we lose the Regents and the cost is $8,000/year which W and are okay with, but if he changes majors then we paid more than we needed to for his degree. So, should I try to convince him to go to Cal, or just let him choose UCLA because it’s where he wants to go, even though he may never get into the field he wants?
This may be all for naught because if he gets into an Ivy next week he says that’s where he’s going. Why can’t he just chose Berkeley? It’s got a great program and only a day’s drive away. And home cooked meals at @AsleepAtTheWheel house
Be careful with the health services’ service, though: Kid was told he needed a vaccination shot required by state of Mass, so he said OK and had them do it. $180.00 with no chance for reimbursement as our plan does not contract with the school. Thought he knew to call me so I could send him to a local doc, but school health services was right there, and they offered. So…
@Mysonsdad - my first thought was to let him pick UCLA which is cheaper, closer, and what your S wants. However, what I know of Investment Banking is that it is one of the very few areas where “prestige” of the university can matter a great deal in getting jobs after graduation. So that would point to Berkeley. I would worry about the 8K if it is not doable, but I wouldn’t worry about “having paid more than you had to” - he’ll get a great degree at Berkeley regardless of the eventual major.
On the other hand, if your S is the kind of self-starter who can go get an internship at the Pacific Stock Exchange or similar, and make it happen, then UCLA is certainly no small potatoes in the world of employment.
And then as @AsleepAtTheWheel says, kids don’t always predict accurately what they want to do. In my experience, this is extra true when the goal is something like IB or medicine or something that sounds glamorous but has a lot of dues to pay along the way. If a student is positive she wants to do physical therapy for race-horses (ok I made that up but maybe it exists) or something very specific and off the beaten track, it’s more likely to “stick” from what I’ve noticed.
@Mysonsdad I’m not from CA so it is hard for me to comment on the merits of the two schools but it seems to me if he really wants UCLA and that is where he thinks he’ll be happy he should go there. He is more likely to thrive and succeed at a place that makes him happy. I don’t read your post to mean he won’t ever get into the field he wants - just that he may have to work harder at it to make it happen. And, as we all know, sometimes what the kids want changes once they are in college.
@fretfulmother - isn’t Cal going to be quite expensive?
@texaspg - if you mean for my son’s friend? Yes, Cal will be expensive, but I don’t know if that is a problem for the family. Both parents are employed and they were planning to pay for MIT/etc. so would it be different?
@fretfulmother I knew this forum was very helpful, but you just added a new dimension! Love your plans =D>
@fretfulmother - wasn’t sure what their financial situation is in terms being full pay for Cal. MIT might provide FA to people at much higher income levels but California recently started talking about cutting off all FA for OOS. There is an entire thread on CC discussing that.
@mysonsdad I thought your son was interested in cybersecurity earlier last year. Do I have him mixed up with another student ?
@fretfulmother that is exactly the way I feel. Prestige matters. Just an fyi, the Pacific Stock Exchange closed in 1986. My dad used to work there. It then became a nightclub called “The Stock Exchange.” Just some trivia.
@kittymom1102 :-bd great love story of your son with MIT, celebrate that reconciliation!!! =D>
@crowlady I understand, UMBC might not be the best for your son…
@sseamom great post of pros and cons, and I also loved the story of success among so many difficulties you posted earlier, thank you
@fretfulmother congratulations to your son’s friend, what a relief to have such a wonderful option. Is your son leaning more towards Princeton than MIT?
@carolinamom2boys, no, you have the rigbt kids. He got a scholarship to our local college and if he decided to go there he said he would major in cybersecurity
Question to all: we just got a letter (dated 3/21/16) in the mail from the financial office at an ivy, requesting two documents that are missing. We never got an email or any message in the portal before the letter arrived today. We’re wondering why we get notified so late? And by snail mail? Any thoughts as to what it could possibly mean? Would any university bother sending snail mail so late in the decisions process? we don’t want to keep our hopes up but if anybody has any experience with this please share it! thanks
@texaspg - oh, yes, I had a vague understanding of Cal’s aid changing, but it didn’t affect us so I didn’t pay attention. I’ll ask my DS and follow up!
@Mysonsdad - I didn’t know that about the PSE - we went on some field trip from Econ in about 1995 from Caltech; is there some other economic thing it might have been to? Since I’m a person very far removed from IB, the nightclub sounds slightly preferable to me provided CA has anti-smoking policies like we have here in MA. 
OK you all now have me dreading my LAST FLIGHT OF THE DAY tomorrow and Wednesday. X_X