<p>^I disagree. There ARE substantial differences in CS programs.</p>
<p>The only similarity between all those CS programs is that you will get a <em>good education</em> (in the most abstract sense).</p>
<p>There are varying degrees of research opportunity, workload, breadth of courses, CS student culture, special programs available to students, etc… </p>
<p>For example, I’ve heard that Stanford’s workload is less than UC Berkeley’s, which is less than MIT’s, and looking at its catalog, Caltech has fewer CS faculty and slightly less breadth compared to, say, Berkeley or Stanford.</p>
<p>However, I agree that you should try getting in first, and that other factors like quality of life play a much larger role in one’s decision.</p>