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We homeschool; I have graduate degrees from Harvard and Stanford; I am wary of “elite schools” generally.

NEVERTHELESS, if Harvard is offering money in a reasonable amount and your son has a strong worldview, the choice is Harvard. No question.

Here are some reasons not to worry about the relative merits of engineering programs: 1. Between 18 and 20 students often change their minds about majors. 2. the rankings of engineering and other programs mainly have to do with the strengths of the graduate programs. At the undergraduate level, students are getting a lot of math, science, and engineering basics. Given students of equal ability, the top 50 engineering programs are providing roughly equivalent engineering content to undergraduates. Worry about rankings of engineering schools for graduate school. 3. Harvard has very strong math and pure science programs. This matters for engineering because courses from these departments are a significant part of the undergraduate engineering curriculum. 4. There is increasing collaoration in programs and courses between Harvard and MIT in science and engineering. 5. More important than the ranking of a program is the intellectual “speed of the track”. Harvard students are on average much more capable intellectually than those attending Maryland (you can’t be serious about that one) or Hopkins.

Harvard also has a fine program in Classics.

Finally, rightly or wrongly, the name “Harvard” opens doors all over the world and across the US. The brand matters. Maryland adds no value in that respect, and Hopkins offers vastly less than Harvard.

Frankly, as much as I dislike elite schools, I fail to see how this can even remotely be seen as a close call.