Reality is that there are a lot of good schools and the differences are often not that great. But it is often program by program, I went through Engineering. At the time there was Cal Tech and MIT and after that a group of about 20 that were pretty much at the same level. All (or almost all) of the Engineering programs in the original BIG were in that top 20 group, including NU. The better fit was often more of the nuances of the individual programs rather than their ratings which were all about the same. At the time NU was a better fit as students got a little broader background. I was also from a smaller town and the smaller size fit me better, But the overall quality of the education is pretty similar. I can especially say that also because of my work with Engineers out of a lot of programs. I cannot speak for other schools at NU, but I can definitely say that unless those nuances are important to the individual in Engineering there is not really an advantage in going to NU over other BIG Engineering schools (at least in the original BIG)
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