Cathy - I'm with you on the ivies. If they work for you and you can afford them (particularly for an undergrad degree), more power to you. They are obviously wonderful schools, but you can get an equally good peer group and experience in many, many other schools depending on what you're going into. Unless my child was looking at an incredibly good scholarship situation, I wouldn't encourage them to go to an ivy for undergrad work.
I went to the Institute of Technology at the U of MN. I thought it was a great tech school. I loved the diversity there. There is something for everyone. I know nothing about liberal arts at the U of MN, but the tech areas were certainly full of GT people. It definitely felt like "home" to me.
