Hi Clark,
My younger daughter�s major is ORFI (Operational Research and Finical Engineering), one of departments in Princeton engineering school. So far so good, I have not seen any sign that she is going to switch to something else.
One thing that is a bit special about your son is his age. Both my daughters entered colleges at age 16 (my older one is at Harvard). But they are a bit older than your son and they are girls which is less an issue socially. Despite their age, I have not seen any problem with their ability interacting with people older than they are. Both had a lot of practice in middle and high school. You should take your son�s age and school�s social environment into account with college decision (CalTech has fewer girls :-)).
I would also watch out for those study abroad and foreign travel programs these schools may offer. It may be too early for your son to do those things at age 16 or 17. My older one traveled to Spain and Portugal for 2 weeks alone in Freshman winter break. Living in hostels and changing cities every two days. I did not have much contact with her through that time except occasional e-mails. Then she went on to an summer internship in Russia on Harvard's grant. She studied Russian and did some works for Russian Railway for 2 months. What we did not know at that time was that she traveled on trans-Siberian train alone from Moscow to Beijing which took a week. She disappeared into Mongolian wildness for several days with a couple European kids whom she met on the train. Don't get me wrong. I am proud of what she had done, but things could go bad easily.
