Hooray for your family, Carolyn! That's great! It's fun when neighbors comment that they see our entire family running! I never would have predicted that 5 years ago! Good luck looking at engineering schools! What kind of engineering is your daughter interested in? She might think about the University of Texas - it's highly ranked in quite a few branches of engineering, and Austin is a fabulous town. On the College Confidential website, several parents posted trip reports for UT. They were all positive. A couple of people said they had thought of UT as a safety school, but once they visited, they were thinking about it as their first choice. What is CU like? My dad got his engineering PhD there, but that was in the early 60s. DS thinks he's interested in biomedical engineering or medicine, but who knows?? He's always been fascinated with the human body, so we'll see! Academics definitely come first, with affordability a close second! From my experience, and talking to college professors, I think undergrad is not NEARLY as important as grad school. A biology professor at Bowdoin told me she thought kids should just get a basic undergrad education, and then shoot for a highly-ranked graduate program. I'm going to have to practice deep breathing for the next year or so, I think. I never thought I would be the uptight, hovering parent, but I am.