It's also my impression, based on conversations with friends who are alumni of the school, that one of the primary criticisms leveled against Harvard is its lack of focus on the undergraduate school as opposed to the grad and professional schools. One good friend of mine, while very happy to have the Harvard name on his resume, was somewhat disappointed in the academic experience at Harvard because of that. Of the schools I'm most familiar with on your list, Swarthmore, for example, would be the very opposite of Harvard in terms of its attention to the undergrad experience.

It's funny that you say that specifically, I have a friend who's mom taught at Harvard for a stint who said the exact same thing. Said friend is very enthusiastic about Swarthmore, I really hope she gets in.

I do interviews for my undergrad college, and always advise people, once they've narrowed down their list using whatever criteria they've determined are most important to them, that they won't go wrong by going with their gut in choosing among the remaining contenders. Maybe that doesn't sound like rationalist advice, but again, this is after you've already applied your rational analysis and narrowed your list down to just a handful of schools.

That's how I chose to play the Clarinet instead Flute.

I find that I'm pretty easily swayed by college visits, in that I can easily imagine myself being very happy at every school I visited and applied to (Swarthmore, Harvey Mudd, CMU, USC, UMD). So I think I did a pretty good job of narrowing them down.

I need to do another analysis after hearing back about admissions and financial aid, though.

On the other hand, college visits provide a really good impression of what campus life is like, particularly social life and student's study habits. On top of that, little details like food availability and class starting time make a difference in day to day happiness, and pretty much don't get mentioned anywhere else.