Well basically universities for very wealthy people and more famous than some others are not that tough in USA, they are having a softer attitude towards edcuation meant for the softer lott, that does not mean that they should not be chosen for this reason.

If you see the best research journals from US unviersities in Engineering they are unsually from the universities in USA who are not among even top twenty(althouhg mine one was at 13th no then in civil Engineering:-)) but this is a fact.