College

[9th Engineer]

Speaking as one of the few cellar members currently in college, don't throw away any sources of information. Just saying that rankings aren't total crap, they're guidelines to give you a starting point. The biggest things you want from a school are dedicated profs who have personal experience and high achievement in the subjects they teach, and connections to professional organizations and programs that you will want to use during your major. Most of the time, higher ranked schools have more stuff available to students, but do your research and look up what criteria the list is based on.

My personal advice? Avoid tiny schools that keep on harping about personalized attention. A tiny faculty-to-student ratio is really only useful for your first semester freshman year. If you're a good student who's motivated, you won't have a problem developing a relationship with your profs, they're on the lookout for students like that.
Small schools can hurt you in other ways as well. Here at U Pitt, the professors doing research generally laugh at the idea of taking students from tiny colleges because they find them too spoon fed and attention seeking. It isn't always appropriate to expect a personal relationship with your bosses. A big school will get your used to working on your own with a realistic level of guidance, not constant hand holding, that doesn't work in real life.

(Also, our medical school, which is #1 for transplants, really doesn't even consider applicants from the 'hand-holder U's)

Lots of activities might be fun, but after the four years people are going to want experience in YOUR area of focus. Being all over the board and never doing prolonged work in one area (multiple years) is taken to mean you can't focus yourself.