Ask HN: Choosing a college

I'm a high school senior, and I can't see myself doing anything but technological entrepreneurship (although not necessarily software) for a career, initially anyways. I applied to the usual suspects in the fall, but was rejected from all the colleges that both seemed like good fits and offered good financial aid. (Stanford, MIT, Harvard, and Princeton) I thought my application was strong (2400 SAT, A average, placed in top ~50 of my grade nationwide in math competitions, strong history of programming projects, et al), but even Rice waitlisted me. Anyways, that’s irrelevant now, although I’m still curious as to what might have sunk me at those places. Now, I’m trying to figure out what to do with myself for next year. I know that I want an atmosphere of smart, driven, people (for both rub-off effect and cofounder potential) and professors I can both learn from and do good work with. The problem is that there’s no place I’ve been accepted to that offers all that and an affordable price.