Not only are you competing for that hackathon's prize, you're competing for the reputation of the entire school. I imagine HackRU will be extra competitive.
Question for HN people: Do you associate the word hacking with computer security? I know I do, and it took me a long time to find that the website was talking about hackathons and not computer security.<p>Sidenote: rewarding students for travelling seems to bias the scoring in favor of densely populated places like the NE.
I might be slightly biased, but I think Rutgers has the best shot here with their hackathon being 1 of the 2 remaining. Carnegie Mellon is hella far away, and Rutgers has an enormous community. Strong attendance could put them in the lead.