<p>I would never be able to handle the pressure at a top school anyway. I honestly don’t think I was meant for such jobs like doctors/engineers/lawyers. I can say that people can say that they’ve worked hard to get to the college of their dreams, but prestige can only allow someone to brag so much. I’m sure there are cases where people have gotten into top schools and decided not to go there.</p>
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<p>Sure, but it gets nowhere near the national hype of HYPS. Different scales. Privates aren’t really considered by most in my school, and most kids (again, from my school, but I know this is true of other high schools without uberwealthy student bodies) who get into Duke end up at Chapel Hill anyway for financial reasons. For others, other in-state schools or nearby state schools that offer in-state tuition scholarships are the holy grail. </p>
<p>My point is simply that the super-elite schools aren’t on many people’s mind, and that their version of prestige is Chapel Hill, or USC (South Carolina), or App State rather than Harvard. Why? It’s cheap, and grads have grad opportunities, at least in the area.</p>
<p>^ I’ve always thought Chapel Hill as on the same level as Cal, Emory, UVA, and hell, Vanderbilt. Not too shabby! But I know what you mean–almost everyone who gets into Duke from my school (in GA) goes to UNC-CH too, even though my school is private already.</p>
<p>Pitzer College and Occidental College are as prestigious as I’m getting. I’ve been told I’m extremely intelligent (and that I would do well in terms of maturity and intelligence of the student body of top tier colleges), but I just can’t handle the workload. The work simply matters less to me than making a difference in the community… and I hate competitiveness. IMHO, it takes away from everything everyone could contribute to a college.</p>
<p>And I’m going to be a psych major, so it just isn’t worth it to go through a living hell for a brand name.</p>
<p>Though the prestige of the school I chose was definitely a factor in my decision, I would not say it was the main factor by any means. In my application process itself I didn’t much factor in prestige so much as I looked at schools which appealed to me for some reason or other (leading me to apply to a wide variety of schools–from Carleton liberal arts college in Minnesota to BU to Columbia, my current university). When so much emphasis is placed on getting into “top” schools, it creates unnecessary stress and fierce competition in admissions. A lot of kids don’t want to deal with that, nor do they want to deal with the tremendous workload and intense academic environments of top schools. Many kids I know who could easily have gotten into brand-name schools chose instead to attend big public universities, for whatever personal reasons. </p>
<p>Additionally, where I’m from, it’s an achievement just to go to college and get your degree. Most people think that it matters not where you get your degree from, so why bother with the extra expense (real or imagined–I often have to explain to people that my Ivy League education is cheaper than paying the in-state tuition to a Texas public university)? And indeed they are right. Most employers are probably looking for a degree, not necessarily the name of the school on the degree. Therefore the idea of NEEDING to attend the most “prestigious” colleges only really exists in certain places (such as, from what I’ve observed, the ridiculous worlds of private schools) and is by no means reflective of the entire body of students applying to college. </p>
<p>On a final note, it should be said that your own actions, rather than the “quality” of the school you attend determine your later success. The woman who interviewed me for Harvard had started off at a community college in New Mexico and was about to start working on her Ph.D. after recently attaining her Master’s at Harvard. Just some food for thought for any kids out there who think that the rest of their lives depend on which school they get into.</p>