<p>There is a benefit to going to the best known schools, and there are costs to be overcome for going to lesser known schools, but both effects are smaller than people think. I think the hard decision comes in the marginal cases. In my view, the worst is to be in the bottom 10% of top schools. Your grades and self-esteem take a really big hit and you might not even finish. Conversely, if you're good enough to do well (say, the top 25% of Caltech, Harvard, or MIT) anywhere, you should go to a well-known school because contacts -- especially for grad school -- are unbeatable. It gets tricky around the middle. Then it really depends on your specific circumstances. The usual problem is balancing the greater resources, research opps and prestige of top schools, vs. academic competition and potential difficulty in getting good grades. On the other hand, if you're an ambitious kid it's really hard to move up from the mid-tier schools (say outside the top 50-100) if you want to get a PhD or get some high-end jobs.</p>
<p>If you value the challenge of having really first tier peers, go to the very best school. If you want to go to Med school, go to a good (not necessarily top) school where you'll get all A's. If you really know what you want to do, it makes sense to go to places with really focused programs, etc., etc...</p>
<p>The real irony is that if all you want to do is make money, school prestige probably matters the least. Good schools help get good jobs, but the real money is in entrepreneurship or sales and elite grads often don't want to take the necessary risks or get their hands dirty and they can develop unrealistic expectations that actually hurt them in the real world. And in medicine, I don't believe the grads of the lower ranked med schools do much worse financially than the grads of the top med schools. Conversely, it's in the academic jobs -- where the pay to effort ratio is smallest -- where prestige and contacts matter. Sure you can compensate by getting into a top grad school, but it's harder to get into those schools from outside the top two dozen.</p>
<p>But that's life: Different choices, different risks.</p>