Thanks, everyone, for your continuing feedback.
Most responses suggest parents’ overall confidence that their teenagers will be fine regardless of where they are accepted. That there are no permanently “closed doors” or irreversible consequences from not being at a “top” school.
I think that’s true based on my experience of the world too, knowing that my most successful colleagues and acquaintances (measured by both meaning and $$$) didn’t necessarily graduate from the “best” undergraduate programs.
So then what do you think drives all the competition and obsession over admissions?
And all the time and effort and money spent on SAT prep and tutors and college advisors… It’s a tremendous amount. So what’s really behind the craze?
Why does everyone give this so much concern and so much attention and so much energy and so much anxiety, when it mostly evens out in the long run…?
What’s beneath all this?
Why all the fear?