Following up on my own Reply 243, I think there is a blessing in disguise in the slaughter we have seen in the 2018 results especially. Now, there was a similar slaughter for EA/ED cycles particularly, by the Ivies, around 2004, but that one was on a smaller scale. We seem to be on the tail end of the Echo Boom and at a time when ambition is more broadly a factor, and when colleges are encouraging/recruiting new populations into their student bodies. Many of the most ambitious students also live in the most competitive regions and thus have been victims of the slaughter, including at the hands of public universities. Very often, wherever these highly qualified students are ending up is at a 2nd tier U or campus, and they, like parents who went to Directional State, will have to make the most of it. They will have no choice to rely on the brand name of the school; they will have to make a name for themselves, by themselves – there or in graduate or professional school.
The difference between these students and their parents at the same age is probably just a matter of critical mass. If there are enough successful students who come out of their less-preferred college choice, they will become both the example and the spokespeople for students to follow. There will be enough of them to be able to say, “It really doesn’t matter.”