@Sue22, some of those big named scholarships are big honors and offer perks and special opportunities in and of themselves.
Even using a very generous definition of what is a Near-Ivy, excluding the military academies, there are probably less than 1000 full-tuition/full-ride merit scholarships at Ivy-equivalents/Near-Ivies in total a year. Compare with 7000 matriculants at HYPSM each year. Each of the schools in the USNews top 30 that do offer big merit scholarships only give out a handful (roughly around 20-30, give or take) each class. That goes for gigantic schools like UMich as well, meaning less than 1% of undergrads there get those.
And I have no problem making it about the scholarship. A scholarship is something that a kid earns through his/her efforts.
This thread was started by someone whose daughter is trying to fight the prestige monster with her friends bragging about the schools they are heading to.
And it is possible that some families in that position can actually afford the top school, but choose not to. Considering the pretty high income limits for financial aid.
Every kid is different. One might do much better at a state university honors or otherwise, and some might really respond to the atmosphere at HYPSM.
For some kids the financial barrier is a loss to be acknowledged and for others they move right on.
The problem with this thread is the focus on prestige which is not a good reason to feel good or bad but a false motivation from the start.
(Also we should not make judgments on the value of people based on their school or their GPA or even about who is “smarter…” What is “smart” anyway? I had two at Ivies and one at community college and I would not say she is less smart; in fact she is extraordinarily insightful. I love Gardner’s book on the many kinds of intelligence. )
I was in the military & started taking classes as this local college. In the field I was interested in, they had one full-time professor & one part-time professor, neither of whom had a PhD. I graduated and applied to 4 universities. I got in
Obviously, attending a college purely for prestige is not wise; I would think that College was a good fit also. Similarly, attending a college which gave you the most money might not be wise if that College was not a decent fit also. If we focused solely on the merit money, we would have persuaded our kid to go to UNLV which gave COA and more. Obviously, some other factors have to be considered than just money. But I also see nothing wrong with going after prestige or money or purely fit or combo. Parental love and guidance is way more important to kid’s success than going to top schools. Getting merit money is like an athlete getting scholarship based on his athletic achievement. There are many like my kid attending one of top schools who could not get good merit money from top 50 colleges. This is different from getting merit money from Honors Colleges. Whoever is able to do so is an excellent student and in some sense more likely to succeed.
I know folks who went to Ivies and, yes, they feel it did make a big difference in the course of their lives, and others who went to Ivies and their lives don’t seem to be going that great. It really depends on the person and I think things would have gone that way for those individuals no matter where they went. The road less (or more frugally) traveled can be delightful. Is anyone else shocked at how brazen many parents are in apprising others of the accomplishments of their children? It can be difficult to know how to react sometimes!