<p>Oh believe me, I wasn’t trying to say being at a place like Yale will help for grad school. You do get a bit of a boost for being at HYPSM-etc. but it no way compensates for the better gpa someone would have surely had at a “worse” school. I’m applying to law school now and I def know that I would probably be in a nicer position had I gone to a local school. </p>
<p>All I was saying was that if someone is planning to go out and do IBD at Morgan Stanley after they graduate, then taking a full ride at the local state over a Princeton is something one should think twice about. </p>
<p>That being said, I really can’t stress enough how secondary all these concerns (alumni network, job placement) are. People should just pick the school they think they’ll be happiest at. If that means taking FSU over Stanford because you like Florida or Chapman over Columbia because you hate New York, differences in prestige aren’t really close to as important as this board makes it out to be. </p>
<p>I know the vast majority of people on this board don’t view it like that and I’ll admit that I was part of that group when I was here in HS. College shouldn’t be a place to gun for a job, it really truly is some of the best time in your life and the least you can do for yourself is to choose a place you know, or at the very least think, that you’ll be happy at. I know its hard to view it like that right now but getting into Harvard really doesn’t matter that much in the end. Find a place you’re happy at and in the end, that’ll be where you’ll have the best experience. And no, being in the top 20 does not equate to being happy.</p>