While many kids will bloom where they are planted, if there was no such thing as “fit” there would be far fewer transfers. FWIW, I can’t se DS#1 at DS#2’s school and vice versa.
Despite being unable to visit a college campus during my admissions season, I was able to decipher which school was the best fit in every sense. As soon as I got on campus, my hunch was confirmed.
@mackinaw: I’m a new parent on college confidential, and I was interested in your post last month about fit, in which you said your son wanted a school where it is “OK to be a thinker.” Would you be willing to share some of the other schools (besides U Chicago) that he considered? Intellectual climate is an important criterion for my son (current HS junior), and we are looking for options that may be more realistic/safety level (so far he is interested in schools like MIT, Brown, Reed, Pomona but even with top grades, multiple AP/college level classes, high test scores and solid extracurriculars, we realize he can’t count on admission to any of these and are looking for a wider range of options to include on his list). If you’d be willing to share your son’s list, that would be very helpful! (And if other parents have suggestions, I’d appreciate it too… & we don’t need a major league city :-).
(I realize U Chicago is a reach, but was hoping that some of the other schools on your son’s list might be more realistic)
If you offered me the choice of a free Corvette or a free Honda CRV–and the proviso was that I’d have to drive that car every day for four years–I’d take the Honda. That’s fit.
^ Especially if it’s a Honda Fit. 
@LBad96 you found out that your school is a good fit, but you don’t know that the others wouldn’t have worked for you, nor the 2000 colleges you never applied to.
I have two kids who could have made any school work. They went to 3 different high schools and made those work.
Yes, kids can make it work at any place. And my D. said exactly this: " I will do fine anywhere". But if you want them to fully enjoy their HS or college or even Grad. school, to have well rounded life in environment where they also can grow personally, it better be not just a good fit but the best fit possible. I had to step in when D. was choosing her HS. She was heavily leaning towards one based on one criteria - existence of the sport team where she would continue with her sport club friends. I did not see her being generally happy at this all girl school and I finally prevailed, which took very long time to accomplish. She thanked me many times over. She said that her HS was in fact a perfect place for her. The happy kid was able to graduate #1 in her class. Going forward, she herself used this approach choosing her college. She considered ONLY her criteria, she did not listen to her GC, she did not share much with her friends either. She researched heavily and visited many times with overnights. She in fact still think that she attended at the perfect place for herself. Again, the happy kid graduated as a top pre-med in her class and was accepted to multiple medical schools and had hard time deciding. And once again, she researched heavily, attended the Second Look events and apparently choose the one that fit her personally the best as after graduation, she was able to match to her first choice of residency in the very selective specialty, the one that had a match rate of only 60%.
I do not have any other experience to share. I have only one. But for my D., the fit was in fact extremely important. If a pretty campus makes a difference, if it is able to elevate a spirit, why not? Go for it among other criteria.
@twoinanddone if you’re referring to academics, then yes, you are certainly correct; everywhere else I had gotten into was also a good fit (even if some would have been a bit easy for me). But socially, I don’t think I applied to a better place for me.
I can tell you without any uncertainty that Rutgers, Ole Miss, Alabama, UAlaska, etc wouldn’t have been good fits at all. Lol. 