<p>Thing is, if the parents don’t know that USC would generally be considered prestigious, the people they’re going to want to impress aren’t going to be particularly knowledgeable either. </p>
<p>Are you looking for true “prestige” among the educated, or are you looking for “prestige” among people who believe that prestige only comes from attending a very small select group of universities? For example, just to pick on Haverford as one that comes to mind, Haverford has plenty of prestige among educated people, but it doesn’t have a lot of name recognition and hence prestige among the people who believe that prestige consists only of a handful of select colleges.</p>
<p>It’s rather like window-shopping and picking a handbag because it’s Louis Vuitton or Burberry and thus is well-known, as opposed to picking a handbag because it’s high quality and well-made. The LV and Burberry handbags may indeed be high quality and well-made, but so are plenty of other handbags.</p>
<p>“Prestigious” implies “impresses others.” The people who have the most social status in this country – for example, old-style High WASPs – never needed to chase certain schools in order to impress others. Part of being “prestigious” is not seeming to be too wrapped up in what other people think of your decisions.</p>