Lay Person Prestige

[Pizzagirl]

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…that the people in Michigan who seriously consider leaving the state to go to college are a tiny minority, and that even the vast majority of the top students are content to stay in their home state for college…with mostly only the very tip-top out-of-state schools turning many heads

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<p>Thing is, it’s a little difficult to compare geographically small states with larger ones, but if you define a region as a whole, or maybe the mid-Atlantic states as a whole, the same can be said. The % of Northeast students who are <em>truly</em> considering leaving the Northeast isn’t all that huge. Heck, look at all the discussions on CC from Northeast students who just won’t consider anything past Pittsburgh or so. And look at all the discussions from CA kids who have kept their search strictly within California. Of course, there are different reasons for each choice, but most students in this country <em>still</em> prefer to stick close to home.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

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But it all makes sense. Why bother with Ivy-lust when you’ve got one of the world’'s greatest public universities—actually, one of the world’s greatest universities of any stripe—right in your backyard?

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<p>I agree completely for Michigan, and I’d say the same is true to a lesser extent for Illinois. No one looks askance at the valedictorian who goes to Illinois; no one thinks “oh, he should have looked farther afield” (further? not sure which is correct) The push to look farther is limited to a few school districts / elite schools, and / or if parents themselves had those ambitions.</p>