<p>Making a big deal about a college is what this site is for, after all. People who are content to attend open-admission community colleges have little reason to visit a site like this, so you get a biased sample of the population of parents and college applicants. </p>
<p>It seems to me that the answer to your question is "It depends." I think for some applicants, going to the most selective school that those applicants can get into makes more sense, for career development, for social networking, and for just plain fun, than going to the most easily entered college. For some other applicants (one example would be people like Bill Gates who were rich before they started college), it probably makes little difference whether one goes to college at all. I know my friendly local state university will admit my children, and that they can be gainfully employed after attending State U, but I think they might enjoy and gain from the experience of going out of state to school, PERHAPS at a highly selective school (which might, oddly, be more affordable for us than the less selective schools). Reasonable minds can differ on this issue. I congratulate all the young people who grow up and learn to lead independent lives.</p>