<p>I think it always boils down to the range of options the student is considering. The study I have often cited, Krueger and Dale, concluded that it does not make any difference w/r to career earnings success. However the study only compared students who were accepted to the very selective and chose to attend a selective college or university.</p>
<p>So for instance, my son was looking for merit aid and he had stats that were a match for colleges such as Cornell, JHU, CMU, Colgate, etc. He chose to apply to colleges a step below like Case, Rensselaer and Oberlin and was considering Rochester too. I doubt he was forfeiting anything significant with his choices either in terms of career "success" or the college experience.</p>
<p>Now if he had chosen to attend SUNY-Plattsburg or Oral Roberts it would have been an entirely different matter in my optinon.</p>
<p>BTW, this is the same situation with AA admissions. A non-URM who is bumped from a Harvard class will probably end up at a Brown, a Brown bumpee with probably end up at a JHU. Is there a difference? Very little if anything at all in my opinion. In fact the student may end up having a better college experience because of random happenings.</p>