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<p>I’m sorry, but this seems extremely reductive to me, and I’m wondering what you’re basing your conclusion on. Your son’s experience is interesting, but it’s not entirely analogous, since it seems he went to a large-ish U. There’s also the fact that your son is one person who had one experience; it’s great to hear he’s thriving now, but it seems a leap to extrapolate a universal lesson from his experience. Maybe I’m misreading your post, but it seems you’re suggesting that a super-smart person who chooses a school based on his or her own sense of what will work for him or her intellectually, rather than going to the “best” school he or she can get into and afford, is wasting four years. I can’t quote chapter and verse on this, but I’ve seen data that suggest that many LACs, even some that are not at the tippy-top in the U.S. News rankings (for lack of a better scale), do pretty well in the production of PhDs. Maybe that’s not the best measure of intellectual firepower, but it’ll do for the purposes of demonstrating that there is intellectual life outside of the University of Chicago and its ilk. Listen, I’ve got nothing against the U. of C. Some of my best friends (my boyfriend, as a matter of fact) went there. I also have a good friend, a serious academician (a Fulbright scholar, in fact), who graduated from Colorado College. But the right choice for my BF, or your son, or my friend the Fulbright Scholar is not the point. The most important point is where the OP thinks he or she will thrive. I’m sorry if I put a little more passion into this than seems warranted; it’s just that I’ve struggled myself to allow my child to own her college search (which, I guess, is why I’m kibitzing here; my opinions are no longer of any interest to my own child!).</p>