<p>Whoa! Are you all nutz? </p>
<p>First, anyone who says WUSTL doesn't have warm weather has never moved a kid into a dorm there in August. ;)</p>
<p>You're all talking about great schools. No one talks about individual fit. In some cases many on these boards are better prepared to discuss "fit" than professional guidance counselors. Believe me, having attended a top Prep, then WUSTL, then transferring, then having my oldest attend WUSTL, then transfer, and having gone through college searches with two of my own kids, I KNOW I know what to look for even more than most professional GCs. It's fit, not stats. You could choose the top 250 schools in the country by USNews and any of them could equally train an android to be successful in many career paths you could name. But your kids, and mine, are individuals. Wake up! Not everyone is on a career path at 17-years of age. With so many good schools offering so many opportunities, believe me it is far more important that your child feels comfortable wherever they go to college, than that that school was rated Number One by whatever metric in whatever career path you think your kid wants to pursue. </p>
<p>Visit. By all means. Don't rely on opinions of magazines. Use their statistics for triage but don't hang your kid's future on it. Talk to kids who go there, or who did . . . or who don't any longer for whatever reason. Don't rely on CC opinions from kids who've never been to college and are only parroting opinions passed down from their friends and parents over generations of comfortable living in social isolation.</p>
<p>Now back to your regularly scheduled program of CC stat-dueling.</p>