Blossom, you are offering a very myopic view. YES of course many kids from the midwest apply to Ivies and also attend there. You are certain to be kept busy as an alumni interviewer because there are a few hundred thousand high school graduates every year from the region. But it remains the case, I believe, that the mentality – the fixation – on Ivy or Bust is far less common here than in the east and northeast.
In some other regions or states with slimmer pickings for great colleges, kids with ambitions may well look elsewhere. My brother’s kids, growing up in NM, for example, attended Stanford, Princeton, Brown, and Bryn Mawr.