The interesting learning would be what opportunities the Dartmouth, ND and Bama grads have.
People often want to stay local, or in state, and “go where my friends are going.”
No one has suggested all presidents kids go to Ivies or that no parent would ever choose a flagship over Stanford, or that we have never met someone who has been a huge success from a less then competitive school.
By framing the discussion this way you are employing anecdotes and absolutes.
The reality however is that the overwhelming trend suggests most Presidents kids do go to elites, most parents recognize the value of the elites, and that for a variety of reasons elite grads disproportionately thrive professionally.
Regrettably this thread continues to digress into a polarized discussion in spite of there being plenty of evidence that all points of view are in part correct and all experiences representative of personal realities.
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My issue with this thread is that the two choices are not A) Harvard or B) open admissions directional State U, yet every defense of private schools comes back to some version of “but Harvard” while implying that state universities are not demanding or challenging.
I get that HYPSM are transformational, so we really need to remove them and maybe any other private in the top 10-15 from this discussion because they warp it.
On the other hand, a CS Degree from Illinois or engineering from Purdue seems like a no brainer over a humanities degree from a LAC or some of the other prestige privates in terms of payoff.
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Putting on my fact checking hat.
I’m missing the point you are trying to make. If you are including all kids, it’s incomplete. If you are just including kids that went to college during and post-presidency, it’s inaccurate. And in all cases, lists colleges where the kid enrolled, but may have dropped out or been asked to leave.
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I was extending the point beyond twoanddone’s two examples to show a disproportionate representation of elite schools amongst those that have the utmost power (Presidents).
I did not suggest the list is all inclusive but it does represent a far greater attendance at elites then the .5% that attend similar schools.
And yes Amy Carter flunked out of Brown😀. Very hard to do!!
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I think Barron Trump will attend a Florida state school. Haha
Trump Academy ?
Wasn’t there a scandal or uproar over a for-profit school that was owned by or that used trump’s name ?
I didn’t frame it at all. I answer the statement that I quoted:
I gave examples of families where there were many choices, and two (half) chose prestigious privates and two chose publics. My friends’ kids who went Dartmouth/ND/Alabama was just to show that in a family where there weren’t restrictions due to finances, three kids made three different choices. The parents in that family also had made very different choices, two public schools but one Wyoming and one Colo School of Mines. They didn’t limit their kids to public schools because that’s what they’d been limited to but let them go where the kids wanted to go.
A val from my daughter’s school turned down Harvard and Stanford and picked Santa Clara. All fine schools, but he wanted Santa Clara. I agree this is more of an outlier, but they do happen.
Glad you are not using anecdotes to extrapolate from or absolutes as a standard to measure against.
There was a “Trump University” that offered real estate seminars and such, but was not an actual college or university that granted college credit or degrees.
You have many missing kids. As an example, the undergrad colleges attended by the H. W. Bush kids are below.
Dorothy – Boston College (Sociology)
George – Yale (History)
Jeb – UTexas (Latin American Studies)
Marvin – UVA (English)
Neil – Tulane (International Economics)
One of the reasons why there is so much variety among the colleges attended by the HW Bush kids above is because the kids are choosing which college to attend for different reasons. The parents do not simply “send their kids” to particular colleges, like they do for HS.
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Looks like the prestigious college degree paid off. 
Among the 2 Bush kids with political aspirations, both started as governors. Governors often attend state schools, particularly within the state that they govern. Jeb lost his first Florida governor election to a UFlorida alumni. George had better success in Texas governor elections. However, the colleges attended by Texas governors show a different pattern than George, as summarized below. Everyone other Texas governor besides George has attended colleges in Texas for many decades.
Abott – UTexas
Perry – Texas A&M
Bush – Yale
Richards – Baylor
Clements – SMU
Briscoe – UTexas
Smith – Texas Tech
Connaly – UTexas
Daniel – Baylor
Shivers – UTexas
Jester – UTexas
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Good data! Spot on.
Those are all T30, except Tulane and Texas, and they’re in the 40s. What qualifies as prestigious?
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How do you know this? What are those reasons?
lol, as the youngins say today - pot meet kettle!
This sidebar was because of an absolute statement that wealthy families only select private colleges. Someone brought up Sasha, you immediately brought up Malia at Harvard, this doesn’t look good to continually denigrate places like Michigan, Delaware, U Texas et al to one up other posters.
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It may have been mentioned already, but aren’t at least some of the college choices of the President’s kids, or even other high level officials, both private and public, made with security concerns in mind?
I was surprised by Sasha Obama’s choice of UMich, since smaller universities, in terms of student and teacher population, would seem to be easier to manage from a security perspective.
Which US college or university would be ruled out due to security concerns ?
Earlier in the thread I commented…
“At our family dinners the elites seem to get along just fine with the non elites.
Except when the Delaware grad asserts her superiority given our current Presidents U Delaware Blue Hen legacy to our Ivy leaguer whose alum are well represented in the cabinet.
In spite of the “huge” gaps in our elite credentials we manage to love and care for one another.”
If this was misconstrued as an anecdote “denigrating” to U Del to “one up” sorry for the confusion. 3 immediate family members and a spouse all Blue Hens!
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Being the Presidential offspring security analyst/expert that I am, I’d say I have no idea. 
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