<p>Clearly there are social issues and also pricing issues. For the purposes of thie discussion, I chose to ignore them because they can actually go both ways. For example, some people might find a state school's size to be intimidating and would therefore be more comfortable at a smaller school like Harvard. And then of course there is the interestingly aggressive twist that a school like Harvard puts on financial aid, such that Harvard might actually be CHEAPER than Illinois, after financial aid is determined. Harvard has announced that they will guarantee 100% full-grant-rides to anybody whose family makes 40k or less. I know 2 Californians who got into Berkeley and to Harvard, and actually found it was cheaper to go to Harvard, once financial aid was figured in. One of them drolly told me that he 'really' wanted to go to Berkeley but he couldn't afford it, so he had 'no choice' but to go to Harvard. He had a pretty dry sense of humor. </p>
<p>But anyway, the point is that social factors and price can and do cut both ways. For some people, the social atmosphere is better at state school. For others, Harvard is better. For some people, state school is the better financial choice. For others, Harvard is better. Either that or they're so darn rich like the Kennedys that they don't mind paying full Harvard tuition anyway. </p>
<p>However, the real central point I've been trying to make in this whole thread is that few people know exactly what they want to major in while they're still in high school, that people change their minds all the time about what they want to do, depending on what choices are available to them at the time. The road to major selection and career selection is rarely a linear process. Many people take years to discover what they really want to study and what they want to do with their lives.</p>
<p>As a final lemma, I was just reading the book "In an Uncertain World", which is Robert Rubin's autobiography. For those who don't remember, Rubin was Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury after having an illustrious career in high finance rising all the way to Co-Chairman of Goldman Sachs. From what I can tell, Rubin as a young man had no set path or set goal for his career or his education. His early career path was evidently quite itinerant and by his own admission showed no deep planning or preparation. He just basically drifted along, taking advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves to him, and obviously did extremely well with those opportunities that did present themselves.</p>
<p>I quote:</p>
<p>p. 57 - "Academically, my plan at Harvard [College] was conventional. Most people who were headed for law school, as I loosely assumed I was, majored in government. I started doing that and then switched to economics."</p>
<p>p. 59 - "I had applied to Harvard Law School as well as the Harvard PhD program in economics. I was admitted to both but couldn't decide what to do. I wasn't at all sure I wanted to do either. I went back up to Cambridge in the fall and spend three days at the law school, but I wasn't ready to roll up my sleeves and cope with the street of it hafter having just finished four intense years of college..." [Note, Rubin dropped out of Harvard Law to spend a year studying at the London School of Economics and just bumming around England, and then later matriculated at Yale Law - this is all covered in p.60-63]. </p>
<p>P. 66, "I entered [Yale] Law School not really intending to practice law but feeling that it would be good training for whatever I might do and would help to keep open a broad array of options. I didn't have any career path in mind but I had a vague sense of wanting to do something financial and entrepreneurial. In the back of my mind was the idea that I might eventually return home to Miami and go into the real estate business, perhaps drawing on my rather's knowledge in some way. But I felt I should go to a big law firm for a time, to see what it was like..."</p>
<p>p. 69 - "...so I sent my resume to several investment firms. But I didn't receive a single response, not even a note. Back then, a law degree didn't mean much in the financial world. The dominant traders on Wall Street had gotten where they were on the basis of street smarts and savvy, while the investment bankers mostly came from society backgrounds or business schools. Moving from a law firm to an investment bank was a strange choice in those days..."</p>
<p>p. 39 - "I was an odd choice for Goldman Sachs when the firm hired me, at the age of 28, to work in its storied arbitrage department. Nothing about my demeanor or my experience would have suggested I mught be good at such work. The stereotypical personality type of the arbitrageur was, in those days forceful and confrontational. I was then, as now, a low-key, not manifestly aggressive person. As for my qualifications, I don't think I'd ever even heard of the phrase 'risk arbitrage' before i started the job search that led to Goldman Sachs..."</p>
<p>The point is, here's a guy who as a young man never really knew what he wanted to do with his life, and sort of drifted along for his entire young adulthood, yet he obviously became extraordinarily successful. He didn't really know what he wanted to major in when he went to college, he ended up switching majors from what he thought he wanted to do, he got admitted into 2 top law schools (Harvard and Yale) and a top PhD program (Harvard econ) without having a good idea of whether he really wanted to go or why. He ended up going to Yale Law while still, by his own admission, not having a firm idea of why he was going there, and certainly not intending to work in law for the rest of his life. And he eventually successfully made the transition from lawyer to financier which, by his own words, was a "strange choice". Yet he obviously did just fine despite (or perhaps because of) his peripatetic youth.</p>