Of course it usually starts with parents. I knew how to sing “Fair Harvard” and “With Crimson In Triumph Flashing” before I was 10. My parents took me to see it when I was 11. It didn’t make Harvard my “dream school,” though . . . it was just the place all my smart cousins went, and some of the smartest people at my school. Including the genius/football player/lead guitarist with long hair and a super-cool girlfriend whom my friends and I all wanted to grow up to be when we were in seventh grade and he was a senior.
But it’s not just parents or families or sexy upperclassmen. At my kids’ high school, on orientation day in 9th grade, kids and parents were in small groups, and one of the challenges was to name all of the Ivy League colleges. Not kidding! The school was a large-ish, extremely diverse, urban public academic magnet. The administration and alumni were very focused on its illustrious history and its success in sending all graduates to college and many to elite institutions. They pounded the message into the kids from Day One, that they should be aspiring to be the best, and that meant going to one of a handful of colleges.