<p>Some of you, your parents, kids or someone you know were accepted into HYPSM, but for whatever reason you went to a less selective school instead. Now, do you regret or no regret at all?</p>
<p>My manager was accepted at Harvard but joined the army instead. He got his degrees later from good, though not great, schools later on. He has no regrets that I’ve seen. He does have a lot of great experiences to talk about and is a generally happy and successful person in both his professional and personal life.</p>
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<li><p>A relative’s stepdaughter chose Northwestern over Harvard because she thought it had a better filmmaking program (not hard, because Harvard didn’t have one). Within 18 months, she no longer wanted to be a filmmaker. She didn’t like Northwestern much, but didn’t spend much time thinking about Harvard, and actually led a few campus organizations. I don’t know what she’s doing now (she graduated four years ago, and her dad divorced my cousin), but I’m sure she’s fine. Basically a winner.</p></li>
<li><p>A boy in my kids’ school and dancing school turned down Harvard for the dance conservatory program at Indiana (not actually less selective than Harvard, come to think of it). He left after two years when an internship with a famous company turned into a place in the corps, and he’s a principal dancer now, and has also been featured in a movie. So . . . he got exactly what he wanted.</p></li>
<li><p>A friend of my wife’s chose Yale over Michigan, her in-state public. She hated Yale – hated the elitism, the snobbiness, the ostentatious erudition. After two years, she transferred to Michigan and loved it. She’s a professor at a West Coast university, very content with her career and her choices.</p></li>
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<p>I knew a guy who was accepted to Caltech but chose UCSD instead. He said he basically chickened out of going to Caltech. He said he knew that he was the smartest kid in his whole high school but that he would be merely middle of the pack at Caltech. He wasn’t sure he could handle that.</p>
<p>He got a fine enough education at UCSD, but he did seem to wistfully wonder “what might have been” if he had been brave enough to tackle Caltech. I’d say he has some regrets.</p>
<p>I know a woman who was accepted to an Ivy- attended an out of state college - considerbly less selective and retired after working for ten + years at Microsoft ( about ten years ago) to do community service work and raise her kids.</p>
<p>I also know others where they were accepted to Ivies, attended schools that were practically as selective but which offered " some" merit aid for a very few students.</p>
<p>You get out of it what you put into it. Life is too short for regret-</p>
<p>Back in the day I was wait-listed at Stanford. I was so insulted that I did not accept a spot on it. A girl at my school who I thought was not as bright as I was got admitted because she had better ECs (my family were immigrants and did not realize that good grades were not enough). College counselling, even at some private schools, was not great in the late 70s.</p>
<p>Many years later, I realized that I was too stubborn and sensitive. However, if I had gone that route and been admitted, I would never have met my husband or had my daughter or the life I have now (butterfly effect). And the girl who got in from my school ended up flunking out.</p>
<p>I am a firm believer that things work out the way they are meant to.</p>
<p>As many might know, my daughter was admitted into Yale which was a long time dream of hers but no matter how hard she and my husband tried to figure out how to piecemeal her major together (musical theatre) she realized she had to choose between two dreams - MT or Yale. She went with MT but it was a very hard choice (harder for my husband). Now as a Freshman she is thrilled, loves her school and the training she’s getting, no regrets for her. My husband on the other hand…</p>
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<p>If my D is fortunate enough to be accepted at Yale, and if she decides to attend Yale, I am going to worry about that. Yale in particular (even among its elite peer institutions) seems to have a pretty big dose of “elitism, snobbiness, and ostentatious erudition”. </p>
<p>But for now I’m just hoping she gets in ;)</p>
<p>vicariousparent, I should have made clear that (a) this was 30 years ago, and (b) even then, this woman was the only person I knew there who felt that way. Some others may have felt annoyed periodically when some preppie like me spouted off, but on the whole they loved it to death. No one quite understood why she felt Yale was intolerable. Part of it was that she was a far-left lesbian from a working-class union background, but there were others who met that description who still get misty-eyed when they talk about how much they loved it. </p>
<p>In any event, I certainly didn’t mean to say that Yale was elitist (although it is) or snobby (it really isn’t) – I was reporting her feelings. As for the occasional ostentatious display of erudition, nolo contendere, but there are lots of colleges where you are going to find that.</p>
<p>Although depending on your perspective, if you’re elitist, you’re snobby, no ands/ors/buts. </p>
<p>I’m not a parent, but we’ll see where I turn up…I did turn down more selective schools to go to my state flagship so…</p>
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<p>Oh, those seem like two different things to me! Elitism is about what you value; snobby is about how you treat others.</p>
<p>Actually, what I worry most about Yale is not elitism but ‘old fartism’.</p>
<p>I’m the parent of a current Yale student and have heard no reports of old farts. There are a lot of friendly, terrific kids there. You can run across the occasional snob, but that’s the exception, certainly not the rule.</p>
<p>What do you mean by “old fartism,” vp? Muffy and Oglethorpe reminiscing about the one time they had to fly commercial? I haven’t heard much about those kinds of kids at Yale.</p>
<p>I am not thinking about the kids, more the professors. I guess my image is too affected by a certain professor I know (and love dearly) at Yale. </p>
<p>Anyway, all this may be moot- my D may not be admitted (in which case I <em>will</em> call them elitist, snobbish SOBs 
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<p>Research shows that if you turn down a top school to attend a lower tier school, you’ll do as well later in life (see [The</a> Worthless Ivy League? | Newsweek National News | Newsweek.com](<a href=“http://www.newsweek.com/id/90037]The”>The Worthless Ivy League? - Newsweek)). I’m not sure how sound the study is. The real people here, you, know better.</p>
<p>I turned down an Ivy and I think my life would have been <em>different</em> if I’d gone there (different career path, would have settled on the east coast, etc.) but I can’t say it would have been better or worse, just different.</p>
<p>I know a woman who was accepted by Radcliffe and Wellesley back in the early 60s but turned them down to attend Emory. She complains periodically that her decision has cost her many invitations to the “best” dinner parties. True story.</p>
<p>Now I waste way too much time on CC?</p>
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<p>Judge for yourself. Here it is-</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.irs.princeton.edu/pubs/pdfs/409.pdf[/url]”>http://www.irs.princeton.edu/pubs/pdfs/409.pdf</a></p>
<p>The most interesting thing to me about this is how much the average SAT scores have gone up since then. I think it’s around page 51 or 52.</p>
<p>Especially Stanford.</p>