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As skateboarder says, prestige is a considerable thing. I wanted to study English at college; it was suggested to me that if I chose to do history, I had a chance of getting in to Oxford. I have a bad memory, and was crazy about poetry, so I said no. In the end, I got in to Oxford to study English, and I am still passionately engaged with poetry and fiction. That bit would have happened anywhere - I got interested in T.S. Eliot in suburban Manchester.
Anyway, it's what happens after that that is interesting. Going to a place like Oxford stretches you; you meet people intellectually beyond you; you try to understand what at first seems impossible to grasp, and eventually, you get a little further. In the process, you gain confidence. The confidence, the knowledge at your back that you went somewhere like that, tried your best at a place as stimulating as that, stays with you your life long.
Other people might accord you more respect because you go to Harvard, Yale, Oxford, whatnot. They often do, and it is nice. But that's not what I am talking about. It gives you something far beyond that.
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