<p>Wow, there has been a lot of contentious discussion. Thanks for the invitation @alh :)</p>
<p>QM - I think we generally agree, but let me ask you - don’t you think my point has validity, that in spite of little data at the highest scores for the SAT per se, that there are surrogate measures in each academic area (such as @texaspg’s idea about college courses, or mine about the USAMO)? I do think that colleges use these for detecting their academic superstars.</p>
<p>It is true that we hear on CC about really smart people not getting into the pinnacle of existence [fill in your own PofE] school. I always wondered if there was something the school found a bit less attractive, in spite of the academics. I never thought it was because they turn away highly-qualified kids. Then people here started convincing me that other issues come in (like yield management), so I guess I really don’t know. I truly believe that there is a degree of randomness that must creep into this process with such tiny admissions percentages.</p>
<p>@PizzaGirl - I have read a lot of your posts on CC and I had thought you were normally in the corner of people who think it’s totally worth it to pay for private, elite college instead of getting scholarships to “lesser” schools or going to state schools. But now you are also opposed to people trying to maximize their own level of eliteness/prestige in college choice. This makes me wonder if you are just really, really satisfied with your own middle-of-the road path, and you think it’s the only one. But surely others can diverge and have good results and legitimate POV. I would also say that it’s not really fair to keep saying, “it’s <em>the</em> goal” [emphasis mine] to do xyz in admissions. I think others here have made it pretty clear that it’s not their goal.</p>
<p>As for MIT, because I understand that all threads must lead to MIT 
- I don’t know what anyone else experienced there, or would experience, but for me, it was incredible. All those “drinking from a firehose” analogies were true, and there wasn’t a second that I didn’t feel intellectually vital and improving. For me, it mattered. I don’t think I’m so special; I dearly hope that everyone, at every college, feels that they had a terrific time and that it really mattered that they ended up at such a great match. I get that I might have felt this way at somewhere else, just because of loving where I was, and I think that’s legitimate.</p>
<p>I had lots of brainy friends at lots of schools (including one who says ironically, “I went to a public university, like some kind of hobo”) - and they all loved where they were. Except one, who left Harvard unhappily as a sophomore, to transfer to UIUC and later became a tenured professor at Harvard (which we all acknowledge as the final test in life [joking!]), so there.</p>
<p>As for what happens and do colleges end up picking smart people, sometimes in spite of quirks and sometimes because of them - I really think, yes. I think this because I haven’t seen any trends otherwise in where my students are getting in, and in what kinds of kids like to go to what kinds of colleges.</p>
<p>BTW I do think that schools like JHU and CMU have the potential to be really wonderful choices, but it’s hard for me to feel that they are until the student/parent bodies at those places stop being so desperate to prove it. I felt strongly on tours of both those places, this summer, that there was a big chip on the collective shoulder to make everyone believe that it’s ok to not be MIT/Harvard/etc. I did not feel this chip at places like Pitt, UMD, UMA, etc. I was left feeling like it might be better to be in a state university where everyone seems genuinely happy to be there.</p>