I just have to comment on the remarks some people made about elite colleges being more like boarding schools socioeconomically. I do not think that is true. The top private colleges have wonderful diversity in all ways (except intellectual ability).
Looking at the stats, our state’s top ranked public university is less diverse by race and certainly by geography of students’ homes than is my son’s small private college. And in terms of finances, many of my son’s friends at college have said that they are paying less there than they would have for their state universities (including his roommate, who is from our same state that offers free tuition for families earning under $125,000, but NOT free room and board. He applied to both, and the private college cost less for him than the state u would have). The top privates can afford to give amazing financial aid.
One poster frequently remarks that often around 40% of the kids at top privates are full pay, so the colleges skew rich. That is probably in part a result of the lifelong inequities that lead to richer kids getting higher test scores, etc. But that 40% at full pay includes kids like my son who is full pay— and I am an employee of a public school system on a public school teacher’s salary scale, and my husband earns less than I do.
Many of my son’s friends are from a lower financial bracket than we are. He also has a couple of friends at college much wealthier than we, but most of his friends are on financial aid. Almost all his friends attended public high schools (although my son can now name the top private schools— none of which he had even heard of before college!). His friends come from all walks of life and their parents hold a wide range of jobs from minimum wage level to working class to middle class to upper middle class to decidedly wealthy.
Life at a top private lets you become friends with people from more states, more nations, more races and ethnicities, more socioeconomic backgrounds, more religions, more quirky interests, etc. than many students may ever have encountered before in their lives. I love that aspect of my son’s college!
I am NOT saying you can’t have as much diversity at some public colleges. You can! I am just saying that top privates are not populated solely by a bunch of rich students.