Back in the day, I was admitted to MIT and Berkeley but couldn’t afford either. (Well, my dad said I could attend Berkeley if I commuted with him on BART from Fremont. The price of housing back then was the issue.) I attended Texas A&M because their letter was the only one I received about free rides for NMSF. Since I was never a college football fan, I’d never heard of A&M before that letter.
What is the point of this thread?
I’ve never had the luxurious experience of turning down any colleges or grad schools for another. As a young foolish man, I was so strongly set on one college and one major that I only applied to that college for my undergrad. Upon graduating, I was (still being foolish) set on one grad school for one particular degree that I only applied to that grad school. The same thing with my second grad school for a different degree program and the same for my third for an entirely different grad degree at yet another institution. I was a burnt out basket case after I was done with the schools but, as the song goes, I did it my way. Regrets? Yes, I’ve had a few, but only with regards to the choice of my majors, not the schools themselves.
@mackinaw Some would say that you did attend the best school.
I think the examples of lifelong regrets in post #8 says more about the people complaining than their actual choice. They are blaming current life dissatisfactions based on an imagined alternative life trajectory … but if they had made alternate choices, they’d probably also end up voicing regrets. The man with the abusive father might be regretting that he didn’t have the courage to walk away from his father’s abuse and control earlier, the adults who chose state schools over private might have regrets over student loan debt or distance from home or something else.
It’s very easy to fall into the trap of, “If only I had done __ instead, then my life would all be sunshine and roses.”
I think it’s fine to try to project oneself into the future when making decisions, asking, “how will I feel later if I pass up this opportunity and things don’t go well?” —but that really shouldn’t be projected onto others.
My son passed up the flagship state U to attend a lesser-regarded LAC (because he wanted a LAC) - and he passed up his top choice LAC in favor of his 2nd choice LAC because his top choice didn’t provide any financial aid. And then he messed up and did poorly at the 2nd choice LAC. One could turn that into some sort of story about how he should have picked the two “better” colleges he turned down — but honestly, as a parent, I looked at it as a life lesson for him, and always felt if anything, he would have been better off he had attended one of his safeties-- both of which he unsuccessfully later tried to transfer into. But then he ended up at an ultimate safety, where he was afforded an amazing and life-options-expanding opportunity that would not have been available anywhere else (and not something he or I even knew existed before he enrolled there, or even that it would be the type of thing he might aspire to, much less have any guarantee of getting). So no, no regrets … just his life and his path.
Life is an endless series of opportunities, some of which are passed up, some of which are taken, and many of which are unanticipated. Often opportunities arise precisely because of something else that was missed or passed up— because the person wouldn’t be in the position of encountering the future opportunity but for the fact they didn’t pursue the previous opportunity.
Ages ago, I got into Brown, my top choice, but couldn’t afford it. Went to a well respected LAC near home that I thought would be more affordable. Had a great education and a great experience, though never felt warm and fuzzy about my college. I am delighted my kids each love their school, feel deeply connected to it, and are having/did have amazing academic, intellectual, social experiences.
Seems a good thread for Robert Frost:
There is an assumption in the question that a higher ranked school is “better”, which I really disagree with. One of my kids turned down 3 higher ranked schools to attend Harvey Mudd, and absolutely thinks she made the best possible choice for her (I agree). Other kid turned down 3 higher ranked schools from her list of acceptances as well, and was really happy with her choice.
Turned down NYU Law and UCLA law school for GW Law when GW Law gave me some economic scholarship which I didn’t even apply; I just turned out to be the poorest student among the incoming students, I guess. No regrets and not even curious what other paths I would have traversed. I am just not the kind of person to ask myself "what if . . . ". You start going down that dangerous road, there is no end. If you start going down that road, you will be asking yourself:
“What if I was born a son of a billionaire instead of poor Asian immigrants who came to USA with $3K in their pockets without speaking any English, and only English I knew was ‘Can I have a Coke?’ and ‘Thank you.’?”
“What if I was the best looking dude in my college?”
“What if I had studied harder in schools?”
“What if I didn’t sell my Amazon shares I held very long time ago?”
“What if I had gone to NYU law school and been next to the locker of John F. Kennedy Jr. who also went there and whose locker would have been near mine, and we became good friends?”
“What if I didn’t break up with that girl?”
Heck, I am just glad I am still alive and healthy. And at least one person in the world loves me.
No regrets about those choices. Turned down Cornell undergrad; Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and Chicago for law school; Harvard, Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, and and I can’t remember who else for PhD program. Learned a ton in college and grad school; have created a career in a job category that didn’t really exist.
I didn’t really know how to ask for help/network when I was younger. That would have been helpful. I do regret not having those skills.
Turned down the higher ranked university of Michigan for Michigan State. Never once regretted it.
Now that I have 2 masters and am working on my phd at UMich, I am more confident than ever that turning it down for MSU was the right choice. I didnt feel comfortable with the lack of SES diversity at UMich and went somewhere where I wouldn’t be “the poor kid.”
ETA: I turned down higher ranked schools for my MPH like Columbia and Emory. I honestly never think about that.
Turned down Northwestern and UIUC because as a smart but poor Asian kid (I literally was the only Asian kid in my graduating class smack in the middle of poverty), I never once entertained the idea of living in a dorm, even though I lived in a not so nice area. So for me it was commuting, either Circle Campus (now UIC), IIT or DePaul and partly because DePaul had #1 basketball teams in those days, I chose DePaul. Well, that and a partial scholarship. I never really had any regrets or even had second thoughts about going to DePaul, it worked out pretty well.
When I was applying to colleges, I created my own ranking system based on a weighted combination of the criteria that I felt was important to me. MIT came in first in this ranking. Nevertheless, I turned MIT down. There were multiple factors. I (largely incorrectly) felt that I could be more locked in to pursuing a tech field at MIT and would have better options if I changed my mind and decided to pursue other alternatives at Stanford. I also had more positive experiences in the prospective freshman visit. There may have been a subconscious desire to get far away from my home town in the northeast as well., I didn’t turn down anyone for grad school because I only applied to 1 college.
One of my relatives turned down a full ride to Penn because she felt the students were all looking down at the ground when walking and didn’t give off a friendly vibe,
@Data10 Gee, turning down MIT for Stanford is like turning down BMW/Benz for Tesla. What grad school are you at?
I completed my grad degrees at Stanford.
Older son turned down a higher ranked college for one much better in his major, no regrets. (Avoiding the humblebrag here. 
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Younger son turned down a higher ranked college for one that he thought was a better fit. I think he probably made the right choice for him.
Years ago, I had the opportunity to go to Harvard Graduate School of Design instead of doing my senior year at Harvard. I forget the exact details, but I turned it down as at the time I was dying to live in NYC. I ended up at Columbia. My then boyfriend didn’t like any of the NYC schools and ended up at Caltech. In retrospect I should have looked at California architecture schools as (IMO) the most interesting architecture was coming out of LA at the time. Unfortunately I was pretty clueless. I was pretty miserable at Columbia for all kinds of different reasons, none of which were Columbia’s fault.
S1 turned down the “obvious” choice and went to another excellent school that met his needs beyond his intended major.
S2 wrestled with the same two schools mathmom’s younger S did and chose the non-obvious pick.
I think both were right, but not in the way I expected it to be at the time they made their choices.
My husband and I are both first generation Americans and college graduates in our families. We didn’t have much guidance in the college selection process. We both graduated with degrees and are relatively happy and successful in our chosen careers, but if we knew then what we know now, I’m sure we would have made different choices.
The most important thing for us with our daughter is that she feels that she had a choice of schools to apply to and she picked the one she felt fit her best, both personality and scholarly interest. We took her to large and small, university and LAC, urban and rural so she knows what she likes and doesn’t like. We want her to know that she made the right decision, not that it was made for her. So I have regrets, but not about any one specific school that “got away”, just the process in general.