^ Indeed. Regrettably, some parents paint the decision not to apply to the most elite schools as somehow more virtuous than the choice to take a chance and submit an application. These parents imply that their student is being humble and realistic, and even more nobly, that their S or D has not fallen into the prestige-hunting trap. I had two kids who attended top schools, and I can’t tell you how many people would just come to me and hurumph, “Well, MY son/daughter had no interest in attending an Ivy League schools” in a tone that suggested they thought that made their progeny superior. Seriously, this sort of behavior telegraphs that they are insecure and actually think the opposite.
I think @skyoverme has the mistaken impression that everyone should be striving to get into Harvard, and if they can’t it is done kind of failure on the part of the college counselor. What hogwash.
@Hanna
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Urban kids see the reality that surrounds them. There are so many programs that help, specifically, pregnant teenagers. Yes, some teenagers get pregnant to get on the support train (this is a stupid decision, IMHO, but teenagers are bombarded by messages of special services available for pregnant moms). Have you ever heard about teens, who get pregnant to get government support? Housing and EBT card? Have you ever read about boys, who think that gang is cool, because they see it in the movies?
BTW, getting pregnant is a legit way for some families to get around FAFSA. If a student is pregnant, or having a child, she is considered an independent adult and automatically counted as a low income. Thus, 100% free tuition at any UC. BTW, all UC campuses have wonderful day care facilities, that are free for students (I used such facility for my first child, it is great!). These day care centers are full, and often have waiting lists. I mean, many students got the message that teenage pregnancy is rewarded by 1) adcoms 2) financial aid, and 3) free child care.
Please, don’t compare teenage pregnancy with cancer :). Many, many girls are proud of their little sweet babies (I was). If girls know that babies give them priorities in terms of admission and lots of financial aid - common, teenagers are not stupid 
When people (well meaning, like you) keep saying that pregnant teenagers and former delinquents shall get priority in college admission - kids get the message that delinquency is rewarded. Please, be very careful with the message that you promote.
Again, please do not promote the idea that pregnant / delinquent students shall be glorified and given priority.
@Hanna <i’ve never="" met="" such="" a="" kid.="" i="" don’t="" know="" where="" you’re="" meeting="" them.="" see="" them="" even="" in="" my="" pro="" bono="" practice.=""></i’ve>
I don’t think that any teenager would tell a stranger (especially, pro bono stranger) whether he/she is really into a street life. Naturally, they would tell you politically correct staff, especially if they are pro bono urban kids. They are not stupid.
A more generous interpretation is that people who act like this are sick and tired of hearing from other people that your kid got into a prestigious school. It’s those other people who say things like “Oh, I’m sure XYZ College will be fine. Did you know that TheCFG’s son got into Yale!?” These other parents were probably perfectly happy and proud of their kids’ accomplishments but are dismayed to realize that other people aren’t so impressed. It can be kind of heartbreaking.
Yeah, it’s not fair that they assume you are looking down on their kids but I think it’s understandable given everyone else’s reactions. You could try to preempt it by proactively asking about their kids’ plans. Don’t focus on the school but put the narrative back on the kids themselves (at the end of the day, it’s not the school that matters). Ask about what the kid is going to study, will they play sports, will they continue to participate in orchestra, etc.
I think mature adults should try a little harder to graciously accept that some kids will be smarter/more accomplished/luckier in admissions than their children and that’s just a fact and not a negative reflection on anyone. My youngest does not have the same intellectual or athletic abilities as her older siblings. This is not the result of any failure on her part or ours, as she works extremely hard and has surpassed expectations. It just is what it is. How silly would it be for me to be offended or insecure over that fact, or to announce to the parent of a deserving classmate who got into Harvard et al. that “MY D had no interest in Harvard.” First, who would I be kidding? She would not even remotely be a viable candidate for Harvard. And if she were qualified and yet was not admitted, then I’d need to take to heart the realities of the extremely low admissions rates. There’s just no need to insinuate anything snide about those families who choose to apply to elite schools. Live and let live. The worst thing that ever happened to me socially was when my D got into a good college. Regrettably, that information was shared publicly by school staff at several events, so the word spread. I have always made every effort to show sincere interest in others’ children and praise their successes and decisions, but I can’t say that has saved me from nastiness. No doubt if she had gone to a CTCL, I’d have been fine.
I really think this fixation on the Ivies is centered only in the northeast. I live in California in a relatively upper middle class area with top notch high schools. My circle of friends are women with college age children. There is no fixation on getting into an Ivy with these kids. They want to stay in California or at least the west. They want to stay here because they like the weather, the beach, being close to friends and family. The places the accomplished student wants to get into are: Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, USC, UCSD or Caltech.
@TatinG I think so too. No fixation on the Ivies here in Texas upper middle class suburbs.
Maybe those CA and TX kids really do want a UC or a Texas college or some other. But believe it, they apply to the Ivies in droves. I don’t think it matters if you say it’s not a fixation; the apps are submitted.
THIS:
And it IS a strong fixation among many non-northeast students. Very few of them end up in private elites, but the desire is intense, and the disappointment every bit as intense as elsewhere.
Based on Naviance info, at least for our school district and a couple where I have friends, I don’t think that’s true. I may, of course, be wrong.
Lucie, I agree with a lot of what you say, but the last paragraph tells us you have certain assumptions that are not necessarily true. First of all, I am quite certain that objectively the Ivy League colleges are indeed better in most measures than many other schools. They are better in terms of quality of faculty, cohort, academic resources, financial aid, physical plant, reputation and job recruiting, to name a few. Why can’t people admit that? That doesn’t mean they are better for Joe, because first of all Joe would have to be admitted. Secondly, if Joe wants to major in criminal justice and be a cop one day, Harvard is not likely to be his first choice. That said, I doubt anyone would argue that Slippery Rock State, just because it has a criminology major and Harvard doesn’t, is a better school than Harvard.
Secondly, there are plenty of CCer’s (though not me) who insist their Ivy-bound kids had a perfectly sane and healthy high school experience with minimal stress and sleep deprivation. So striving for Ivy admission does not always entail unhealthiness, and nor does not striving mean a healthier life.
@TheGFG “They are better in terms of quality of faculty”…And your evidence for this is? In my personal experience, this was not true. In terms of credentials, that may be true in some cases. But in terms of teaching quality, not necessarily so. The quality of teaching at my undergrad was far superior to the quality of teaching at my Ivy grad school.
Well, having inferior credentials and teaching at a smaller school doesn’t mean the professors will be better educators either. Maybe they’re less busy publishing and being highly-sought experts in their fields, but that doesn’t mean that any extra time will be dedicated to the students.
@itsgettingreal17 When I was at Harvard, the faculty was variable: some were amazing, others were decidedly unimpressive. However, what made my time at Harvard special were the other students. I often sat in class in awe of my classmates. Some were incredible. I found that inspiring. I’m sure there are exceptionally talented students at most universities, but it is what made the experience special. My D has found the same thing at Columbia. The other benefit was that the university had the money to support an incredible infrastructure.
@TatinG Exactly the same here. One neighbor who went to Princeton has a daughter who should be finishing up there about now, and another’s son went to NYU after prep school, but you don’t hear much focus on schools outside CA. Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA and Caltech are the schools most kids have on their radar here, USC to a lesser degree, UCSD or UCI for UC backups, and Claremont or Pomona for smaller LACs.
A lot of it may be weather driven. They are used to being able to go to the beach one day and driving 2 or 3 hours to snow ski the next, but the idea of living with snow is another story. If the temp drops into the 40s in the winter, you’d think they were surviving arctic conditions. 
I was walking past a store last Christmas that had a Christmas tree in the window with a mannequin on each side wearing a swimsuit. Made me laugh.
@exlibris97 The students at my Ivy grad school definitely made the experience for me as well. I loved grad school. Interestingly enough though, the best professor I had was a visiting prof from a no-name school. The entire class agreed and wanted him hired full-time. That’s not to say there weren’t some great tenured professors, but as a whole, my undergrad profs were by and large amazing teachers (disclosure: undergrad was an elite non-Ivy). I just hate the generalizations made about Ivies as being far superior with no evidence to back up the claims and often made by posters that did not attend an Ivy or other elite institution.
"When people (well meaning, like you) keep saying that pregnant teenagers and former delinquents shall get priority in college admission - kids get the message that delinquency is rewarded.
Again, please do not promote the idea that pregnant / delinquent students shall be glorified and given priority."
“Shall get priority”?? Please. Anyone here can read what I actually said. I’m tired of responding to what you imagine I wrote. I won’t do that any more.
“harder to graciously accept that some kids will be smarter/more accomplished/luckier in admissions than their children” Not necessarily smarter. Instead, often ‘better prepared.’
I (think I) understood Hanna’s comment. I doubt she meant some kid out of jail gets into H based on his criminal record and now making it through high school with C’s. Instead, it’s kids who, however their mistakes came about, grew up after that and now “get it,” have worked hard and worked smart to move up. It shows. And they still go off to the appropriate level of college for their abilities.
Imo, it’s a plain old mistake to assume in this game- ie, assume H is better because it’s ranked higher, assume having some famous profs on the faculty means your own kid’s specific experience will be maximized. Assume his peers will all be enlightening or his future assured. Or assume those great PhDs who work elsewhere are somehow less great because it’s not a tippy top college.
I was a Classics major and I"m prepared to say that virtually every Classics professor in the country- big school, small, elite, not, is going to be highly qualified in his or her field. Some will be fantastic mentors (I had one), some will be mediocre mentors but fantastic teachers and lecturers (I had one) and some will be world class scholars who can propel a kid forward intellectually and professionally not not exactly Mr. or Ms. Mesmerizing in the classroom.
There are so few jobs opening in academia in this field that anyone who has “made it” to a tenured professor level at any college is going to have something compelling going on.
The mistake that most people make is to assume that EVERY professor is going to have EVERYTHING. That is false. The bigger the department, the more magnified the falsehood becomes. A huge economics department is going to have scholars who focus on global macro issues, some who are experts on the US labor market, others who are noted scholars in tax policy, and others who are helping foreign countries set up central banks and develop sound fiscal and monetary policies. And within each of these groups will be the rock star scholars, the unbelievable mentors but not known outside their own field, the phenomenal teachers who don’t publish enough to become rock stars, and the ones who get voted “best professor” year after year but who have a modest rolodex within the scholarly community.
I don’t believe that any ivy league university has a lock on any particular quality vis-a-vis its faculty. And students and parents are particularly ill suited to assess the quality of faculty anywhere. The best professor I had at an ivy league MBA program was an adjunct from a community college (he taught remedial math to students who couldn’t start the program until they passed college level calculus). Maybe the worst I had (in terms of pedagogy, ability to relate to students) is a “bold faced name” who is still regularly quoted in the WSJ and Economist and often appears on the talk shows as a noted expert on the economy and productivity. I thought he was dreadful.