Perhaps there needs to be a study of outcomes comparing students who were admitted to highly selective Prestigious Colleges who:
- Matriculated to the highly selective Prestigious Colleges.
- Matriculated to other less selective Less Prestigious Colleges.
Of course, the comparison needs to be stratified by such relevant factors as choice of major, pre-college family SES, and whatever else that is not college choice that could influence outcomes. But the idea is to compare students who were “worthy” in the eyes of admissions readers at the highly selective Prestigious Colleges and see how much choosing the Prestigious College versus a Less Prestigious College actually matters for such students.