You can get a first-class education at the top-100 or so US colleges, this is a fact. You can get into top graduate schools from any of the top-100 colleges, this is a fact. All else being equal, No1 will be academically better than No100, but all else are almost never equal. So focus on finding the right college for you, where you will love everyday, make friends, good grades…and the sky will be the limit:)
YES! I wish I could like this post multiple times.
At this time of year there is lots and lots of hair splitting, and I see many threads that are comparing two schools that are basically equal in terms of academic quality. The question is always about how the universities compare academically and in terms of post-graduation outcomes - I believe in an attempt for the senior in question to appear to have seriousness of purpose. And I’m not saying that a focus on academics and careers is a bad thing - on the contrary, you should totally think about that.
But there’s so much more to a college experience than just your classes and where you’ll work later. College is a really formative time of life and you won’t be able to go back in time to this period. Most people can thrive where planted, but if you have the opportunity and good fortune to make a choice, at least make a choice that satisfies you personally as well as professionally. It’s not bad or immature to care about location, social life, relatability of your classmates, extracurriculars, study abroad opportunities, Greek life, and other factors like that almost as much or as much as academics and job prospects.
I totally agree. I keep seeing these “in the weeds” discussions where the OP is agonizing over Schools A,B and maybe C. Advocate for School B appears and as does Advocate for School C. They then duke it out with lots of data about the job prospects for someone with a degree in X from School B vs. C. Personally, I think most kids say they’re interested in Major X just because they feel the need to say something and who even knows how many times they may change their minds once they get to college. And in most of these cases, all 3 schools under consideration have a respectable department for Major X anyway.
Sometimes I wonder about the motives of the people giving advice, too. Do they really care about what’s best for the OP? Or are they just caught up in the rankings game and feel the need to show that their favorite school is superior to some other school?
That’s great advice, but it may also be worth noting that “what matters most” will vary widely, depending on the person.
@Corinthian Sometimes I wonder about the motives of the people giving advice
Great point. Last yr there was a poster here whose child was trying to get off the wait list at 2 schools. So every time someone posted a what school should I pick, if one of the schools was one they were trying to get a wl spot, the poster would always advise to go to the other school. Brings whole new meaning to working the wl.!