“I disagree with people who say ‘top schools’ don’t matter. IRL anyone would prefer Harvard over generic State U.”
The issue is that the BS mentioned with any frequency on this board are generally “Top XX” type schools anyway. But so many people are focused on getting into 2-5 of the most selective and consider any other school not even worth attending. A more fair analogy would be “Havard or Williams”.
I’m nearly 10 years away from being a prospective BS parent, and am not that active on the forum any more. But I used to bang the drum loudly for “casting a wide net”. I encourage the OP to do so…and also to get the heck off of CC. Neither of my kids was active on the site during their BS application process.