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<p>this proves my point, doesn’t it? Rankings take into the equation the whole student body, not just exceptional outlier cases. If we follow your logic, we can easily come up with a list of super successful people who did not even go to college and prove that college education does not matter.</p>
<p>Regarding the merit of public vs. private, everyone to his own. We live in NJ, and our in state public schools is nothing to write home about in terms of top flight academic excellence. Since out of state tuition in some top public universities was about the same as private education (perhaps a bit lower, not really meaningfully), none of my kids considered top public schools for the reasons I listed above. That was our preference. And, both kids are very happy where they are. They relay to me, with some horror, the stories of their friends who went to public schools who sit in a cavernous lecture hall holding over 500 students. Granted, maybe it’s far better by the time they are juniors and seniors, but if you can sit in a class with less than 20 and have individual attention from actual faculty members from the day1 in their first year, why not? Especially if it’s about the same price!</p>