@chippedtoof - Your neck of the woods sounds lovely. Mine is too, actually, but some places, some people, ugh, baggage. So if it helps shed ivy worship, one question would be: “Do you really want that kind of baggage?” But more to the point, as you noted, there are SO many paths to a happy and fulfilling life.
The brief discussion of my comment about the negative experiences of an HPY grad in the workplace and elsewhere seem to have missed the point. I heard this on the radio yesterday: if you are a Harvard grad and make a mistake at work, what do you think happens? A lot of teasing about how you went to Harvard and are supposed to be smart. Multiply that hundreds of times over a lifetime, and include a boss who went to state school as well.
@compmom - Don’t even have to wait until work; the teasing starts right at home soon after being admitted to HYPSM (which might be a good thing, as it “prepares” you for what’s to come later outside of home). 
It’s possible that many stories are not told or heard where comparisons can be made between classmates that went to top 1 -5 schools versus those that went to top 6-20, 5-15 years after graduation.
My kid didn’t tell anyone at her high school at all. I think one other person from the high school had gotten in several years before, but otherwise no one.
I suppose in the old days all the prep school kids went to HYP together and then joined the same country club and worked at the same banks and it was cozy and they spent their lives with each other, basically.
It’s different now. Better of course. But many grads now come from working class neighborhoods and many don’t spend the rest of their lives with other HYP grads.
Not every school or family where a HYP student comes from is Ivy obsessed. Elite schools really are looking for socioeconomic diversity. Kids with authentic drive and interests SHOULD be encouraged to apply, whereas the post is about actually calming down the ambition to do so in other towns and families.
Perhaps as many of you are pointing out, it really depends on the area and even the industry. I’m mostly exposed to medicine and tech in the SF bay area, and these sectors are popular enough that one sees people from all over. Mostly from good schools, but very much not exclusive to HYP(SM/etc). One generally tends to see capability rise to the top, not the degree, so perhaps there is less envy/jealousy/teasing. (but yes, in the academic arenas for these fields, more weight seems to be there for top programs),
Having said all this, there is no lack of “ivy targeting” around. I’m guessing a large portion of the families here either have or would like to have applied HYPSM. (we have enough people whose experience leads them to believe that getting into schools the calibre of IIT or Nat Taiwan should guarantee them a good life) Most of the time, one can look around and identify who’s in the running, and yes it can be a big thing during that portion of their lives. But getting admitted doesn’t automatically transport these students into the ranks of the academic aristocracy, and all families agree that nothing guarantees success in life. (There are HYPSM burnouts too).
But the litmus test is happiness/success/accomplishment X years down the line. Going back to my personal experience at that reunion, I did happen to run into or hear about all the top 1-20 of our class plus some from outside that range. We sent around 6 to ivy and 3 to stanford out of a class of over 400 at a middle class HS. Not all of those were top 10 (perhaps 1 was outside top 20). I think that group yielded a couple of execs, a prof, 1 in private equity, and a couple involved in tech development. Non-HYPSM in the top 20-30 included a prof, 4 docs, several in tech, 2-3 lawyers, 1 in private equity, 3 jr execs in financial firms and a ceo of a small manufacturing company. There are fancy zip codes on both sides of the HYPSM boundary.
Again, everyone was doing well. The takeaway was that life can be somewhat whimsical. This is the message that should be offered to those that are HYP obsessed.
I’m not sure how common this question is. I’ll ask a current college student or new grad where they are going or went to school. Outside of a job interview, asking someone who’s been out of college 10+ years where they went to school seems about as odd as asking what HS they attended.
@roethlisburger Thankfully, the older you get, the less common it is.
But the poster I was responding to had some complaints about how some people respond to that question when it is asked and my post was in response to that.
From a pure stats perspective, there’s not a lot of difference between some of the Ivies, such as Dartmouth, and the better state flagships, such as U Michigan Ann Arbor. The difference in average test scores between Dartmouth and UMich is smaller than the standard deviation of test scores within Dartmouth.
@roethlisburger: Of course, as we all know, the Ivies/equivalents look at far more than stats.
"Outside of a job interview, asking someone who’s been out of college 10+ years where they went to school seems about as odd as asking what HS they attended. "
Heh. There is at least one part of this country where asking about your HS would not be considered odd at all (and yes, the practice does seem strange to outsiders).
Where do people ask about your HS?
I doubt if this is what @PurpleTitan was thinking, but in my area (rural midwest), asking what high school someone went too is quite common. After all, most people here are living within 50 miles of where they grew up. There are of course some outsiders (like me, from a whole state away! People still ask though.)
BTW, I went away to an Ivy and honestly, my HS comes up much more often than my university degree. And I totally agree that it is normal here to hide going to an Ivy. It is very rare, and people often get weird when they find out.
^ Right, it’s a metro area in the Midwest. So not rural, though it may have drawn many people from where @Booajo is.
In Baltimore, when they ask where you went to school, they mean high school.
OP here. Boy, this sure went a little off-topic! 
Thank you to those who offered helpful websites and books and other resources. I have been suggesting some of them to anxious parents. If anyone has any more to add, that would be great!
No suggestions on books, but I think there is a market opportunity for therapy here. We live in an affluent community and sent one of our kids to an elite private HS here. Many of the parents went to Ivies and thought either their lives or their kids’ lives were failures if the kids didn’t get into elite schools. A huge percentage of the kids were on anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medications by junior/senior year. Clearly, not all get in. One of my D’s friends who ended up going to a good Midwestern LAC didn’t get into her father’s alma mater (Brown) despite being a very strong student and captain of the skiing team and cross-country skiing team and … . Anyway, she graduated, got a job, and is going to a top 10 law school next quarter.
I went to three of HPYSM and taught at one at the beginning of my career and believe that going to such schools can give a permanent boost to one’s career (in certain fields). But, I advised my son, who is way brighter and more ambitious than the typical top-of-the-high-school-class kid and is severely dyslexic, not to attend an Ivy but instead to attend an elite LAC. He had a great time there and they quickly saw how bright he was and were able and willing to work with his LDs. Reflecting on the school and not with any braggadocio, he said to me, “I loved the school and made wonderful friends there. The only thing I didn’t like was that there weren’t very many smart people there.” And he was including students and faculty. At one level, very silly statement. At another, probably correct. He is now in grad school getting a degree in Computational and Mathematical Engineering and an MBA and says his colleagues in CME are as bright as he is. They are his people in the same way that when I got to college, I said, “There are people like me here.” I hadn’t felt that in HS.
Objectively, there are some good things about at least some of the very elite schools. But, I think that one can do very well without attending them. Reality-based therapy could be a really good thing especially in affluent towns (at least in the Northeast and probably Mid-Atlantic).
@shawbridge Thank you for your insight! I am surprised to hear that your son felt that there weren’t very many smart people at his LAC. My daughter will be attending a selective Midwestern LAC in the fall and her impression of the students there was that they were all quite smart. I know I heard plenty of intelligent conversation between students during the time I spent on campus.
^ It’s all relative.
@IBviolamom, I forgot to finish the sentence up above. The young woman who failed to get into Brown became depressed and weird for months. Lots of room for therapy.
@PurpleTitan interpreted ShawSon correctly. By the world standards, there are very bright kids at the LAC (which is always in the top few LACs). FWIW, average SATs would be around 1450. I think he was 1560. (But, he’s severely dyslexic so standardized test scores probably meaningfully underestimate his capacity.) He was just brighter than most.
Anyway, a practice aimed at sophomores, juniors and seniors dealing with anxiety and then disappointment could do a lot of good.
I’m not sure if anyone has suggested this yet, but a few years ago (2011 or 2012?) there was a discussion on NPR about a new book, Crazy U: One Dad’s…(I forget the full name). I remember liking the podcast better than the book, but the point of both was just how crazy the college admissions race had become.
There are also many more analyses on the Internet looking at colleges in ways different from what you find in the U.S. NW&R ranking. The “old school” still treats USNWR as the gold standard of information, but I honestly think that will shift over time.
One other way to get these parents to think about all of this differently is to ask them what they think becomes of the highly talented students who do NOT get accepted to the top 5-10 colleges?? Do they really think these students go away quietly into the night? No, of course, not! They’ve all attended somewhere else and have brought their incredible talents to that other place! I’m guessing net-net, many of the rejected students graduate with more to show for their time than their accepted counterparts do.