Importance of Peer Group

TheGFG
Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:26:46 +0000

Being at a top school will prevent a student from getting lulled into complacency about academics and career planning. D’s friends who attend the flagship think it’s great if they have any summer job that isn’t at a fast food place. At D’s “top” school, students would only consider it a good job if it’s a well-paying internship in your field at a recognized company.

However, it can be an exhausting and pressure-filled experience to always be around so many brilliant, high-achieving kids and perhaps feel you aren’t keeping up. It’s also tough to compete with them for jobs when companies come to campus to interview.

So, your student’s personality will play a role in this decision. Is your son outgoing? If so, the social piece should work out fine and he will find his intellectual peers at a lower-ranked school. Is he self-confident about his abilities and internally driven, or is he externally motivated and easily intimidated and/or discouraged? If the latter, then a state school may be a better fit for him anyway.