<p>One thing I find consistently in threads like this is moderate (major?) disapproval of those that want to go to a school with name recognition. If I’m paying $50,000 per year, why not? After all, other research has shown (except for Hoxby’s work maybe) that there is not a lot of difference in life outcome for grads of most schools, whether they went public, private, well known or not etc. So if you want a bumper sticker that will turn heads, why not?</p>
<p>Now for a coment to the OP regarding Duke and Princeton. As the parent of a relatively recent grad of a Boston area HS, I can tell you that the perspective of the Boston area to colleges is rather unique. Whereas the NYC area sends tons of kids to Duke, Pton and U. Va (just to use a few examples) the Boston area does not, to the extent that Duke does much less recruiting in Boston. And Yale poses an interesting case, too. Whereas my D’s HS class had 14 kids attend Harvard, none went to Yale. And the admissions bar for Yale seems much higher. Rumor has it that Yale did not want to affect its yield by accepting Boston area kids who would turn down Yale to go to Harvard anyway.</p>
<p>Back to Chicago, the school regularly draws 4-5 kids from D’s HS each year. Not bad for a school in flyover country?</p>
<p>BTW, D is doing well: jr. year PBK among other awards recently. (can’t say too much or someone would be able to pierce the anonynimity veil to figure out who she is. She would not be happy then.)</p>