<p>You say that you’re not primarily concerned with prestige, but it certainly sounds like you are. You are worried because you didn’t know about it when you grow up (unless you’re worried about children looking down on your college choice, not a big deal). You imagined yourself going to Harvard…I don’t understand what the relevance of that is. So you wanted to go to a school you knew was prestigious as a kid, probably alone with 80% of the people on CC. I don’t know where the rumor came from about big companies not hiring WU grads. I might be wrong, but I’m guessing that you read it somewhere on these boards. I don’t think that is a very reliable source of information. </p>
<p>I don’t understand your concern about which companies are run by alumni. You realize those people went to Dartmouth a long time ago. Just because they are successful doesn’t mean it was simply because of their Dartmouth education. A lot of successful people went to Dartmouth. A lot of successful people went to Wash U. A lot of successful people went to state universities. None of that is relevant. Pick the school you think would fit you best instead of basing your decisions on rankings and statistics that don’t really mean much once you get into top 25 schools. They are all good.</p>
<p>That being said, I think you should go to Dartmouth. It sounds like it would be difficult for you to have people not know how good Wash U is. It’s not a bad thing (I don’t care about going to an Ivy or not, and it still annoyed me sometimes). I don’t think it’s a good thing to place so much importance in how future job earnings, job placement, and alumni connections are ranked or perceived by others. But that’s a personal opinion. I decided not to go to Harvard because I thought Wash U was the perfect place for me. Yes, people would have recognized the quality of my school much more if I had gone to Harvard, but that really doesn’t matter enough to base decisions on it.</p>