<p>Did any of you let prestige sway you to choose one top school (maybe HYPSM?) over another, slightly less prestigious but still really prestigious institution (“lower” Ivy)?</p>
<p>If my daughter had been accepted to Yale she might have picked it initially. She thought for a day that she was accepted (an honest mistake by someone else) but she was wait listed. When she found she was accepted to Brown, she declined to stay on the Yale wait list. (she was not interested and didn’t apply to the other top schools you mention.)</p>
<p>She had the very best experience at Brown, it really shaped her scholarship because of the undergraduate research experiences that she had. She was accepted to 3 PhD programs right out of undergrad school.</p>
<p>I think the single most important factor in in the quality of a college education is the student. I did not attend my dream school (caltech) because of financial concerns and went to a lower ranked institution (Rice). I initially questioned my decision and constantly wondered how life would go had I gone to caltech but after a very intellectually satisfying freshman year, I stopped wondering. I just graduated in may and I must say that I don’t think I could have done much better, if better at all, at caltech than here at Rice.</p>