Should you incur substantial debt for dream school or even pay the "dream" tuition?

[alh]

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I want to also address another argument going on here. Many folks have this belief that attending a "name ’ school or elite institution will automatically give some signficant “leg up” on admission to a top graduate or professional school. PLEASE speak to admission officers the way I have . Please contact them. Can there be a bit of a leg up if your kid goes to a top name undergraduate school? The answer from most admission folks that I have personally met is that it usually HAS NO AFFECT! Yes, even in the few schools where admissions folks said that it does help, they acknolwledged that it was only a small factor at most! Again, the key factors are usually GPA, and scores ,and recommendations, and maybe research that was incurred. Attending a top undergrad might actually be disadvantageous in fact due to the increased competition too.

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<p>I am a little concerned about the above statement.</p>

<p>At least in the top ranked, fully funded, PhD programs in humanities and science that my children are in, all the current graduate students come from elite undergrad colleges. Not all of their undergraduate classmates were accepted to comparable programs. Some of these classmates had 3.5 or higher averages and excellent GRE scores. Recs I don’t know about. Prospective students can ask undergraduate departments where they send their students to graduate school if that is a concern in their college choice. If the department doesn’t regularly send students on to graduate school, I do believe that student is at a disadvantage in the process. Whether it makes sense to go into such a PhD program is, of course, another debate. You probably won’t make much money - if you are lucky enough to get a job at all.</p>