I was smiling. I know that wasn’t the point. 
I wanted to throw Williams a bone.
One reason to go to an elite school is so one has an “in” to all the campus parties with fancy FREE hors d’oeuvre, fine drinks, spirits, food, and of course…DESSERTS!!! Even better, we can sneak in some “riff-raff” friends of ours to share in the looting and annoying of regular partymembers. 
Granted, one can also crash such parties as an outsider as my friends and I have done at a few in the greater Boston area.
Unfortunately, one thing which has reduced the thrill of going to such events is to find that the hosts/actual members liked us so much they’re actually extending invitations to us. Man, that just kills the fun of it for some of us.
When I was at Stanford, there were a few kids like your son in my dorms who essentially just studied, and I never really saw them involved in anything else. I knew one girl who would repeat any class that she received an A- in because she didn’t want an A- on her record for grad school. At the other extreme, there were a few kids who seemed to be partying of some kind nearly every night and I never saw involved in any kind of academics. When I woke up for crew practice at 5:30 AM or so, I’d occasionally run into some of this group who were still partying in the common areas from the night before. However, most fell between these two extremes and led a more balanced life with spending enough time on academics to do well but also having close friends, following passions with various activities outside of the classroom, etc. Many of the later group remain close today, years after graduating. Some had business relationships after graduating including starting companies together; and some had personal ones, including marriage.
I’ve taken classes at a half dozen colleges or so, some more selective and some less selective… some public and some private. Of all of those colleges, Stanford is the one that I found to be least like your description.
@Hunt, in my experience, at least some of the elites select for collaborative types (at least in their mix). Granted, some schools have more of a collaborative environment than others.
Compare with state schools, many of whom don’t select on such soft squishy factors.
This gets to another point, which is that some folks here have set up some false division of pompous competitive students at private elites and humble collaborative students at publics which bears little resemblance to the world I know. Certain publics definitely have strong points (including cost as well as opportunities), but some of the most competitive colleges in this land are publics and there are some really stuck-up students there as well (again, they don’t tend to select as carefully for kids who are smoother and also are able to see things from different angles as many of the elite privates do). Top-state-flagship Student looks down on Average-flagship and Average-flagship Student loos down on Directional School and on down the line.
What’s most shocking to me about this thread so far is how many people didn’t get that @skrlvr was facetious in post#847. Wow. I thought it was very funny.
FWIW, my two oldest kids who attend ivies (one just graduated) both had fantastic, unique, life changing experiences. There is a another very good reason why so many young people want to attend these schools - they are incredible places, pure and simple. Neither found them to be pressure cookers full of prestige mongers. Sorry to spoil the fantasy.
Yeah, I have been dense all day today. Hopefully only a 24 hour thing. 
There are a lot of kids at Ivies and other elite schools with no people skills, no soft skills.
It’s not just having a hook, it is not having the whole package. And just like tryouts for sports or auditions for music, you have to nail what you need to nail, and what you REALLY are does not matter that much.
FWIW, reference #865, I would agree that my Ivy experience was “fantastic, unique, life-changing”. As was my spouse’s (and no, it’s not just that he found me LOL). He was dirt poor, I was blue collar, and we both found that we had access to amazing stuff - amazing history, that “gravitas” that you only see in the movies…
Were there some professors, and some students, who looked and acted the “elite” part? Yes, but mostly there were a lot of really cool people happy to be there.
My son is going to a college founded in the early 19th century, and I have to say, that was a major attraction to the school not only for him, but for the alumni we know. The old “deep roots in the past and looking forward”.
The main problem that happens at Ivies and other top schools is that some people go from the best of the best in their 1 or 2 thousand student fishbowl, and suddenly you are in a class of 2,000 kids who ALL are as good as you or better. I was not the best of the best, and therefore had no issue adjusting. My spouse went to a horrible HS, and he knew that, so he had no issue adjusting either - he knew he was the best of a backwater which amounted to nothing.
There are some kids at the Ivies who do walk along muttering formulas to themselves but they seem to be very happy. I don’t think anything has changed for them since high school. I agree the ivies are not pressure cookers. There are some prestige mongers but most of the kids try to avoid them just like in real life . From what I have seen Berkeley is much more competitive than the Ivies
All of the kids at the Ivies are smart but not all of them are super smart. The ivies admit about 5 to 10 per cent of the kids for academic reasons only. The rest are admitted for a variety of reasons. I think the Ivies are looking for potential future leaders more than anything.
Do tell us how much you understand of hie the world works - mr or ms born in 1995.
Btw I attended an elite school.
Strange as it may seem, many of the kids who get into top schools are aware of this phenomenon and cope with it quite easily. They may even enjoy being among their academic peers, rather than being the only student (or one of a small handful) at their academic level.
^^^I hear this all the time, but it was a non-issue for my kids or their friends. They all seemed to enjoy being with such a large number of like-minded peers for a change. My thought is that only a small number of super strivers actually feel this way.
Ohhhhh!
I decided to find out where my daughter’s neurosurgeon went to college.
He went to …Williams College!
He taught at Brown Medical School.
@dstark, that’s pretty funny.
I looked up my neurosurgeon, and surprise surprise, he graduated summa cum laude from my alma mater, UT Austin for undergrad.
I guess somebody has heard of Williams.
I don’t even have my own neurosurgeon 
@sorghum, That’s a good thing. 
Sorry, I know it is serious, I was just reminded of when I was a kid my dad used to say “my lawyer” and I felt sorry for the guy who I imagined sat in boredom in his office day after day until my dad ever had anything for him to do.
@sorghum, I took no offense. I like your sense of humor.
And 30-50% of their graduates head to Wall Street? Is Wall Street our leader?
@dstark, is your world renown scholar friend foreign born? Otherwise, I can’t imagine any university faculty not knowing Willaims.