<p>Touché, @stargirl3.</p>
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<p>When I was applying to Harvard Business School eons ago, an admissions rep at an info session explained that getting into Harvard is like applying to a bank for a loan (pre-80’s, of course): you had to prove to the bank you didn’t really need it. This rep was also very honest about how HBS would impact our earnings. She said that most people drool over the average starting salaries of B-school grads, but the telling metric is the delta between what students were making when they entered compared to when they left. That’s an entirely different number. I and most of my section mates were making very good money and already in promising career tracks when we entered the program. Two years of foregone earnings getting that MBA represented a lot of lost opportunity cost. When I left HBS during my first year (the ten-year breakeven just wasn’t worth it for me), the B-school admissions person processing my exit told me, “There are no admissions mistakes, only acceptance mistakes.” I’ve never forgotten that statement as the arrogance of it stunned me, but because there was some truth there, I kept it in mind during our son’s BS process and it comes to mind again as he goes though the college process. When I consider all he has achieved and experienced at BS, I realize that he is already an “elite,” already positioned for great success. His BS has prepared him well to be competitive at any level. He is going to do fine in life just because of who he is and how he takes advantage of what is placed before him, so he’ll choose his college based solely on fit and goals. Whatever college that is will not add any more shine to him, so nitpicking over athletic conferences seems futile to me.</p>