I understand that many, if not most, CC users are in a rarefied academic environment.
Here are two things that are definitely romanticized on CC in my view:
I disagree with #1; most people who write on this forum are aware of the “premium” (as you put it) of attending elite schools while also maintaining that an elite school is NOT necessary to secure an excellent education or a very good job upon graduation.
In fact, I’d argue that one of the huge benefits of reading CC is discovering schools you’ve never heard of that are life-changers for kids and that offer enormous opportunities.
I defintely romantize #2. My child defintely needed his own “space” to grow up with and “branch off” from us. He has a mom who tends to take too good care of him for his good before college.
Re: #1, it is more along the line of “what-if”: What if it does help? Since I do not know for sure, I prefer to be on the more conservative side (as long as it will not bankrupt me, of course.)
Are there other things that are romanticized on CC that I missed, other than perhaps getting as close to 2400/36 as possible and taking a large number of AP courses and tests, and getting high grades in them?
I really don’t think these things are romanticized by most on here. Yes there is a segment of the lower post count posters who think this but they tend to be very anxious parents and students who only grace cc for a short time.
The more established posters overwhelmingly reject 1 and the perfect scores. ( though residential experience is highly valued)
Smallish LACs?
Then again, how many posters end up staying on CC long enough for them to accrue 1,000+ posts? Most likely a small percentage…
STEM Majors?
I think grad school is romanticized on CC as a very desirable future next step for after college graduation, if not an absolute necessity. Grad school always comes up in the “elite school or not?” discussions, with posters constantly asserting that it’s the grad school that truly counts for career, not the undergrad institution. But in reality most people in the US didn’t even graduate from a 4-yr. college. My kids know a whole lot of peers who did not want to go to grad school, felt pushed into it by their parents, and hate it. They wanted a break from school after 4 years and would have preferred to work for a while at least. If the economy were better, that’s what they would be doing now, but since they couldn’t find a “decent” job they reluctantly went off to grad school and in some cases are accumulating more debt.
Minimize Debt??
@Cateia, I have likely accrued 1,000+ posts 
College visits, high school kids having passions, finding colleges that are a good “fit” in some kind of ethereal atmospheric sense.
Northeast schools
Here are three things that are definitely romanticized on CC in my view:
Greek life? 
1- Colleges with an average class size of 20 are automatically better than colleges with an average class size of greater than 20.
2- Colleges that don’t have TA’s are automatically better than colleges which do.
3- Only a “prestige %^&*” would pick Yale over University of New Haven, or U Michigan over Truman if the kid had a free ride to UNH/Truman, even if the family could afford the more expensive school.
My favorite CC Romance stories.
What matters in most field is graduate school ranking because that gets you the first jobs out. That matters most in academia because those jobs can last a while, though certainly people move up and down over their careers. Undergraduate “prestige” only matters to the extent it helps you get into a graduate school. That’s sometimes true, notably for law school because it uses test scores and a major admissions factor for prestige schools is test scores. The evidence is that people who got into a prestige school and turned it down did as well, meaning it’s the kid not the school name.
That a school ranked let’s say #4 is better than one ranked #9. (I am not referring to any specific schools here–I don’t know which ones are actually 4 and 9).
“Passion” is romanticized on CC.
And, bending the def a bit, the ability of one inexperienced person to chance another and sprinkle fairy dust.
After seeing both wild successes and huge disappointments among friends and family over the past couple years, I think the whole idea of “chancing” is a pipe dream. Even an educated guess is likely to be wildly off the mark.
And that is not just true of those “lottery elites.” I’ve seen it with small LACs and huge public schools, as well as that whole tier of “just below the top” universities. When the additional variable of affordability is factored in, it’s even more of a crapshoot.