Define “prestige.” Never mind, there’s not enough popcorn. By the time prep school students are applying to colleges, they have a very good understanding of what they want out of their college experiences and which colleges might be good fits. And, the CCs have a very firm grip on where each of their charges stands competitively for the schools on their lists. Even if every single senior were competitive for every highly selective college, only a handful would be admitted and not all of them, maybe none, will be good fits. Applying to a college that would be a bad fit or where there is no chance of admission is a waste. The prep schools expose students to a broad range of colleges, maybe some they’ve never heard of, and CCs work with students to create college lists that match goals and where each student has good chance of admission, prestige is not a criteria. Every student will find a seat at a fine table, no clinkers in the bunch regardless of what outsiders think.
I think the fallacy here is the supposition that the purpose of prep schools is a particular subset of colleges rather the strong preparation of students to hit the ground running at any of the fine colleges they attend. The prep schools work hard to repair this disconnect.
We had an interesting thread on the prep form discussing the Inner Workings of the Prep School College Advising Office where I described our son’s (typical) experience.