“While flagship public universities enroll a high percentage of academically accomplished (and quite capable) students, elite private colleges and universities enroll rather high percentages of intellectually (and often artistically) gifted students. For those of us who have professional experience differentiate.”
I beg to differ that state universities don’t hold many intellectually gifted students. That is the most ridiculous notion. There are plenty of these students at these schools for financial reasons, the breadth of majors, the atmosphere and a host of other reasons like their research. Under 5% admit rates don’t equate to brilliance. Once upon a time Harvard had an admit rate greater than 90%.
Now if you wanted to find the truly gifted we would approach college admissions using IQ tests but we don’t.