<p>I’m the top student in my school now. College admissions is coming. Why should I be aiming for HYPSM and will HYPSM give me any advantages over, say, the lower Ivies?</p>
<p>Gee, haven’t you asked almost the same question before?</p>
<p>You shouldn’t make HYPSM your primary goal. Unless, of course, you genuinely like those schools. Go where you like, not where you feel pressured to go. My class’s valedictorian is going to the state flagship – it was the only school he even applied to – and he seems pretty happy with his choice.</p>
<p>Because it’s HYPSM, you can’t go wrong if you get into one.</p>
<p>If you can’t answer it yourself, it’s not worth it. Whatever that “it” is - Ivy, marriage, children, career… Or, how ridiculous to ask, are you going to have 3 children since all of your friends have two and you want to beat them to it?</p>
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<p>Have you heard of Ted Kaczynski , Amy Bishop or Rajat Gupta?</p>
<p>Define advantage first.</p>
<p>If you shoot for the moon, and you miss, you land upon a star. I know the analogy makes no sense seeing as the moon is closer to earth than the nearest star, but I hope you catch my drift.</p>
<p>Walk into your local public library & pick up “Who’s Who in America”. </p>
<p>Think of all the famous successful people you admire (politicians, sports figures, authors, CEOs, actors, actresses, etc) & look them up, how many of them are alum of HYPSM? Probably not as many as you would think.</p>
<p>^ or walk into any unknown private schools and look up the names attached to the buildings. I betcha they are not HYPMS grads.</p>
<p>OP, you’re a girl, right?</p>
<p>In that case, you shouldn’t really have to aim for HYPSM. Just aim for your best State U, fix yourself all the time and marry someone from HYPSM, and you’re solved for life, haha…</p>
<p>^You’re seriously joking aren’t you?</p>
<p>Don’t you wanna be cool? :eyeroll</p>
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<p>If you shoot for the moon, and you miss, you go wandering aimlessly into space
(unless you have a failsafe backup plan.)</p>
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<p>Post of the year.</p>
<p>By the way, if you shoot for the moon and miss, you’re totally *****ed.</p>
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<p>. . . and are immediately incinerated. :)</p>
<p>Considering that the sun is the nearest star, yup.</p>
<p>If the OP wants to be an astronaut, then one of the service academies would probably be the best bet.</p>