<p>The only reason I rose to Laker’s bait is that his ignorant insistence on being a HYP groupie resonates just a little in most of us and a lot in many of us. I am beginning to use this site because I have Ds who are in the market. My first is at Emory and my second is a junior and knee-deep in this sometimes ridiculous process. Eldest loves Emory. She did not consider HYPS for reasons of her own. Second D is looking at Ivies and some eastern liberal arts colleges, but she is openly a little uneasy about the pretense level she saw in some of her tours. I have to confess I am a little susceptible to the prestige factor, though I know my children could receive first-rate educations at public Us like UW-Madison or UMich. For that matter, I truely believe they could attend other, barely known public universities and receive fine educations and accomplish everything they set out to accomplish afterward. </p>
<p>I think we are becoming more sophisticated consumers of higher education, and this web site is an indication of that. I also think our children have a pretty good sense of what will make them happy once they have a chance to see what the options are and learn more of the pertinent facts. It is we parents who seem to be most prone to believe that our children’s options should begin and end with someone else’s top-ten list. </p>
<p>Lakers is a fool, but we share some of that foolishness more than we like to admit.</p>