<p>Top schools all have wonderful things To offer. There is not one scale we can use. My son turned down Brown and U. Chicago to attend Williams. Prestige did not figure into his thinking. He did not even apply to HYPS so we do not know what his fate would have been. Both Brown and Chicago were very hard to turn down because he loved all three schools, even though they are so different. His reasons were purely “fit” related; no objective criteria were employed. Had he had only the choice of Brown and Chicago he says he was more drawn to Chicago. I’m sure he will have things to regret about not having the Brown or Chicago experiences. However, that is the way with choices. It certainly is not true that either Harvard or Chicago is better than the othetr in all respects, even leaving the prestige factor out of the discussion. These are all exciting, dynamic environments. Having said all that, the valedictorian and saluditorian of his class are both going to Stony Brook, whereas two lower ranked classmates are going to Princeton. They are certainly not “smarter” than the Stony Brookers, nor was money the only factor. With Brookhaven National Labs so close by (and parents who are physicists) both felt they would have the best research opportunities in physics at S.B., especially since each worked on an Intel project and had already begun research with S.B. faculty. As I’ve said on other posts, college is not a one-size-fits-all proposition, but if we are truly confident about our own views and choices we don’t need to denigrate others’ choices.</p>