<p>mikesown,</p>
<p>By your logic, though, it’s not enough for the schools to expand. Each student would have to pledge to take on additional friends. In my experience, people tend to have the same number of people in their social circle whether they are at a large school or a small school. I don’t think your rolodex gets bigger because your school is now accepting more students.</p>
<p>I think expansion would both dilute the value of having a degree from these schools (just as having everyone and his brother take APs has diluted the value of APs) and hurt other schools. What would be better would be if philanthropists stopped pouring money into these already over-endowed schools and started investing in the next tier of schools so that there was an ever-increasing number of Ivy-quality schools.</p>