<p>The other hard truth is that the “best” school for a given student may be the school at which he or she gets an offer of admission. It’s easy, before going through the process, to discuss which are the top 5 schools, etc. It’s harder – much harder, they tell me! – to get into those schools. As people who have been through the process constantly remind us (for good reason!), kids who were always the “stars” of their schools and/or communities and had every reason to think they would be successful in the college admissions process can find themselves high and dry when it comes to offers of admission from actual schools. So, when it comes down to it, this discussion of “top” schools is really just theoretical for most people.
I don’t mean to be discouraging, but I did want to frame the discussion in that context.</p>