The biggest advantage to getting into an elite school is the networking. If your kid is making friends with the children of board members of Fortune 500 companies then they have a chance at the big leagues. Otherwise they're just clawing their way up to middle management like every other schmuck.

Of course even then it's a total crapshoot, but there's very little chance of that panning out in the state school.

> The biggest advantage to getting into an elite school is the networking. If your kid is making friends with the children of board members of Fortune 500 companies then they have a chance at the big leagues.

I wonder how the math works out on that. Realistically, I would only think so many connections could be made at such high levels for any given class of students.

How much does getting into the right college matter though? I'm not sure about the US system, but in Canada it doesn't feel like it matters all that much. Some schools are a little bit better than others, but it doesn't feel like a world of difference (at least when it comes to STEM). I've especially noticed this when interviewing candidates from various schools.

It doesn't really matter outside of fields like investment banking, parents (and college prep companies) place an artificial importance on it for the most part. In a tougher economy prestigious schools can provide useful connections, but in a bullish economy a degree from a regionally-known state school is equally valid.

It's not what you know, it's who you know. Even in Canada, a Waterloo grad is going to have much better connections then someone from the University of Northern BC.

Even that is only important a little bit. Excelling at a mid-tier university is completely FINE. It's so much harder to get into an Ivy League school now than when I was applying in the 90s; I'm not pushing my child to the brink for a tiny blink of undergrad prestige.