two kids in college - what is prestige worth?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One day I'd like to see a list ranking schools by name recognition, perhaps regionally. So Harvard would have 100%, but Williams? I wonder. Higher in the northeast for sure.

I think people here (and everywhere, but especially here) overestimate how known their regional private/public schools are. I grew up in NYC, for example, and knew all the good regional schools but also Grinnell and Williams and Carleton and Mac - our specialized high school sent kids to all those. Kids also went to places like UT Austin and UCLA too. But Washington and Lee, GMU, JMU? 100% off our radar.

+1. I grew up in the southeast so name recognition/“prestige” was different, even as a student at an elite private school in a major southern city…I had not heard of Williams until I was an adult living in the DMV. Rice, Emory, obviously Vanderbilt and duke and Tulane were the prestige schools to me. Of course all the ivies but schools such as Williams or Grinnell were just not on our radar really at all. I doubt my experience or perception of prestige matters but if you are thinking of name recognition, no school that you mentioned really has that outside of the region the school is in except Princeton.

[Anonymous]

What did you end up deciding? I think you would be absolutely nuts to turn down Princeton for Grinnell. Duke, Vandy, Berkeley, NYU, UT, Chicago, etc, yes. But like, Grinnell????? No way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because Grinnell's endowment was in Berkshire Hathaway stock in in the 60s and because it was the principal capital source for Intel. They later put a lot of their money into the Sequoia fund.

Nobody claims Princeton had such generous aid because they can't get kids to apply.

OP, you were complaining about how no one you know has heard of Grinnell. We were explaining that the big merit $$ from Grinnell gives out come with a price -- no brand recognition, let alone prestige.

Princeton does not give out merit aid despite having a $37 billion endowment. Grinnell only has a $1.5 billion endowment and gives out merit aid because T10-level students would never show up otherwise.

Deflect if it makes you feel better.

For a family that would face serious hardship, such as screwing another kid over, if it sent a kid to Princeton, and Grinnell would be much more affordable, Grinnell is good enough that it would be fine to send a great kid who could handle the location to Grinnell. Grinnell is a spectacular school with great outcomes, and people who really know about schools know that it's a fine school.

[Anonymous]

I have three at ivies at the same time. I am paying full pay. Will also pay for Ivy law schools. No better investment for me--as someone that went to a top 60 undergrad and top 60 law school.