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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The study findings are what I intuitively would have said was the thing an elite institution gets you. I was a small town girl from a MC high school. Living in a dorm  with heiresses and UMC girls acclimated me to the life I lived "ever after." [/quote]

I would say the same but with regard to academic and intellectual firepower rather than lifestyle factors.

I managed to get to a T10 school without working hard or challenging myself much in high school. I knew I was very smart, so though I engaged when I wanted to, I mostly coasted through.

My T10 college changed that immediately. The environment stimulated and challenged me - to dig deeper, work harder, and push myself to the learning edge again and again. The discourse was more complex and sophisticated, and the “average” performance was astronomical compared to my previous environments. My classmates were truely impressive, and being around them helped me grow more than any concept or material I learned in a book or from a lecture.

It’s always about the people. Our peers help frame our daily lives and influence us so much more than we often realize. [/quote]

And you get the[b] exact same peer profile at another 20 or so universities and dozen or so SLACs[/b].[/quote]

No, you do not. The ivy+ schools as well as a couple of others JHU, Caltech, CMU, Rice, WashU, Vanderbilt all had roughly 75%* or more with 98-99%ile scores, based on matriculated students in the pre-TO years. Williams was in this range, Amherst and Swarthmore a little lower, more like 50% with 98-99%ile scores, similar to Northwestern, Notre Dame and a few others, by the time you get to the 25th best SAT range it was more like 25% of the class in the 98-99%ile range: ie UVA, Georgetown, Emory, and many SLACs between #5 and 13, some of those start to drop even lower. 
Having 75% of the class at 98-99%ile is not at all the same as 25%. 
 Time will tell but now that almost all are back to test required, the same players will likely be up at the top again, ivies plus 7-10 more schools, presumably Williams will remain the top LAC for this stat. 
Vanderbilt has moved away from caring about scores, they may not remain in that group as they once were. They used to brag at info sessions and post score tables showing only 4 ivies were higher than their ranges. 
SAT scores are of course not the only indicators of a driven, motivated peer group. Vanderbilt for one used to take top-scoring kids who did not quite have top-10% grades from the private schools and top public magnet in our area: maybe Vanderbilt never

TLDR there are not 30 unis and 12 SLACs that have equivalent peers to the ivy+ schools studied. There are maybe 5-8 more in addition to the 12 studied. By the time you get to the 30th uni and 12th SLAC the talent is significantly diluted.

*Cornell was always the lowest, with about 50% 98-99%ile, likely related to the in-state admissions for CALS. Chicago and Columbia never used to report. Presumably they were lower than many peers in the ivy+. [/quote]

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