Exactly-- and I was applying a decade before that. NO internet then. I had classmates that went to Brown, Columbia, Stanford, and Yale, etc. But they were well off.
Looking back, I realize that they were no more well-off than my own family is now, but I thought then that they were "rich kids."
Nobody from my side of the tracks had a thought in our heads about an ELITE college. That would have been.... I dunno-- uppity of us, or something. I was pretty daring in applying to several private colleges. RPI, for instance. (Not that they threw enough $ at me to make it matter, but they WERE quite keen to have me, I guess).
Even the respectable but not elite private college where I did decide to go-- when my financial aid fell through due to a huge SNAFU, that was that. Off I went to the local state college-- there was no way for MY family to generate that much tuition money without my grant aid. I struggled even to pay for the state college.
