Originally Posted by MegMeg
Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
Well, to be fair, most faculty here support public schools, too. But they want their kids to be valedictorian there, and NMF's.
Sorry, I knew I wasn't being quite clear. It's not so much the public/private split as it is about the 'tude. So far these parents seem to be singing the "All children are gifted, no one's better than anyone else" song. We'll see if they change their tune when their kids get to high school.

As a side note, there may be large differences between universities, and between disciplines. I'm at a sort of second-tier-of-the-top-tier place, which tends to breed reverse-snobbism. Also, potentially lucrative fields like computer science may attract more status-seekers that obscure, difficult fields like linguistics.

Still, even if I'm living in a bubble here, my DD is going to be up against tiger-cubs from all over the country when she applies to college. I share your frustration about this issue. My own thought is to steer her towards the tiny SLACS. I think these tend to fly under the radar of the Tigers, who think "Harvard!" because they know the name.

I went to a tiny SLAC and had a mindblowing college experience. Not everyone there was PG or even HG, but the large majority were quirky people who cared deeply about learning stuff.

But maybe things have changed since my day.

By SLAC, you don't mean SLAC, do you?