I agree there are a lot of bright kids at MIT and other top privates.
But, I wonder how much of it is prep vs innate ability?
I went to a tier 1 state school with some "prodigies" from Eastern Europe. They were pretty impressive at first, but by the end of my senior year, I was equal or better than them in most areas, as a result of hard work and the program. As were a few other US students. And I was not too impressed with the MIT profs who visited the school. The only exception was a Caltech prof who I learned a lot from.
While networking and school name may have cachet for undergrads, by the time you are 10 years out from school, real life performance begins to sift people out. Many of my classmates from HS had SAT scores < 1400 and went to state schools are now deans, top surgeons, or are at the top of their fields or corporations. The ones who did go to the MITs really have not achieved much relative to the rest of us.
For this reason, I consider MIT and Stanford regional colleges. I do think they have some great departments, but the world does not revolve around them.
