Originally Posted by indigo
Hopefully the "ambition" in the study is not a proxy for confidence derived from one knowing one is attractive to the school because their family has a strong ability to pay tuition, assist with endowment/funding, build a new wing or department, etc.
Looking at the table in the post I cited, one of the variables used to predict earnings is "predicted parental income". The number of colleges applied to and the average SAT score of schools applied to has predictive power beyond parental income.