[gregcohn]

I think there's more to it than social milieu as other commenters have suggested.

One way to look at it would be to think about a university as a series of (populations of students, professors, alumni networks, recruiters, athletes, extracurricular options, etc) that can be thought of in terms of their means not their maxima.

It is probably true that you can get as good (or nearly as good, or perhaps even better) an education from a good state school as from an ivy, but the "average" student, class, social outing, etc. is not going to be great. You will have to be in the top decile of students in terms of work and effort, identify and select the top decile of professors, etc. to get a top-notch education. From a social point of view, if you want to associate yourself with interesting, smart people and engage with interesting social activities, you will have to identify and seek those out from among everything else. (Whereas, the average social behavior might be frats and football culture.) These things are not always easy to do when there are sources of friction in the mix -- everything from popular classes that fill up to human nature are going to get in the way here.

At an ivy or comparable elite school, the average class you pick, the average dudes on the hall you clown around with, the average group of people in any given extracurricular population, these are all going to be strong, and i would assert as roughly equivalent to a top 5 or 10% orientation at more average schools.

And, of course, if you've got the brains/talent/work ethic to be top 5% at an elite university, you can have a world-class outcome.

I do think that non-ivy elites are absolutely equivalent to ivies though (e.g. Stanford), at least at a general level; it gets down to school-by-school comparisons on specific dimensions after that, e.g. if you want a world-class education in literature and the arts vs physics and math.

(edit: minor, for grammar)

[Nicholas_C]

> From a social point of view, if you want to associate yourself with interesting, smart people and engage with interesting social activities, you will have to identify and seek those out from among everything else.

Other than less desirable job opportunities, this was the worst part about going to a school that isn't top ranked. Most of my classmates and people in my social circles were there to go through the motions and weren't interested in anything academic. Although I enjoyed college, the whole experience really made me regret not taking high school seriously.

[gregcohn]

This is a very insightful comment.

It's hard to imagine most high-school seniors having the sophistication to make good choices here without the guidance of sophisticated parents or supporters, let alone imagine younger students making them early enough to have good options.

[chrisBob]

I think your peers at an Ivy League school are much more likely to be wealthy, and slightly more likely to be interested in academics. Perhaps some of this disagreement comes from the other schools used for comparison. I figure the OP is looking at good schools either way.

You should also be careful about the top professors. The best professors are experts in their field, but you may be better off taking a class from someone who loves to teach, rather than someone who is an excellent scientist. Famous professors are much less valuable to an undergrad.

[gregcohn]

I think it depends on the Ivy in question(re your first point). On your second, absolutely agree. But again, say you want to do research work, or take a graduate course. In a "best in the world" environment, the average of your opportunity set there is going to be higher than a non-best-in-class environment.