The point of those schools is to go work for McKinsey or whatever. Your folks didn’t take violin at age 3 and pay $50k for lacrosse academy for you to blow it all at some kegger.
No, I went to a reasonably high-quality and cheap public university. There’s plenty of Stanford/Berkeley/MIT folks where I work and they seem happy with their choices as well.
I actually don’t think my parents care all that much whether I work at McKinsey or Google or wherever. They put me in music lessons because they thought it might be interesting, not because it would help me land the perfect corporate job. I doubt my parents even know what McKinsey is.
This reminds me of discussions with some Indian colleagues of mine who were telling me how they were cramming for years in school (with private tutors and studying till late at night) in order to get into very competitive IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology).
The point of those schools is to go work for McKinsey or whatever. Your folks didn’t take violin at age 3 and pay $50k for lacrosse academy for you to blow it all at some kegger.