…which university would you want them to attend? Obviously the choice is theirs, but I imagine you have a preference.
Fortunately I’m made out of international airports and can donate one to the faculty of your choice to ensure your child gets in with all fees covered. Where do I build the airport?
Taken the top 20 rankings from here, inspired by the news that UCL has overtaken Cambridge for research.
Cornell because it’s the best university on the planet! Heaven smells like rain and trees.
I’ve done this already, and I’m sorry to say that it is a dumb question. University choice depends on the kid, and not just in the sense of grades. My kids would have hated the college I went to. They would have hated the colleges their sister went to. They both did well in college and got a ton out of it.
Well, they don’t have to take the offer if they don’t want, it’s just a question of if you could absolutely guarantee them getting in one, which one would you prefer. Still, I can’t even tempt you with the offer of Faber College? No guarantees about being able to join Delta Tau Chi House, though.
It all depends what my son wants to do with his life.
If he wanted to be, say, a veterinarian, he couldn’t do better than nearby Texas A & M, which is not an option in this poll.
On the other hand, if he’s determined to be a Supreme Court Justice, he pretty much HAS to go to Harvard or Stanford.
If he’s aiming for the highest heights, an elite school will be very useful. If not… he’d probably be well advised to go to a public college or university here in Texas, where in-state tuition rates will make things very affordable.
I have two kids, and the answer would be different for each of them.
My oldest went to Chicago “Where fun goes to die” and where the dean and students gleefully noted that they wound up dead last in the list of party schools.
They do have Scav Hunt though - which was much more to her liking.
Ah right, I getcha, should’ve made the poll bloody multiple choice!
My daughter is a Penn State grad. She was happy with her choice of happy valley.
Your idea exceeded the limits of primitive eBulletin technology!
Other - Trinity in Dublin, Ireland. I have a couple of friends who teach there and can be trusted to quietly watch out for her. Family near by but not too close, and I’d get an excuse to visit more often. It’s a triple win!
Plus, oh yes, the academics are excellent, of course.
My actual expectation though is that she’ll wind up at either CalTech or MIT. She has a highly scientific mind.
I’m not a parent, but Stanford is hard to beat; it has a beautiful campus with great weather. But Oxford or Cambridge would be nice as well. And Yale is close to some of the best pizza in the world.
Quite apart from the quality of the education (I have no idea how good or bad a school it is)… Pepperdine looks like a fantastic place to spend 4 years. It has to be the most beautiful college campus anywhere.
I’ve been there (friends worked at Hughes Research down the street) but UC Santa Barbara is in a pretty nice location also. I know people who teach there and I wonder how they get anything done with the Pacific right out their window.
Boy 2.0 is a junior in high school, so we’re seriously looking right now. He wants to go to Georgia Tech and major in some sort of engineering - he could do worse than Tech. As a University of Georgia alum, it pains me to say that. (But, in-state tuition. Woohoo!)
I couldn’t vote in the poll, because it never occurred to me to have some dream of which university my child would attend. I hope all of them go, and that I can afford to help them some. It would be kind of nice if at least one attended my alma mater, just because. But really, it’s a very foreign question for me.
I don’t have any preference. Any of those are great. Plenty more that are not on that list are great. It really depends on what my child’s interests wind up being and a whole host of other factors. (And that’s without considering the most important factor for the sake of the OP – what she wants.)
Tie between Harvard and the University of Tokyo.
We wanted our son to go to a top rated academic university, and he could have, he had the grades. But his preference was to attend the school that had offered him a spot on their cross country team. At the time we were reluctant to go along with him, but as time has passed, we’re glad we did. He has a great career that he loves and is good at, lots of good college friends that he remains close to, and he was able to run all four years he attended.
On balance, the choice he made was probably better for him than the choice we would have made for him.
Still and all, it would have been nice to introduce him as ‘my son, the Harvard graduate’ 
I may be a horrible parent because I wouldn’t want my kids to end up at Harvard or Stanford or one of those schools. And it isn’t just sour grapes of not being able to get in. If we’d raised my daughter to try and get into a competitive school, she’d have a chance (except Julliard, she SUCKS at music) - we didn’t raise her that way though. The thing is that I’ve wanted my kids to be kids. To be able to get Bs and know that that’s OK. To be able to pursue their interests, even if they involve binge watching Doctor Who instead of working on their Science Fair entry or practicing violin.
I wouldn’t mind if she ended up at a place like Grinnell. I think she’s more likely to end up on the East Coast in or near the city though.
The thing is that, for the most part, the kids who spend hours working on their science fair entries or practicing violin do so because they love those things. Just like the boys who spend hours each week exercising and training for football do so because they love it. So they are “pursuing their interests.”
As others, my answer is it depends on the kid. I went to MIT, my son was also oriented quite that way, but MIT would not have been right for him. He went to RPI and it was right for him.
But why does Yale, in particular, need an international airport. I suspect it’s just about as close to one (Kennedy) as are Princeton and Stanford. Cornell might have an “international” airport in Ithaca, I’m not sure, but if so I’m pretty sure it’s only because there are flights to Canada from it. I’m pretty sure it’s much easier to get to Yale from Europe or Asia than it is to Cornell.