Kids of parents making $158.2-222.4k/yr have worst odds of Ivy League acceptance

The technical term for this is "race to the bottom," abetted by short-term thinking on the part of "customers." It's similar to how people complain bitterly about the quality of air travel, but then go for the lowest-possible air fare.

(OK, the actual technical term is "revealed preference vs. expressed [or stated] preference.")

On the plus side, for the rest of your life, including especially if you actually want to raise a child, red states are much better in most ways unless you have a very high salary in a coastal blue state (or your income is low enough to get benefits from the blue states, but your income won't be low enough if you're a professional).

For example, I think that consulting firm McKinsey does some kind of recruitment and job interview on campus during spring and then they announce who they are hiring for the next summer internship in Autumn. A lot of people try to get in and then there is kind of a weird thing on campus where people talk about who made it in. (I never applied so idk all the specifics just observed this.)

So is working at McKinsey or being a Google director or whatever, working at the other big consulting firms/Goldman Sachs really worth it? I don't know. It seems like they pay higher but I don't feel like there is a big value play for these firms. So really you just have people who play every trick in the book to make themselves appear impressive to get in to the school, then use that to get a job at McKinsey, then they do nothing useful there but at least they can say they were in a special club?? Is this really what's considered desirable? It just feels very artificial all the way down.

On the other hand if you didn't go to an Ivy+ I think there isn't really a barrier to doing interesting and useful things which aren't involved in this weird status game. That's not to say all students at those schools are like that but the places where degree matters the most seem questionable to me. I don't like speaking in generalities either but I think it's worth questioning this economic system we have set up with admissions and the job availability after graduation.

I bet on myself and it wasn't an uneducated bet. I figured I would end up in the same place regardless because I had been reading about research on college outcomes. I read that intelligent people tend to end up with the same level of success in life regardless of university. Made sense to me.

Given where my career has taken me since, I'm especially confident I would be in the same sort of place. If anything, going to the state school I went to is both what introduced me to my career focus (professional FP & Haskell) and first job (got a referral from a friend for FAANG. He was pretty savvy - had an older brother in SV tech - and told me tips such as job hopping for a raise every 2y or so).

2. I (and my parents) actually did dig into the real cost. It was more than that. It was doable but with loans and/or my parents dipping into funds well beyond their college savings for me.

Not sure I would've gone even if the costs were closer tbh. Culture fit is important.