To add a little additional context: the prestigious school I was accepted to wasn't exactly highly known for the field I was going into, and with the reality of

To add a little additional context: the prestigious school I was accepted to wasn't exactly highly known for the field I was going into, and with the reality of grade inflation at top-tier schools, I figured I might get a better, or at least more hard-nosed, you-better-work kind of experience at the state school. I'll never be able to truly compare the two, but I know at my state school that I learned a lot, improved my ability to learn, and gained a lot in perseverance, not to mention made some great friends. My friends generally did not have parents who worked at top Wall Street firms, were nationally-elected politicians, or were celebrities, and my friends generally were not going to work at the most high-paying, time-demanding, possibly-quality-of-life-shrinking companies/jobs. That's okay, because I don't want to do 80 or 100 hour work weeks, and I don't want the people around me encouraging that, because I want to experience a lot more to life than those kinds of work experiences. Nothing wrong with people who want that, but this route worked well for me. Part of why it worked for me is because I was privileged enough to have parents who helped me understand myself and what I wanted out of life.