This post is uninformative BS, but the question of which of the top universities is "better" is interesting, we've been discussing this a lot with a colleague l

This post is uninformative BS, but the question of which of the top universities is "better" is interesting, we've been discussing this a lot with a colleague lately, he has a son who can pretty much go anywhere with his scores. His question is: should he send him to a good-good university, e.g., U of Michigan or one of the good-great ones like Harvard. In one case the son will get scholarship in the other most probably not. In my younger, naive days I used to. believe that the most important aspect of a university is the quality of professors, research, etc. I now believe that after a certain threshold is passed all of them are pretty much equivalent, give or take epsilon. So how to choose among this equivalence class? Choose the one with the best possible network! That's why Harvard and Yale unbeatable, and depending on where you want to go Stanford. The alumni network's distribution within the American workspace is key, not only because those will be your future classmates but also because that's how will perceive you. Why so many important people from Harvard Law School, just because it's hard to get into? This may be a simplistic approach but at least it gives you actionable items for your decision, I think. BTW, I'm no expert either, I got my degrees from Purdue. My decision process was simple: choose the only American university that gave me admission and TAship.