FWIW, in my experience, those goals weren't at all exclusive of each other. I went to one of those schools, studied hard, and did well. The CS program had a s

FWIW, in my experience, those goals weren't at all exclusive of each other. I went to one of those schools, studied hard, and did well. The CS program had a strong feeling of community, particularly among undergraduates who worked as TAs, and from that I developed a network of smart people (including people several years older and younger than me) who also studied hard and did well. There's no doubt I've benefited from that. But the network I'm talking about isn't a prototypical "old boys" network, and it wasn't developed by shmoozing at networking events. I feel very lucky for the opportunity to have the experience.