It's something that I find myself wondering about as well, and the fact that I bring it up suggests that I haven't quite moved past it. In the undergraduate pr

It's something that I find myself wondering about as well, and the fact that I bring it up suggests that I haven't quite moved past it. In the undergraduate program that I actually attended, the schools we had turned down was a bit of a badge of honor. A testament if you will, to how much respect we had for the program we were attending - my peers and I turned down some pretty big names to do what we did. In retrospect however, it reflects our insecurity with that choice. Outside of our selected niche, those names still garner the most prestige, get the best job offers, are in the news most often, etc.