“Within Palo Alto and other areas that focus a lot on higher education and put pressure on kids to get into good schools, we look too deep into the acceptance rates to decide whether or not that’s a school that we want to go to, rather than actually looking at an individual school that might have a really good program.”

— Declan Baker (’25)

“Personally, I’m thinking more about the school environment and how I will function in that environment because, at some of the more highly ranked colleges, even if I were to get in somehow, I wouldn’t necessarily do as well because the environment is just not super conducive for me.”

— Lucy Kristofferson (’25)

“People care too much about that when they’re making their decision when the most important factor should be whether you would be a good fit for that school, whether you like what’s taught there, and the values that the school has.”

— Alma Bendavid (’25)

“I’m not that informed on what colleges are good and bad. Some people have more experience because they’ve had family members go through the process, but my siblings didn’t really do it and neither did my parents. So, when I was doing my college research, I just looked up ‘Best Colleges’ and used the ranking to decide because I genuinely had no other anecdotal evidence for which colleges were good.”

— Gabriel Chakmakchi (’25)

“Different organizations have such different rankings that, to be honest, the top 30 schools … I don’t care too much about their rankings.”

— Samantha Fan (’25)

“If you’re really future-minded, then I don’t think ranking matters so much. In the Palo Alto culture, the value of rankings is overinflated.”

— Justun Kim (’25)

“It is a factor, but mostly I look at the various programs they have and the different undergraduate research opportunities or unique clubs that they provide rather than the rankings.”

— Ryan Kim (’25)

“I definitely want to apply to higher-ranked colleges because they are mostly perceived as better by everyone around me.”

— Claire Shi (’25)