Sometime over the past few decades, we seem to have ceded control of the college narrative to the Harvards and Stanfords of the world. If you watch the news, the attention given to highly selective colleges' policies on admissions, financial aid, free speech, political expression, diversity, endowment investment and so on would have you think that they are a gigantic factory educating (or as some would say "indoctrinating") the current generation of students on a mass scale.

And students and families have bought in to the narrative that these highly selective schools are gatekeepers to successful adulthood and that nothing short of an Ivy League diploma will do to launch their young adult. Last year the Ivy Leagues received nearly 400,000 applications. That's a mind-boggling number when you consider that the high school class of 2024 was just under 4,000,000 students. Needless to say, most of those applicants were disappointed: the Ivies admit a total of about 21,000 students each year.

These highly-selective colleges would very much like you to buy into this narrative. After all, it allows them to keep raising tuition knowing there's a large pool of families out there willing to do whatever it takes-- including spending or borrowing whatever it takes-- to get one of those coveted acceptances and, ultimately, a diploma.

And yet the body of data showing that plenty of colleges prepare students for success in life continues to grow, while the vast majority of non-Ivy League colleges increase scholarship offerings in the hope of filling classes with students who would learn and grow over the course of earning their degree.

I bring this up because here in the thick of application season-- with ED1 and ED2 offers out and regular decision applicants waiting with high hopes and crossed fingers-- I am continually hearing from parents desperately seeking some magic money tree because their students were accepted to one of these highly selective schools without an adequate financial aid package.

So I want to remind you:

There is no magic money tree.

But, there also isn't a short list of colleges who are gatekeepers to a decent adulthood.

Highly selective colleges don't automatically make their students successful. There's a whole body of data showing that students who are turned down by these colleges have similar economic outcomes to those who get in. That how you go to college matters far more than where you go to college.

While the Ivies have always been highly selective, it hasn't always been this crazy. In 2010, only about 120,000 applications were submitted to the Ivies-- with the schools enrolling around the same number of students. Somewhere along the line we stopped thinking about why we were sending our kids to college and instead focused on which college we were sending them to. And your life-- and theirs-- will be a whole lot better if you switch back to thinking about why college.

College produces great outcomes-- not a short list of colleges, but college as a whole. Earning a college degree is about the best way to ensure future financial stability. College graduates out-earn those without degrees by substantial margins. College graduates live longer and healthier lives, with lower rates of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. College graduates are even more likely to marry and less likely to divorce than those without degrees. These are probably all things you want for your student.

Who doesn't benefit from college? It's not the students who go to less selective colleges. It's the students who borrow too much to attend college. The students who don't graduate. The students who transfer, lose scholarships, and take five or six years to graduate-- with the resulting higher level of debt.

Do Ivy League graduates have higher average starting salaries? Overall yes, but not when you adjust for career. A higher percentage of Ivy League graduates goes into high-paying fields like finance, which skews salary data. And yes, Ivy League business schools enroll a disproportionate number of Ivy League undergrads-- but a disproportionate number of Ivy League undergrads applies to Ivy League business schools, too.

Here are some other facts:

• Goldman Sachs' most recent intern class included students from nearly 500 different colleges and universities.

• The Harvard Business School class of 2026 includes students from 296 undergraduate institutions.

• This year's 32 Rhodes Scholars include students from 19 different colleges, ranging from Harvard to the University of Alabama, Stanford to Pepperdine, Yale to Eastern Mennonite University.

So can we let go of this notion that only an Ivy League education will do? That it's worth mortgaging your child's future-- and potentially your own-- to get someone else's name on their diploma? And can we stop setting them up for failure in the application process? Getting into an Ivy League is about like getting a golden ticket to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. And as the movie showed us, the ticket wasn't what made anyone special.

There's only one name that matters on your diploma: yours. So when you sit down to choose a college, think about what's going to get your name on a diploma. Here are some important considerations:

• How do you make friends? Does the campus environment encourage that type of interaction?

• How do you learn? What makes you feel successful in a classroom? (Hint: if "being the smartest person in the room" is it, you probably won't be happy at a highly selective college.)

• What activities do you want to participate in while in college? If 100+% of your budget is going to tuition and fees, there's not much left for study abroad, clubs and other activities.

• Who's the person you're hoping to see four years from now? Someone with a host of opportunities open to them, or someone who has to move back home because their student loan payments don't leave enough money left over for rent?

Which college closes doors, drives up costs and stresses out our kids. Why college opens doors and lets you write your own story. Don't let someone else write it for you.