As I said before, ucla and Berkeley are in a class of their own.
Again, I know the child you are suggesting has brain damage, parents too. Though Mizzou is an interring choice, she wanted a school in the south, bigger athletic profile, etc. it matched her major choice. Very far from brain damaged. Point being, more often than not there’s reasoning behind going further away and it’s not the narrow “ShopRite line” story you constantly run with.
I mean..."a school in the south with a bigger athletic profile"...assuming the child isn't the athlete herself that IS the Shop Rite story.
With the cost of college today, do you really think a middle class kid is thinking of anything but the best school for the best price?
Being able to consider the athletic profile of the school and wanting a region you can only fly to...that's ShopRite right there. It's shorthand for not academics and value, but rather factors that don't matter in the real world- how pretty the campus is is another favorite.
Also...literally no employer outside of Missouri is going to be more impressed with Mizzou over Irvine, indicating a job is likely waiting with a connection.
It's kind of funny. When I was applying, a wealthier parent could foot the bill for a Cult even though it was a lesser school than RU. Now the K shape of the economy is such that that's no longer fancy enough. We need a whole new region- one big on TikTok.
And again, these Southern loving families and students never end up at UF, UGA, GT, Vandy, Emory, Wake Forest, UNC, Duke- the real academic cream of the crop places. Mystery...