Choosiest may not mean best

Similar findings have been made by David Zimmerman and Gordon Winston, both professors of economics at Williams College, who discovered that students who ranked in the middle of the pack at three selective universities got slightly worse grades if they roomed with someone in the bottom 15 percent of the class. Earlier, Professor Zimmerman also had found a positive effect on midrange students who had a roommate with higher scores on the verbal portion of the SAT, but in neither case did studies show much effect from roommates on students at the top or bottom of their peer group.

Moreover, experiments in the psychology lab of another Williams professor seem to indicate that, in some cases, studying among smart peers can do more harm than good. In a three-year study, George Goethals assigned students of varying academic ability to work on simple tasks, such as critiquing newspaper articles. Students are very acute in gauging where they fall in the academic pecking order, says Professor Goethals. Often, those who perceive themselves to be intellectually overmatched simply disengage from the experiment.

"The answer seems to be yes, students affect each other a great deal," he says. "But the effects are complex. You have to tell a complicated story about the influence students have on each other."

That's a different story from what many parents hear, or believe. Bruce Hammond, co-author of "The Fiske Guide to Getting into the Right College" and director of college counseling at Sandia Preparatory School in Albuquerque, N.M., says he sees many families fixated on a coterie of brand-name schools that they perceive to be superior in all cases.

"There may be 20 to 30 things that go into making a great education, and the quality of peers is definitely a big part of it," Mr. Hammond notes. "But it's certainly not the whole thing. I'm just not sure that it's worth all the hysteria."

But whether or not students benefit from selective environments, there is still a powerful allure in being part of a chosen elite. The hardest part for parents, Hammond says, often is getting beyond the ego factor and evaluating what conditions best allow their children to excel. "Everyone wants to get in to these highly selective schools, and to be able to stand apart from that is difficult."

You can trust Kathryn Napper on that. Every day, she repeats the mantra of finding the right school, not the most impressive one. Yet last year, when she took her daughter to visit private high schools, she found herself falling into the trap of not looking beyond the name on the gates.

After being admitted to a highly selective school with a big name, Napper's daughter said she really preferred one with a lesser name.

"Well, guess where her mother wanted her to go?" Napper says. "I wanted to kick myself. Luckily, my daughter was strong enough to say, 'I'm more comfortable here.' And you know, after a day or two, her mother got over it."

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