Challenge Success, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Stanford Graduate School of Education, just released their white paper, “A ‘Fit’ Over Rankings: Why College Engagement Matters More Than Selectivity.” The three most substantial findings likely won’t surprise believers who read this blog:

• Rankings are problematic because of flawed metrics and rampant misuse.
• A college’s prestige does not predict student learning, job satisfaction, or happiness.
• A student’s engagement in college is more predicative of the outcomes than the college itself.

Ideas like those presented in this paper spread best when shared with those most likely to embrace them. So while I didn’t conduct or publish this research, here’s who I believe the paper isn’t for:

1. People who just don’t care about college rankings.
If you’re in that group, you’ve already embraced what this paper is arguing. And it should come as no surprise that you have my full-throated support. Forge ahead, find the right colleges (famous or not) for your student, and know that the vast majority of counseling and admissions professionals endorse your approach.

2. People who believe that prestigious schools are the best schools.
For this group, college rankings—the most prominent of which always place prestigious schools at the top of the list—support your world view. The debate around college rankings isn’t an intellectual exercise you want or need to engage in. Unless you’re open to the idea that a less-famous school could very well provide the same or even better education and outcomes, a research study (even one published by a researcher at a top-ranked university, by the way) isn’t likely to change your mind.

Now, here’s who I believe this paper is for:

1. Families who want to make informed evaluations of potential colleges, but aren’t sure how to do it or what to focus on.
If you’re in this group, you don’t have strong preconceived college notions. You want to make good decisions, but given how many colleges and resulting data points there are to consider, you don’t know what to pay attention to and, more importantly, what to ignore. This paper will help you confidently ignore what’s become a driving and damaging force in college admissions. You’ll know you’re making a good decision doing so. And you’ll reinvest that energy into other areas that will help you better evaluate potential colleges.

2. Data-hungry college researchers.
I have an endearing term for you—“spreadsheet” families. You know who you are. You’re the family member for whom data drives decisions, so everything college-related goes on the spreadsheet. Good for you. You’re engaged in a college search and you want to use reliable metrics rather than marketing to drive those decisions. Members of this group sometimes fall prey to rankings when they mistake them as reliable data points. But the truly data hungry are willing to dig into what reveals itself to be a deeply flawed rankings methodology. This paper will arm you with published research so you can seek reliable data meant to do more than sell magazines.

So if you’re open to looking beyond rankings and prestige, the research, the data, and the encouragement can all be found in here.

I’ll never forget how my former class of 2004 student Chase answered our Collegewise “essay brainstorming” question about something he’d like to do but hadn’t done yet.

“I would really like to go on a date with Britney Spears. I haven’t done it yet because I don’t think she’d be interested in dating an average looking middle-class kid from Irvine, California.”

It was funny and self-deprecating and sounded just like him. In fact, the answer ended up being the perfect response to one application’s short-answer question. But there’s also something to learn here about the way admissions work at selective colleges.

The truth is that Chase was right. He and other guys like him probably had no shot at dating Britney Spears, not because she was inherently superior to him or anyone else, but because of her fame. To have any chance at all at forging a romance with an entertainment celebrity means running in their circles and probably becoming at least semi-rich-and-famous yourself. You don’t need to do those things to find love. But you’ll need to do them to find love with Britney Spears. The choice is yours to make if Britney is worth the effort or if a non-famous love connection will bring you just as much happiness.

That’s a good way to view the admissions process at the more selective colleges.

The more famous and selective the college, the more demands placed on you to have a shot at admission. Top grades in AP classes, high test scores, achievement outside of the classroom—fair or not, that’s what you need to get in. And if it’s all in pursuit of a short list of dream colleges, there’s likely no guarantee it will work.

But like the prospect of connecting with someone famous, you get to make the decision—is it worth it? Is that short list of dream colleges worth the time, work, and sacrifice to even have a chance at getting accepted? Or do you believe you can be just as happy and successful with a college (or a person) that doesn’t grace the covers of the famous magazines?

Brennan Bernard’s recent Forbes piece correctly points out the tyranny of “shoulds” that dominate the college admissions process, as in, “You should study more for standardized tests,” “You should take more AP courses,” “You should secure a formal leadership position,” etc., etc., etc. And he recommends students start their own revolution against the shoulds—boycott the ACT and SAT and put an end to high stakes testing, stage a sit-in against rankings at US News & World Report headquarters, refuse to play a single sport beyond its 12-week season, etc.

If you want to change the system, it’s hard to argue with that tactic. When a million college applicants refuse to take the SAT or ACT and to instead apply only to test-optional colleges, it would shake the testing companies to their core.

But you could also stage your own personal revolution in the most natural, risk-free way possible. It sounds like this:

“I’ll do my best in school without losing sleep or sanity. I’ll choose activities that I like. I’ll be a good person, friend, and citizen. I’ll enjoy being a kid but also be engaged in planning my future. I’ll apply to colleges that fit me, will accept me, and that I can afford without taking on unreasonable debt. And I’ll make the most of what’s available to me while I’m there.”

Even an average student who embraces that revolution will have dozens or even hundreds of realistic colleges from which to choose. You didn’t change the system. You just opted into a different one than most of your stressed friends are immersed in.

You and your family get to make the choice. Opt in to the admissions race and the various literal and figurative price to pay. Or opt out. Focus more on becoming the best version of yourself and have faith that the right colleges will welcome you.

You would not be settling for an inferior college any more than you would be eventually settling to find love with someone who wasn’t famous. If you’re tired of the shoulds, it might be time to stage your own revolution.

William Stixrud is a clinical neuropsychologist, a faculty member at Children’s National Medical Center and George Washington University Medical School, and the co-author of The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives. And while I take small issue with the title (more on that in a minute), I did enjoy his piece “It’s Time to Tell Your Kids It Doesn’t Matter Where They Go To College,” especially this portion:

“Many adults worry that if their kids knew that grades in school aren’t highly predictive of success in life, they’d lose their motivation to apply themselves and aim high. In fact, the opposite is true. In my 32 years of working with kids as a psychologist, I’ve seen that simply telling kids the truth — giving them an accurate model of reality, including the advantages of being a good student — increases their flexibility and drive. It motivates kids with high aspirations to shift their emphasis from achieving for its own sake to educating themselves so that they can make an important contribution. An accurate model of reality also encourages less-motivated students to think more broadly about their options and energizes them to pursue education and self-development even if they aren’t top achievers.”

I’ve learned that authors often don’t write the titles of their pieces in major outlets, and that may be the case here. But I’d be cautious about being so dismissive about the college choice to say that where you go simply doesn’t matter at all. Colleges are not all the same. The right college for one student may not be the right cost, academic setting, environment, etc. for another.

But the larger point is still an important one. Great educations can be found at many colleges, not just the famous, expensive, or prestigious ones. What you do in college will be more important than the name of the school where you do it. And there’s no one prescribed path to success.

Senior families, as you weigh the costs of your college options, here’s a benchmark to avoid: “You get what you pay for.” That might be true when you’re choosing a television, a new roof, or a seat on an airplane. But it just doesn’t hold up when you’re choosing a college.

Almost every purported benefit of any college is only worth the degree to which a student avails themselves of that benefit.

Small classes can lead to a lot of personal attention and interaction with professors, but only if the student wants and takes advantage of that opportunity.

Six Nobel Prize-winning professors on campus? Great. How do you plan to make that benefit a benefit to you?

Great snowboarding, a top engineering program, a wide range of study abroad options, deep pre-med advising, a socially conscious student body, a brand new gym on campus, a city with virtually unlimited internship opportunities, etc.—each is like an item on a menu. It’s available for you to order and enjoy, but none are served up and force-fed to you. Choose the school that offers an appealing menu, then order and enjoy accordingly.

It’s up to each student and parent to decide together if the offerings at any college justify the price. Many students who attend expensive schools rave about the experiences. But they don’t do so more effusively than those who attend the more moderately priced options. College is an investment that should be carefully considered. But price doesn’t perfectly correlate to quality for good reason—you get to drive the value of your own returns.

With college, you don’t necessarily get what you pay for. You get what you make of what you pay for.

Our own Arun Ponnusamy has a lot of experience with colleges that routinely top the rankings lists. He attended the University of Chicago, and he read applications at his alma mater, at Caltech, and at UCLA. So it might surprise you to hear him remind students and parents that college rankings do nothing more than sell magazines and serve as online clickbait. And he explains why in just over two minutes.

70 seconds is all it takes for Madeline Levine to explain why parents should help their kids seek the right college fit instead of prestige-at-all-costs.

From the Gallup Organization’s “5 Ways to Make College a Success,” the findings of which are based on their comprehensive research on higher education.

4. Question the value of attending prestigious, highly selective and high-priced colleges and universities. They actually provide little (at best) to no (at worst) advantage in being engaged in your job and in your life outcomes (thriving in your well-being). Nor do they reduce the chances of feeling education regret. College is much more about what you make of it — how you take advantage of your education — than the type of institution you attend.

Many colleges are releasing their early admissions decisions, and I can’t think of a better message to share (again) than that from Patrick O’Connor in his 2014 piece, What Your College Application Decisions Won’t Tell You.

O’Connor builds his message with several specific examples, all of which eventually lead to a conclusion I wish every senior who applied to college would read and embrace:

“A yes from a college doesn’t make you somebody; the work you put in to earn that yes did that. A no from a college doesn’t make you nobody; that happens when you decide their denial is a character indictment, instead of an opportunity to build a great life at another school…Your worth is within you, and it isn’t waiting for much of anything, other than your recognition of its existence.”

In fact, the sentiment could be broadly applied to any high school student, from freshman to senior, who hopes to attend college. I hope you’ll read and share it.