When I first moved east, I was enamored with MIT and Harvard and the whole east-coast-prep-school-thing. Then I worked with a bunch of grads from these schools and was underwhelmed. I was expecting that they'd be smarter and better at what we were doing. That's when I figure out that you go to Ivy League schools because of the doors they open via the people you meet and network with, not because you're going to learn more in the History 101 class or even your intro to Data Structures class.
to be fair, I would imagine that on balance, kids from MIT (especially in STEM degree tracks) are more intelligent than those at a small liberal arts school. Honestly, probably most schools outside the Ivys and known tech schools like Urbana-Champagne, Harvey-Mudd, Caltech, etc.
