Honest answer: as an MIT computer science grad, my life has been infinitely easier thanks to the label. But my time at MIT was very hard, and it is a difficult place for a young person to be.
It really depends on the child. I don't recommend MIT in particular to just anyone. Not sure if this lack of recommendation affects other top schools -- I don't have personal, intimate experience with them.
I can echo the parent. I still remember my time at MIT like it was yesterday, and it helped me immensely in life, especially having grown up poor.
But it was the people I met and the stuff I worked on with them, and the relationships that forged, that stuck. The classes were useful and interesting but I’m very glad I made them the “side quest,” so to speak, and made “do interesting stuff with interesting people” the main quest.
You should support your kid, in the best way you know how. :) That’s all.
MIT is not for everyone. I saw many students completely fold under the pressure, both from the expectations of being told they were “gifted” their whole lives, and from the sudden realization that they might be in the top 1% but might still be in the bottom third at MIT; that is a new experience for many. Also, many students just never learned how to study, since public school was easy for them, so that’s a whole ‘nother thing.
The point is: MIT is amazing, and there are countless students who would do incredibly well there. From any given year’s applications, MIT could form dozens of full-sized classes and all would do very well. If your kid doesn’t get in, that doesn’t mean they aren’t worthy or good enough; they might just be in one of those other dozens of other-timeline also-great classes.
But there are people for whom MIT does not work well; ultimately, it’s the student that knows themselves best. Do they thrive under pressure? Is curiosity essentially their top value? For me, the moment I visited MIT I knew it was the place I wanted to be. These were my people. Now it was just a question of whether or not I won the lottery of getting in.
It very much depends on what your kid wants to do after college. Having the imprimatur of a top 25 college is definitely an advantage for certain endeavors that value brand names. Plus there's a genuine networking advantage if your kid has the personality and social skills to take advantage of it. On the other hand, if they just want to get an MD and practice medicine, for example, I'm not sure it would be worth it. That is unless they want to do cutting edge research or aim to be some kind of upper management eventually, then the brand name and network could again confer an advantage. Also some top schools are better for certain career paths than others, So it really depends on your kid's specific situation.
It really depends on the child. I don't recommend MIT in particular to just anyone. Not sure if this lack of recommendation affects other top schools -- I don't have personal, intimate experience with them.