(MONEY Magazine) – Only well-known schools are excellent values, right? Not necessarily--as our rankings on page 108 demonstrate. To dispel more such myths, we consulted more than two dozen education experts, college admissions directors and counselors. Here are a half-dozen whoppers:

1 I am an alumnus of my daughter's first-choice school, so she will get in. That may be true--if her grades and SAT scores are up to the college's standards. Otherwise, your child has almost no chance. At Harvard, for instance, "If two candidates have equal qualifications and we have only one slot, the person who gets it is the son or daughter of the Harvard alum," says admissions director Marlyn McGrath Lewis. Harvard admits 35% to 45% of graduates' children who apply each year (the average at Ivies is 45%), vs. 10% to 15% of other applicants. Public schools don't generally give preference to alumni children.

2 Affirmative action is on the way out. The U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans has prohibited public universities in its district--Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas--from using different admissions standards for students of different races. (The University of California has banned the practice too.) But the ruling applies only in the court's jurisdiction. And all private schools, which educate about 20% of the nation's college students, may do as they please. Thus if your child is African American or Native American, for example, he or she still has a better chance of getting into most schools than a white applicant with similar academic qualifications.

3 If my child gets turned down for need-based financial aid, there's no point in applying again. That's generally true, but there can be exceptions--for example, if your financial situation changes. Suppose that your family didn't originally qualify for aid because the government determined that you could afford to pay $15,000 a year in college costs and your eldest child's school charges $10,000. If a second child subsequently enrolls in a college that costs as much, apply for aid at both colleges, because you could qualify for a total of $5,000.

4 My child must go to a big-name school to be successful. True, if your daughter has Columbia or Stanford on her resume, she may find it easier to land postgraduation job interviews. "But it's a person's dedication and job performance that determines how well a career progresses, not where she earned her diploma," says John Challenger, executive vice president of Challenger Gray & Christmas, a Chicago outplacement firm. Consider talk show host David Letterman, fund manager John Neff and poultry king Frank Perdue. They attended Ball State in Indiana, the University of Toledo and Salisbury State College in Maryland, respectively.

5 If my child studies something practical like engineering, he'll have more earning power than if he picks liberal arts. It's true that liberal arts majors earn low starting salaries: an average $19,100, compared with $23,600 for all majors and $30,900 for many starting engineers, according to the U.S. Department of Education. However, "The salary of an accountant or engineer usually will plateau before he's halfway into his career," says Bill McClintick, executive board member of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. By contrast, liberal arts majors, trained to be more creative thinkers, often have a better shot at rising to the upper ranks of a corporation, where they can eventually earn far higher salaries. The CEOs of America Online, Disney and RJR Nabisco all majored in the liberal arts.

6 If Congress succeeds in cutting direct federal student loans, my child will have a harder time borrowing. "All the talk about direct-lending cuts is political hype," says Milton Eisenhardt, a counselor at College Money in Marlton, N.J. The reason: Private lenders will make up the difference with loans guaranteed by the government. But there's a caveat. Borrowers can take as long as 30 years to pay back direct loans, while guaranteed loans must be repaid within 10 years.

--Karen Hube