Jordan Scott Price
Veteran
This is the best advice in this thread, in my opinion.
I haven't gone to any "elite" film school, but instead I've pushed myself to be the best in my school. It has worked out great for me, and my experiences outside and inside the classes, plus the work I've done by curriculum or independently, have given me exactly what I wanted: contacts who will be and have been useful in my career, a reel to advertise my abilities, and the knowledge that I can use to apply for jobs. To that, because of all the above, I now have a full-time paid internship over the summer doing what I love to do - shoot, shoot, and shoot more.
The trick is to outwork everyone. Everyone. Anyone can be smarter than you, but no one can outwork you unless you let them. Be the stand-out in your class - or, better yet, in your department - and people will notice.
I work in our film/video equipment check-out room at my university. While the other few staffers get paid, I am volunteering. They cannot pay me because I'm not work-study. Big deal. I get everything I need working in there: 24-hour access to all the gear I want, including lights from Mole Richardson, Lowell, Colortran, and Arri; all the grip gear I need; an O'Connor 100 fluid head and beefy ITE sticks; all the expendables I'll need for any shoot. I get to put something like this on my resume, which could pay off in the future with jobs in that line of work. I also know how to repair a lot of the gear, so the school benefits from this, too. Money is not the most important thing in this exchange. But the point is, I got this job because I garnered notice from the faculty by working like crazy and spending as much time on projects as I could, outdoing some of the graduate students. Because of that, I was given unrestricted access to $100,000 worth of gear, which I can turn around and use to make even better work.
Sad Max's philosophy is practically my philosophy. Pick a school you feel you will be comfortable with, and then establish yourself as that guy, with whom everyone wants to work.
And lastly, it has to be noted that you have one of the best resources at your fingertips: DVXuser.com. This site has been the unpaid course #5399 in my class schedule. So much have I learned from just being an active member, I can immediately turn around and use this knowledge in the field. No lie, it has given me an advantage in my career, so I try to return the favor as much as possible.
You can take this or leave it, but if you really push yourself, you'll get where you want to be in school. You are/want to be a DP? Shoot everyone's projects. There are five production classes at my school this semester with fifteen students each shooting multiple projects, and I'm shooting and have shot well over a dozen. The beauty of this is you can use these projects for reels, for experimenting with techniques, gear, and formats, for connections, and for experience! Take advantage of it.