She couldn’t face the shame of her son getting rejected from his dream school 12 years after it happened. He went to a state school and had no shame about it. 

If you’re eight years out of undergrad and you’re still upset that you didn’t get into Duke or Columbia, you need to get a grip. A student who could have thrived at an Ivy League school should absolutely be able to thrive at a state school, and if you were «too smart» for the state school you attended, you probably weren’t as smart as you thought you were. Smart people can adapt to whatever situation they find themselves in, becoming top performers because they are much more talented than the average student admitted to their school.