Saw list from Business Insider entitled 50 most elite boarding schools in America. “Prestige is derived from more than just strong academics, though, so to determine the most elite boarding schools in America, we looked at the size of a school’s endowment, how selective it is based on its acceptance rate, and the average SAT score its students earn. To rank the schools, each metric was weighted equally.” Any opinions on this list from our CC community . .maybe it is only relevant on the top end . . and as we know the distinctions between these schools are arbitrary. And that prestige is not necessarily important . .
As you said, these lists are often somewhat arbitrary and mostly subjective. It is human nature to want to quantify and rank everything using superficial measures such as endowment or acceptance rate. That being said, my personal rankings when I think of “elite boarding schools” does align much more with Buisness Insider’s article than others such as TheBestSchools.org’s. Keep in mind that there are plenty of schools that offer excellent educational opportunities that weren’t on the list. Because there is great variability between students and the types of environments they require to succeed, the most “elite” school may not offer the best educational experience for everyone. Therefore, ranking schools based on how “elite” they are is somewhat pointless outside of entertainment purposes.
Well it is a ranking of the “most elite”. Who has an authoritative fomula to measure “eliteness”? But the result comes out with little surprises because - Sure, acceptance rates, size of endowment, and how well prepared for college are indeed factors that contribute to or results of high quality education. I think there is one additional metric that should be considered. Whether it’s part of eliteness, since elite college rankings more and more so take affordability as a criterion, it’s reasonable that BS consider it too. So for example, the net cost when all financial aid is factored in should be part of the formula. Not sure if it would change the ranking a lot. Maybe not in terms of which get selected into the top 50. I mean counting 50 out of 300+ in total as “the most elite” is a pretty low risk proposition…
Edit: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-elite-boarding-schools-in-america-2016-2