Advice on cultures at Exeter, Andover, Deerfield, Choate, St. Paul's, Hotchkiss

There’s no bitterness, I just have a difference of opinion, and am saying these schools don’t deliver on college matriculation like they used to. Just IMHO. You are free to disagree, but guess what? I can too.

All I can think of is Brad Pitt and Gwenyth Paltrow in se7en. Yes, changing the subject;).

Back to the topic…the only thing about the list that surprised me were the numbers and how large each class is at Andover.

Everyone should keep in mind that these lists dont disclose how many are minorities, athletes, development, legacy. It is a significant percentage of the total: particularly athletes and URM.

Andover and these large magnet programs are different beasts. Not better, just different. Our DD applied to a local math and science school and several boarding schools. Had she gone to the magnet science school her high school path woud have been entirely different. Along with her other classes, they make them complete 3 science classes in 9th grade- starting with a full year of honors biology in the first half of 9th grade, and a full year of honors chemistry the second half. They also take foundations of engineering. All of this just to prepare them for muliple advanced science classes in things like bioengineering. AND they require an internship with a local science, tech, engineer, or biotech company for a year to present a capstone project and/or national science research project.
The focus is entirely different. In these public schools the students are focused on rank, grades, APs, SAT/ACT scores, resume building. The school’s have milestone tests almost every 6-8 weeks- testing is a way of life. Achievement is everything. Awards are given out for perfect scores on the SAT, ACT, PSAT… and dozens of kids hit it. It’s in the school paper. The competition at these schools is much more apparent. Students have aps to calculate their grade point averages with each graded assignment- Imagine. I had a friend who drove her car over her kids iphone on purpose to stop him from checking on his class rank.

I think at Andover, and the other boarding schools, the students see the bigger picture. They talk about things like character and community. There is more going on. Or maybe, the schools themselves put less stress on the students overall performance. The schools do seem less stressed about the SAT’s and AP’s. They certainly don’t overprep their students and teach to the test. Most of the boarding schools today don’t even take AP classes anymore. Maybe boarding schools still count on their reputation or their alumina base. But whatever it is, I think it’s almost impossible to compare these two types of schools numerically.

I think colleges can look at kids that do well at both and know that they can succeed at their college. The problem with boarding school, sometimes, is that there is an added “elitism”. Right or wrong. And magnet schools are a great source for high stats kids that have: High scores, multiple AP’s, national competions, women in STEM, first gen, URM… its just easy picking