<p>Hi everyone! I'm an 8th grader applying to several schools (Taft, The Gunnery, Chase Collegiate, Loomis Chaffee, Hopkins, Lawrenceville, Choate, Hotchkiss, and Kingswood-Oxford). My SSAT score was a 98% overall. I'm very interested in the arts, but am mainly looking for an academic challenge. I would really appreciate all of your thoughts about these schools. I've visited Taft, Chase, and The Gunnery so far. I really felt connected with The Gunnery, but am hesitant because I have heard some negative things about their academics. I also liked Taft, but didn't feel like I wanted to go to Chase, mainly because it is not a higher level school. I also like Loomis (I haven't visited yet). Chase is the school I'm falling back on right now because I know that they are very interested and are hinting that I am a good scholarship candidate, however I didn't love the community and program there. Please share any of your thoughts or experiences, and please comment on whether I would be a good candidate for acceptance and/or scholarship for any of the schools. Thank you!</p>
<p>Willem - </p>
<p>First, sorry that your post got ignored! It’s been a busy week on CC . . . .</p>
<p>Second, no one here can tell you which school will be a good fit for you. Unfortunately, that’s something you’ll have to figure out for yourself. What you should do is as much of your own research as you can . . . including searching this forum for threads (or even individual posts) about the schools you are interested in.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that a single visit, even though it might greatly sway your opinion about a school, is not necessarily indicative. Get the wrong tour guide and you might end up hating a school . . . get the right tour guide and the same school could end up being your first choice!</p>
<p>But, after taking into account everything you know about a school, from your research, from your visit, from what you’ve “heard,” if you really think a school is not for you, then you shouldn’t apply there. There are hundreds of schools out there . . . find the ones you think you would really LOVE to attend and apply to those. Yes, you should include at least one or two where you have a really good shot at getting in . . . but I’m sure you can find some in that category that you really like. There’s no point in applying to a school you don’t really want to attend. So, rethink this a bit, take a look at some other schools, and put together a list that makes sense to YOU.</p>
<p>I worry when students decide something is or is not worth going to because it is not a “top tier” school based on prestige and reputation. Did you know that many students enter those top tier schools ONLY because they are top tier and not because they are a fit - and then end up miserable? One student told me he thought he’d find really gifted kids like him, but ended up finding only ordinary kids who just work non-stop. It wasn’t a fun experience for him. Some of those schools are pressure cookers. And I’m finding some of those schools still have an insidious habit of steering non-wealthy kids towards lower tier colleges to keep their stats up based on current conversations with parents.</p>
<p>Find the school that loves you as much as you love them and go for it. Stats and prestige don’t mean anything if it’s a poor fit, or if you’re just a number. Where can you go where you’ll get good academics, can stand out, and can develop close relationships with faculty. Where do you feel like you already “fit in” with the campus culture and existing students. Where can you get a good range of new things to try that you can’t get at your home school? And who seemed to like you during your campus visit or interview. Trust your gut, not someone else’s perception of whether a school is good or not.</p>
<p>
What a load of irresponsible rumors and speculations about “top tier” schools! The truth of matter is that many kids in these top schools ARE talented AND work hard. While a good number of those who go on to top colleges do have various “hooks” but so do all others from other schools. Just go ask those who graduated exceptional in academics and/or extracurricular activities from top schools, and see how many of them didn’t end up in a top college, regardless whether or not they are from rich families. I am sure there are some, but in most of the cases it’s because they were shooting high and ended up disappointed that they couldn’t get to the the tip top ones as they expected. Check out matriculationstats.org. Up to 62% of graduates from Andover and SPS go on to top 25 univerisities or top 15 LACs, and 80% of them to top 50 universities and top 30 LACs. “Non-wealthy kids” to “lower tier colleges”? You don’t know what you are talking about!</p>
<p>How would you feel if I said that many students in lower tier schools were uninspired and lazy, that many of them chose these schools not because it’s a fit but because they didn’t have better options and ended up miserable, and then had to go on to lower tier colleges? I won’t go down the list too far. Let’s just take Taft. The numbers I quoted for the top schools become 37% and 63%. That is significant difference. If you tell me the different matriculation rate to HYP could be because there are more “rich and powerful” in some schools than in others or many more students in Taft voluntarily give up on HYP, I couldn’t argue with you because I don’t have the exact numbers just like you don’t, but if you tell me it affects the matriculation rates of top 25 or even top 50 colleges? Give me a break.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your replies! I am absolutely looking for a school that fits me. I would NEVER attend a school just because it is top-tier. You all bring up good points (let’s not get too worked up ok?) and I know that there are students at great school who don’t work as hard, or get in due to their athletic accomplishments etc., but this is true for ALL schools, not just the top ones. I really am looking for your information on the schools I have mentioned. I’ve found that I feel comfortable and connect with many of the schools, and I’m having trouble really discovering which school best fits me out of all of the schools I’m applying to. If you have any information on the schools, I would really appreciate it!</p>
<p>Shut up. All of you. Seriously, take a step back from what you’re doing and think about it. You’re spending vast amounts of your free time on a prep school forum ranting about your philosophy on admissions and getting into fights with people who disagree. For some of you, this is AFTER your kids are in prep school, so why do you care so much? This isn’t helpful to anyone.</p>
<p>Also, I have a few requests. Please stop fighting about college. It’s ridiculous. You guys aren’t even going to the schools or colleges, yet you fight over small statistics, like which school has the most “HYP” students. I find it creepy, and unhealthy. Does a small percentage difference really matter?</p>
<p>Now that money has been brought up, everyone’s even more offended. It’s a “touchy topic.” You’re now fighting over whether richer people have an easier time to get into “HYP” or some acronym bull-crap college. This doesn’t help new parents applying, nor does it help students applying. </p>
<p>I also find these discussions revealing of a selfish attitude. The initial point of this thread was to ask about fit, but now it’s not about the poster, it’s about YOU. I’ve seen this before in threads in the past. Parents taking the spotlight, or hijacking threads and turning them into a place for ranting about their children’s accomplishments, or their own philosophy about admissions, instead of answering questions.</p>
<p>I initially came on to ask a question about essays, but I’m not going to. I’ve enjoyed living in the real world these past few months. Y’all can join me whenever you like.</p>
<p>I think you bring up a good point ifax108. Many of the people on this site do get a little preachy or detail-oriented, however I do appreciate many of the sentiments expressed earlier about finding a school for you. I really would like if people could give their opinions on some of the schools I have named. The main point of my post was to get some opinions on these schools, and after many kind responses, no one has done what I’ve requested. If you don’t have relevant comments to my post, I would please ask you not to post, as I have a very busy schedule with little time. I really do not want to be jammed up with flotsam that is not in regard to my original question. Thank you all!</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about Chase-Collegiate, Kingswood-Oxford, or Hopkins. Are they day schools? I know that Choate and Lawrenceville are excellent, but highly selective - are your grades commensurate with your boards? Do you anticipate positive recommendations? All prep schools consider recommendations and interviews, just because 8th-graders are still young, and they want a sense of how the student (and, to a lesser extent, the family) will fare within the community. I understand that Lawrenceville is highly competitive. Choate probably is, also. Loomis-Chaffee has become more popular in recent years, but I don’t know much about it. If you really liked Gunnery, it might be because it was a smaller school, and really would suit you better. You didn’t mention extracurricular interests or athletics - there are certain advantages to smaller schools if you want to be involved in activities. I think that Choate & Lawrenceville recruit varsity athletes heavily, and so it’s hard for a more casual player to make teams. Gunnery might not have the same reputation as the others, but if you thrive and excel there, you will be at least as well positioned as you would be if you were sort of lost in the crowd elsewhere.
Choate & Lawrenceville are richer schools, so they might award more financial aid, but a school that really wants you will find the funds for you. It seems like a pretty good range of schools, and I honestly believe that most students wind up where they should be.</p>
<p>Things to consider:
- Grade 7 scores and expected grade 8 scores
- Do you have a compelling life story?
- Full financial aid/partial
- SSAT score
- Level of arts/cultural/musical involvement
- Level of athletic involvement
- Level of community involvement
- Expected quality of recommendations
- Interview
- Essays
Based on your high SSAT score (congratulations!) and your interest in the arts, I would say that you make a very strong candidate for acceptance at any school. As for experience/opinion in terms of the schools you have selected, I cannot say much for I too am an 8th grade student. However, I visited Choate last year and was very impressed by what I saw - my brother was interviewing so I was not the focus of the visit, but when my parents were in the interview and my brother was on the tour, two of the boys from Choate entertained me in conversation. This struck me in particular because they had no obligation to be nice to me or to talk to me, and yet they did anyway. Very nice, outgoing student body.
However, one thing that I did not consider before looking at boarding schools was size - I know that many people say how you will not really notice it when you are on campus, but Choate had me tongue-tied at first due to the extent to which its borders stretched. Choate is literally the whole town of Wallingford - the dorms are so immersed into the town that the school itself just seems to be an extension. Make sure to take this into account!
Good luck :)</p>
<p>Thanks both of you! My grades are all within the A range, and I am in an advanced math course (9th grade level). I’ve also been elected treasurer of the student council at my school. I play tennis, but not on a highly competitive level, but everything else I do is very arts related. I would definitely need at least partial financial aid. Yes the other schools are day schools in my area! I’m actually having second thoughts about the Gunnery. I liked it there, but their academics are not as good as some of the other schools. I don’t think I will be looking at Choate. I want to, but my parents aren’t sure about it. Aloso, what do you have to say on St. George’s and Berkeshire?</p>
<p>Sorry for bringing this up again. Haven’t been on this board for a few days…but I feel I owe WillemS and ifax an explanation. First off, sorry for “hijacking” your thread with something off topic, but sometimes it just feels there’s never a good time and place to inject some sanity to correct something that’s going madly wrong. This board shouldn’t be a place to spread rumors and foster stereotypes for any one group of people or organizations - not for lesser known schools OR top schools. It’s one thing that kids make the mistake and it’s another when parents do.</p>
<p>Having made that point, I want to point out that I do think “fit” is an important consideration when you choose a school although we may have different understanding what “fit” really means. Also, what I said about “lower tier” schools is NOT what I think of those schools. I was just making the point that when we focus on negatives and blow some isolated incidences out of proportion how wrong and hurtful our words could be.</p>
<p>ifax, sorry for the way you feel about this board, and I agree not all answers should be bundled with a “moral lesson”. There are “technical answers” to “technical questions”, but also understand some parents are trying to help kids who are coming into the process only knowing and interested in big name schools to broaden their visions and have a better chance to get in a good school.</p>
<p>@Willems - DAndrew is the resident negative here. And he takes delight in bashing school’s like Taft because he knows I have a child there and never misses a chance to take pot shots.</p>
<p>Here’s my point (and I know you are intelligent enough to get what I was saying) - prestige doesn’t mean anything if it’s not a good fit for you. I’ve counseled several kids recently who dropped out of “prestige schools” who were more than qualified to be there because they didn’t love the atmosphere. So don’t make that your sole focus what everyone else’s opinion is of merit. </p>
<p>One quote from a recent student at a HADES school “I thought I’d find kids like me but instead I just found kids that worked all the time to keep up. It’s a grind.” </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean it will be that for you. But the reason why there are SO many choices is because there are so many different factors that go into what makes a school a good match for a student and vice versa.</p>
<p>What DAndrew will not tell you is that the IVY league numbers are a smokescreen. Going to a “high prestige” school doesn’t guarantee that you’ll have the same success in matriculating to a top tier school. The only way to insure that is if 100% of the students were admitted. What is true (and what DAndrew doesn’t know) is that:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Boarding Schools are no longer automatic feeders. There is growing competition from schools and regions that in the past didn’t traditional view IVY’s as options. And hence, to improve geographic diversity, the numbers are smaller.</p></li>
<li><p>Many of the students matriculating have unseen attributes that made them clear choices (hooked, legacies, full pays, etc). Your chances of matriculating to an IVY may or may not be any better than if you stayed home. </p></li>
<li><p>I’ve heard from a number of parents recently that the college counselors at HADES schools are steering their children away from IVY’s and towards smaller colleges and universities - even when the student’s academic performance is stellar.</p></li>
<li><p>Many students today are making economic choices or personal choices to attend schools other than IVY’s which influences the stats.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So should you try for a “Prestige school”? Absolutely - if it’s a fit and has all the academics you want. Should you limit yourself to just that list? No. You shouldn’t. If you scan the last few years of CC results you’ll find that there are too many qualified kids getting rejections and waitlists who ignored equally good choices that don’t have cheerleaders on this board (hence our thread about hidden gems).</p>
<p>What is true, and what DAndrew won’t tell you, is that many qualified students are going to “lesser schools” as he is fond of calling my daughter’s school, are kicking butt at college admission time. They’re there because they want to be - not because they had to “settle” for something less.</p>
<p>Follow your heart. And not the agendas of people on this discussion board who like to turn everything into a grudge match.</p>
<p>Take it from me, an Exeter and MIT alum/interviewer and Taft parent.</p>
<p>
Typical!!! With that, I’m siging out of this thread.</p>
<p>ExieMITAlum, thank you for your contributions. You wrote,
</p>
<p>I do have the impression that college admissions to the colleges New York City perceives as “top tier” is strongly biased towards the “hooked”. </p>
<p>There is a known tendency to advise students to aim lower, when a metric used to judge a school (or college’s) placement success by “% accepted to first or second choice.” (That is, not a conscious tendency, but it is thought that just setting that metric tends to influence advisors.)</p>
<p>What do you define as “lower tier?” Anything outside of the Ivies, Stanford, MIT? Williams? Any small liberal arts college? As my eldest approaches the college application process, it seems to me that some students might prefer Pomona to Princeton, and that a high school college counselor might be doing the right thing advising the student to apply to the former rather than the latter.</p>
<p>Periwinkle,
I have had a certain amount of more respect for you than some other posters simply because you tend to back up your positions with stats/references from reliable sources, and you are sometimes quite resourceful, but not when I see a post like the above.
What contributions? At least you don’t mean “contributions” in this thread? This person is simply a bitter mom whose kid was turned down by her alleged alma mater. And she never gets tired of putting on a label of “decades of experience” and a brazenly obnoxious user name to sell her ideas for a premium!<br>
Isn’t that the problem, that using “impression” to make generalizations about a certain group of people/organizations while the “impression” could be perceptions of isolated incidents or soemthing applicable to more than that one group?
Well, you know what we are talking about. It’s not science. Is Pomona a top 15 or top 30LAC? Why are we playing this game? Besides, it was not a showoff talk of college matriculation records in top schools. It’s about the allegation that top schools’ unwealthy kids are steered to lower tier colleges.</p>
<p>I’ll let you keep playing this silly “hide and seek” game. If you or any of Exie’s “friends” want to restore her reputation, carry on. If however you have more to say to me, don’t bother. Chances are I won’t come back to check on this thread. (I lied once and I hope I won’t again. And I know it’s unfair. ;))</p>
<p>WillemS,</p>
<p>Congrats on your excellent SSATs and grades!</p>
<p>As determining fit is, at best, an imperfect science, it is important not to romanticize it. Attending a boarding school is a 24-7 experience that cannot be encapsulated into a one hour tour or even a day long revisit program for admitted students. The truth is that you won’t truly know what a prep school is like until you attend it. That is why the first weeks of school are almost always exciting and sometimes stressful for new students. </p>
<p>This does not mean that you should ignore your impressions of a school. What you see, hear, and experience are obviously important. But do keep an open mind about schools you initially do not like. My oldest child, for example, hated the HYP college she attended when she first visited its campus on a cold and rainy day. Had she locked herself into that misleading perception, she would have missed the best four years of her life.</p>
<p>Some on CC argue that top prep schools are all hype and no substance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Top prep schools earn good reputations because they offer intellectual, artistic, social, and athletic opportunities that excel those provided by other prep schools. So, don’t disregard a school’s reputation when considering a school’s fit. Reputation is not the only factor, but it is an important one because it is based on substantive criteria that will have a real and lasting impact on your education. </p>
<p>Cast a broad net. And don’t let anybody tell you that you should not reach for the stars. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Just for the anecdotal record- my “non wealthy” scholarship kids at Choate were NEVER steered towards lower tier colleges. They were encouraged to apply to their dream, reach schools and guess what? They both got in, with manageable financial aid. Please be careful of making sweeping generalizations.</p>
<p>I will say that the college counselors were pretty realistic in their assessments of chances, and encouraged applying to a range of schools. But in my experience, there was no sorting of students by socio economic status in their recommendations.</p>
<p>Okay back to the original question. So about the schools, I know about some of them, Hotchkiss, Choate, Loomis, Taft, Lawrenceville and Hopkins but not the others you mentioned. Your SSATs sound competitive enough to take that out of your worries, which is good. I am looking at tenth and also looking at arts as a factor in my search. Honestly of the schools I have seen this fall, Choate has the best arts program, hands down. At least for music. That isn’t to say that other schools, like Hotchkiss, aren’t also amazing (and I actually said “wow” on my tour at Hotchkiss when I saw the music center), but I am really looking for a high level of participation by the students. It may be the fact that the student body is bigger at Choate but it made the difference for me–you’ll never improve unless there is something to reach for. I guess my advice is to try to talk to some of the coaches and teachers whose team or subject you would be focusing on. That has really helped me.
What do I know about the other schools? Hotchkiss I like that everything in one building, e kids all hang out in a central place and in piles like puppies, so it seemed like everyone was really close. they have campus bikes you can borrow (um no brakes) and community gardens. it is very country, yet the kids definitely have sophistication and their science center is really nice. I only know one person looking at Hopkins and she would be commuting which I think a lot if not all of the kids do, but it is her first choice and she is one of the smartest girls in my class. New Haven can be kind of sketchy but the school is supposed to be great. Everyone I know is applying to Taft this year, I’m not kidding. I didn’t visit, but my friends who did came back in love with it. I do know some kids who went there and came home, but I think that was more their doing. Loomis looks awesome, I got their viewbook and it looked so good but I eliminated it because of size and also their day student percentage was higher than I wanted.<br>
if it makes you feel any better, I am having a really hard time with my search. And an even worse time writing my essays, because there is just so much to write and I have so much homework. And I am procrastinating by going on CC.</p>
<p>I think that DAndrew makes some very valid points. Of course fit should be the very most important criteria when choosing a school, but fit generally doesn’t depend upon ‘tier 1’ versus ‘tier 2’ schools. You can find small intimate schools which are highly competitive and others which are not. Same is true of larger schools. The fact is that a very serious student will generally be happier in a more academic school. A larger percentage of the kids at those schools will be more focused on their academics. </p>
<p>In terms of college admissions, it is true to some extent that the more prestigious the school, the larger the percentage of highly influential parents, who tend to have attended top tier colleges. Thus, some of the college statistics may be skewed. Having said that, there is no doubt that an average student from a top tier school will fair better than an average student at a ‘second tier’ school. Further, the top students from any school will do well when applying out. </p>
<p>In addition, I don’t think that you should be looking at schools with the perception that you have to stand out. Rather, pick a place where you feel that you will fit in. Then do your best, and hopefully you will stand out. To choose a school where you feel you will stand out to some extent negates fit from the start. Find the school that you most want to go to because you believe that the school and community value what you value as well.</p>