<p>prinicpalviola - what I had in mind is people like some of the posters above where SSS says they don't qualify for a lot of FA based on current income, home equity or whatnot. Could be the same predicament for college. Yet, colleges offer more merit aid than BS. The point is that your BS child might be less eligible for merit aid in college than if they attended a public school where it would be easier to obtain a higher GPA. I could envision a family reaching and stretching to pay for BS, not saving as much for college, then finding themselves in a situation where there income limits need based aid and their child's grades limit their merit aid potential.</p>
<p>principalviola, milton website says 12 entered harvard from last year's class. Also, don't confuse past generosity with what may be the future.</p>
<p>What everyone considering an elite HS, boarding or day, needs to understand is that if your child is not a legacy, athlete or URM, it will be harder to get into a top school than it would be from your local high school. All of these schools have a lot of legacies at HYPS, many recruited athletes and some of the top URMs in the Country. When you see 12 from Harvard, the more interesting number is how many did not fall into one of those 3 categories. The answer will be very few.</p>
<p>An elite HS will get most every kid into a good college, but when we're talking ivies other than Cornell and their peers, it makes things tougher.</p>
<p>I will agree with that, to a degree. </p>
<p>Everyone in your Exeter grad class (not everyone...) will apply to ivies, in your local PHS a handful will. You will be in a big pond with only the biggest fish... It will help you, though. Schools which send ~40% of their class to top schools are top notch, but remember if based purely on rank you need not be in the top percentile to get in.</p>
<p>As hmom5 said, in the long run if you can become the same big fish in the small pond it may help.</p>
<p>At the schools that send 30% to ivies plus, which is about as good as they get, it is not the top 30%.</p>
<p>I agree with that, was just an assumption. </p>
<p>I think if we let our passions drive us, I know I sound like some career counselor saying "YOU CAN DO IT, IF YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELF", that we will succeed in any school...</p>
<p>At the post secondary level, though, connections we get from "prestige" are important.</p>
<p>hmom5 - I agree with you completely. If you decide that BS is the right option for you, you do have to make peace with the fact that your top academic child may very well not go to an ivy league school. If that is the end goal, then BS may not be the best choice. Most graduates from these BSs will go to great colleges, but not necessarily Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, etc. The coursework is very rigorous and most of your peers at BS are motivated, bright and just like you. Almost the entire BS class is applying to the top universities, so you are competing against your fellow classmates for spots - not the general population, since Harvard doesn't want 100 students from BS X, no matter how great and deserving they all may be. You will work hard for those As and Bs, and being at top of class may not be as possible as if you had gone to your local high school.</p>
<p>BS and Ivys have legacies - of grandmothers and aunts. The culture has pockets of money may may well exist outside the FA documentation. Dad may be a college professor and mom may be a potter, but great-gram'pa founded an oil company and the family has been part of the BS/Ivy culture for years. That's your financial competition.</p>
<p>BS expects you to pay a minimum of 1/4 of current income for school. Colleges expect 1/3. That's 8 years of heavy contribution and sacrifice. Some people scrounge to make it happen, some people pull from deep savings, some people have Sunday dinner with grandma.</p>
<p>The downturn in the economy that wiped out middle class savings may lead to a strange double humped demographic curve at BS - the higher end full pays, and the zero-pay full boats. Middle class ---- gone. Strange.</p>
<p>AND YES - BS due to lack of grade inflation - makes college Merit aid very unlikely - plus competitive scholarships see that you went t a fancy/smancy Prep school and knock you right off of the list, assuming that you are a snooty upper-case rich person - evil in this Obama world.</p>
<p>Is merit aid truly unlikely? Do they really just stick with the GPA (how can they do that...what if you got A's in basketweaving vs. B's in honor's classes at a rigorous prep school?) or do they look at the school profile and course of study.</p>
<p>Yup- we are in the cursed upper? middle class
I agree with the double humped demographic curve you describe- that very well could be the case at many BS soon. </p>
<p>Reason we started to consider BS? Son attends charter school which is excellent but funding is unstable- could close in 1 yr or 2 or 3 yrs or could stay open forver. Could even close in the middle of his junior or senior year due to funding. Risky for applying fo college.</p>
<p>Going back to our regular district public hs is now not an option because he has moved ahead of their curriculum (since charter places by ability) and now would not "fit" into their sequence of courses at all- and they do NO tracking or honors courses. </p>
<p>So, yeah, that's why we started looking. It is also why this choice is so difficult. He loves the charter but what if we stay and it closes right when he is applying to college?</p>
<p>Also, charter does not have funding for any sports, art , music ect... So extracurricular opportunities would be much better at BS.</p>
<p>Well, I think unless you are truly wealthy, you are going to experience some (or a lot !) of financial pain in attempting to send your child to bs and then college. I would love to be in the shoes of the poster who said bs cost is more than 30% of his gross income. BS is about 80% of our gross income! Yet we scrounge and scrimp and go into debt to make it happen. (PA-C maybe a Camry can last 20 years....I know a VW Jetta can!) I once heard a group of women at a sports practice discussing how ridiculous it was to spend money on private school - how "unaffordable". These women were all quite well -coiffed. They then went on to discuss their current kitchen remodels. It's all in the priorities, I suppose.</p>
<p>from Keylyme...."Is merit aid truly unlikely? Do they really just stick with the GPA (how can they do that...what if you got A's in basketweaving vs. B's in honor's classes at a rigorous prep school?) or do they look at the school profile and course of study."</p>
<p>College admissions offices take one's transcript apart and look at the kind of school one went to, so a B at from a hyper-tough prep school class will be more highly valued then a B in basketweaving from a low end public. Ask for a copy of the PROFILE that your boarding school sends out with every transcript. That provides the context that colleges look at.</p>
<p>However, private scholarships (Gates, Elks, tylonol,etc) and OOS public university FA offices go by straight GPA numbers. BS kids get killed.</p>
<p>Toadstool: I think that curve has been described as "the Richest of the Rich and the Smartest of the Poor."</p>
<p>When the schools are empty of middle class (the middle 90%) students, I think the social vibe is weird. But maybe it's hard to fund-raise on the premise " your contribution will help a middle class suburbanite attend our school."</p>
<p>I am willing to venture a guess about the philosophy behind financial aid; feel free to say I'm wrong. I think that if our American boarding schools only accepted full pay students, it would be a public relations disaster. The American people know that talent is not confined to the top 5% of the income pool, so the schools could not claim their elite status. By accepting keeping 30% of the seats open to Financial Aid recipients, they can claim to be elite but not elitist.</p>
<p>So we FA families need the rich supporters of the schools to provide the opportunities for our kids to attend, but the rich need the FA students to bolster their academic reputations. On average, the FA admits will have higher 'stats' than those who full pay.</p>
<p>The elite private schools, boarding and day, were mostly traditionally the doubled hump entities you describe. The wealthy and then kids from programs like ABC and Prep for Prep for diversity. Reaching out to the middle class with aid, and understanding that true diversity needs to include this sector, is a relatively new phenomenon. This was allowed by growing endowments.</p>
<p>A public relations disaster? I don't think so. Most of the public don't have these schools on their radar screen. And really, the schools have plenty of high achieving full pays, their stats will not decline. When it comes to college admissions, you'll see that wealthy legacies do very, very well.</p>
<p>The simple truth is that unless the schools drastically reduce resources, their hands are tied until the economy recovers.</p>
<p>As the demographics polarize, I'd hate to be in the social position of the token FA kid. </p>
<p>But I don't think that the Full Pays will get in with lower stats. Even within the full pay community there is furious competition for places. You'd be amazed at the stats of full pay students who are rejected.</p>
<p>I also think the very wealthy realize the benefits of sending their child to a more diverse place so their children learn to function in a diverse world. It's altruistic yet self serving at the same time.</p>
<p>Perhaps not a public relations disaster, but I think Americans would not think as highly of schools with reputations like Eton and Le Rosey, schools that are just for the rich and connected.</p>
<p>^^^
Grejuni - Isn't that the way most americans already view these schools? Most folks don't know how much they've changed over the past 30-40 years.</p>
<p>Do the FA officers of these schools ever believe that the parents are telling the truth, that they just don't have the funds anywhere, or the means to pay?</p>
<p>We have a good income based on bonus which will not be there next year - 150, but don't have much savings, don't go on trips, shop at target for clothing, haven't bought furniture for years, don't have rich relatives or friends. There is just no money or any way it can be scrounged up.</p>
<p>Whew! Thanks for letting me rant.</p>
<p>Our child was accepted, with low SSAT score (due to nerves), but a top athlete. FA offered was not even close to getting the education. This child would have been the very first of both families generations to go to a BS.</p>
<p>It saddens me, but we're going to try again next year to different schools; just don't believe this BS will come back with an offer that gives our child this great opportunity/blessing.</p>
<p>I'm very sympathetic. I am the poster referred to above as having a pretty good situation with BS costs at 30% of gross salary (though it is closer to 45-50% in net), and I appreciate very much that that is a blessing. My hat goes off to Keylyme for his/ her managing to send to BS at an 80% rate. (Is there any FA involved?) But every situation is different and that SSS form can be misleading. Part of our problem is thinking if one kid goes, then in two years, another should have the same opportunity. So we are looking at 16 years of tuition and thinking that while we will probably come out of those years in some debt, it would be foolish to mortgage the house now -- at the beginning of the journey, especially when there is so much economic instability.</p>