Attending Phillips Exeter damages your chances of getting into the Ivies?

<p>I'm the parent of a highly talented high school student who got perfect SATs and 5s on several AP tests. My child talked me into allowing high school at Phillips Exeter. It wasn't until this year that I realized what a mistake it was to let my child go there--not because Exeter is a bad place per se, but because going there seems to have damaged my child's ability to get into the Ivies. Kids at our local public school with nearly identical scores and activities to my child got their Early Decision acceptances this week--but my child and many other talented kids at Exeter all got "deferred" or "denied" at the same schools. I think as a responsible parent I should warn others--if you value getting your child into a top notch college, Exeter is not a good idea.</p>

<p>It’s certainly not as though these Ivies have sub 15% acceptance rates and a vast number of highly qualified students are rejected every year. And you certainly know exactly how many students at the public school were not accepted ED/EA. No clearly the problem is Exeter and the high concentration of bright students. Now instead of getting a Harvard degree your student will have to suffer with his Tufts, Emory, or USC diploma for the rest of his life. </p>

<p>Yes, that’s right. And my family members went to USC and they turned out fine (not sure about Tufts or Emory, nobody I know went there). But Exeter is telling us that even Tufts, Emory, and USC are only “possible” admits for an Exeter student. They didn’t tell us parents this information when our child was applying to Exeter.</p>

<p>I do know how many students applied early action to Harvard from our local public schools. The Harvard ED acceptance rate was 25% locally.</p>

<p>In case you aren’t familiar with Exeter College Counseling . . . they give parents a report listing the schools to which one’s child is applying, as recommended by the counseling office. The schools are listed as “safety,” “likely,” “possible,” “reach,” and “far reach.” Exeter didn’t list any school as a “safety”–not even our local public university, which would guarantee admission to our child from the local public school. All the Ivies were “far reach” even with top notch grades and test scores. Actually, I misspoke above–USC was “reach.” I’m sure it is a function of the fact that Exeter is a very competitive high school. But now I’m wishing the kid had gone to the public school. It’s a trade off–the child got a better high school education but now has a lesser chance at a top notch college.</p>

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No school is going to tell parents that their children will be guaranteed admission to Harvard, Yale, et. al. If that was the criteria in choosing a boarding school, that should have been rethought during the selection process.</p>

<p>Is it possible that Phillips Exeter only considers a school to which you are guaranteed admission a safety? While definitely a conservative definition, I see the value in it. What was the safety that your child’s counselor recommended?</p>

<p>Are you saying your local high school sends more kids to the Ivies than Exeter? If so, I think Exeter will proudly prove otherwise. Going to Exeter does not guarantee Harvard, but it cannot be considered a detriment to attending Harvard. The difference is subtle but significant.</p>

<p>From the Harvard Crimson:

Which is not to say that every applicant from one of these schools will be admitted. </p>

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Do you really think the vast majority of publics do any sort of substantial college counseling? LOL. At my high school I had to petition the teachers to stop letting the for profits advertise there (one school, FIDM, literally went into two of my classes and did 30 minute presentations on the school). The only college counseling most public school students get is how to apply to the local CC and state school. Most students in my class had no idea what a liberal arts college was, or that a school like Brown existed. They also didn’t know about financial aid, and didn’t understand why say, Arizona State wasn’t giving them as much financial aid as the in state publics. </p>

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Maybe an oversight on the part of Exeter for the local public. As far as the Ivies go, they look for more than just excellent scores and are so selective that it’s deceptive on the part of Exeter to make students think that they have a reasonable chance at any particular institution.</p>

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USC accepted less than 1/5 applicants last year. Its average scores are higher than UCLA, one of the most prestigious publics in the world. For almost every student it’s a reach. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous. Also you have no idea if your kid would have had a better chance at getting into a top college. For all you know, the courses your child would have taken would have been far less rigorous and writing intensive than the ones at Exeter, which would then lead to lower SAT scores and a worse essay. </p>

<p>USC has gotten <em>a</em>lot_ more competitive to enter just within the last decade (and is waaaay harder to get in now than it was a generation ago).</p>

<p>In any case, I would say that if the main reason why you sent your kid to Exeter was to get in to an elite college, then that was poor judgement on your part. IMO, it should have been to give him/her an education, peer group/lifelong friends, and experience that few other kids get; something which I’m going to bet will pay greater dividends over your child’s lifetime than whatever difference in whatever college he/she ends up going or not going to.</p>

<p>My kid’s cousin got into USC last year (from a public high school in CA). It was considered a “safety” school at her public high school. But you all are making me feel better with your supportive comments. For what it is worth, I didn’t send my kid to Exeter “to get into an elite college”–it was my kid’s idea to go there because of the education. Nobody in our family had ever gone to a prep school so we really didn’t have much idea what it would be like, or how it would impact college choices. We’ve been very surprised at how it seems to be much harder to get into an elite school from Exeter than from our public school–that’s all. I would want other parents to realize this if they are thinking about a prep school. When I was in college, I got “a terrific education, peer group/lifelong friends, and experience that few others get” at the Ivy that I attended, and I’m just sorry that my kid may only experience that level of education in high school.</p>

<p>Exeter does do a good job of emphasizing to the students that “you are not likely to get into a top notch school and you will be happy wherever you get in and go.” I hope that’s true.</p>

<p>Lots of good or even great opportunities out there at many colleges that aren’t Ivies or even Ivy-equivalents (which ones would be dependent on the college and field/career choice).</p>

<p>Especially if you’re a CA resident. Also especially if you can afford full-pay.</p>

<p>For prep schools that have a history of sending a lot of kids to certain selective colleges, a lot of those admitted kids have hooks. For those who are admitted on academic merit, those students will be compared to the rest of the prep school class. If you don’t have a big hook (URM, recruited athlete, development case), then you might be a more competitive candidate if you apply from some other HS, and you’ll save yourself $50k/year/ </p>

<p>Here’s an article about college admissions from Groton. The article is 10 yrs old, but the same principles apply.
<a href=“WSJ.com - For Groton Grads, Academics Aren't Only Keys to Ivy Schools”>http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Polk_Groton_Grads.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>If going to Phillips Exeter damaged your child’s ability, just imagine how much their ability would be damaged by going to one of the Ivies!</p>

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<p>Is this info from your niece/nephew? It certainly sounds like talk from an arrogant/ignorant kid, not from anyone in a position to speak for the school as a whole. My kids are in a CA public high school (and they both have straight A’s) and I can tell you that nobody here thinks of USC as a “safety.”</p>

<p>That said, I understand where you’re coming from. Harvard does not want to have a freshman class made up exclusively (or even primarily) of graduates from New England prep schools. They want a diverse freshman class, both to avoid accusations of elitism and also frankly to make their student body more interesting. So if Exeter turns out 50 seniors with stellar stats, and 50 assorted public high schools each turn out 1 kid each who has identical stats to Exeter’s, those public high school students probably have a better chance at a Harvard admission, because they’re not visibly competing against each other.</p>

<p>However, not all of those 50 public school kids will be admitted to Harvard. Odds are, fewer than half of them will (as a broad guesstimate). So they, like the Exeter kids, are going to have to plan for the possibility that they will be attending one of those Tufts/Emory/USC schools that @whenhen mentioned. </p>

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<p>That’s where you’re wrong. Think about it. If your kid (and presumably many other Exeter graduates) might be attending a school that you are currently thinking of as a “lesser” school, won’t that school be full of kids who are similar to your kid? Therefore, won’t your kid still be surrounded by his/her intellectual peers and be challenged at the level s/he has been accustomed to?</p>

<p>I get it, honestly. I had to make that attitude adjustment too. I went to U of Chicago for undergrad, and my husband went to MIT. Our kids are at least as smart as we are, so we assumed they would attend a “Top 20” school because when we were kids, if you had the grades and the test scores, you were in. That’s no longer the case. But all it means is that there are too many high-achieving kids for the available spots at “Top 20” schools, so they’re now attending the “Top 50” schools. It’s your attitude towards these schools that needs adjustment, not your kid’s opportunities.</p>

<p>Maybe it’s just me, but something about the OP’s posts here seems off. I’m calling BS on the whole thing.</p>

<p>I think that something like Payscale’s salary rankings is illuminating:
<a href=“WSJ.com”>http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Salaries_for_Colleges_by_Region-sort.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>If you sort by 75th percentile mid-career salary, Georgetown, ND (despite being in the Midwest, where pay is on average lower than on the coasts), and Colgate(!) outrank Columbia, Cornell, and Brown.</p>

<p>Yes, salary isn’t the end-all and be-all, but I have to imagine that the opportunities at Georgetown, ND, and Colgate can’t be all that terrible if their better grads do better than the better grads of some Ivies.</p>

<p>Also of note is that the 75th percentile of Cal, UCLA, UVa, & UCD outrank the median of every Ivy (actually, every school). 75th percentile of Tulane = median of Dartmouth and is above the median of every other Ivy.75th percentile of UIUC is above the median of all Ivies besides Dartmouth. 75th percentile of UCSD is equal to the median of Princeton and above all Ivies/schools besides Princeton and Dartmouth.</p>

<p>Note that the a quarter of UCB/UCLA/UCSD/UCD would be more people than 100% of each of Princeton/Yale/Brown.
A quarter of UIUC would be more people than 100% of each Ivy besides Cornell & UPenn.</p>

<p>Another way to look at it: 10% of the student bodies of each of Cal/UCLA/UCSD/UMich is more students than 25% of Harvard’s student body. The 90th percentile salaries of Cal/UCLA/UCSD/UMich grads are each higher than the 75th percentile salary of Harvard grads.</p>

<p>More grads from each of Cal/UCLA/UCSD/UMich than from Harvard have mid-career earnings of >$180K.</p>

<p>These are all good schools, though none of them would be seen as an Ivy, yet the opportunities there can’t be all that terrible (or, alternatively, where you go to school can’t matter all that much) if a good number of them, 10+ years out, are doing pretty darn well.</p>

<p>From 2011-13, 214 Exeter students matriculated at one of the 8 Ivies.
Of those, the greatest number attended Columbia (34), Harvard (33), and Yale (33).
Cornell was the least represented Ivy (with 20 matriculations). The only non-Ivies with at least as many matriculations as Cornell were Carnegie Mellon, Chicago, NYU,Tufts, and MIT. The New England state flagships aren’t even close (New Hampshire, for example, got 7).</p>

<p>Exeter graduates about 350 students per year.
So it would appear that about 20% of PEA students wind up at one of the 8 Ivies.
I’m talking about matriculation numbers, not admission numbers.</p>

<p>Exeter students wind up at many other highly selective schools as well
For the same 2011-13 period, 27 enrolled at MIT, 26 at Tufts, 21 at Chicago, 18 at Williams, 17 at Wellesley, etc.
<a href=“http://www.exeter.edu/documents/College_Matriculation(1).pdf”>http://www.exeter.edu/documents/College_Matriculation(1).pdf&lt;/a&gt;
(Nearly every college with at least10 Exeter matriculations in 2011-13 is among the Forbes top 50 or so.)</p>