<p>I now realized I have a friend who currently goes to Thacher as a freshman :o
Personally, for me, I think most of the people who go to Thacher or Cate are west coast junkies Depending on who you are, that could be a good thing. Sure is for me!
I believe Thacher has a better reputation amongst the colleges because asians, if asked if they know Thacher or Cate, will respond so that around 30% know what Thacher is, hypothetically, and in turn Cate will be known by around 10% of them. Low numbers, yes, but a lot of us are obsessed with Choate and Exeter anyways, so itād be a miracle if it was that high.</p>
<p>I havenāt been to either campus, nor have I applied yet, but I still think Thacher brings a better sense of unity and relaxation than Cate, though Iām sure Cate is an excellent school in itself (Iām also applying for Cate next year)
Maybe in 50 years theyāre going to be West Coast Elites, like Exeter and Andover Apparently Cate was made as a second school of Thacher, trying to teach the same things and then eventually became a great school with its own curriculum.</p>
<p>same here, i prefer thacher over cate. both campuses are BEAUTIFUL, but everyone- even the random students walking by during my tour- was welcoming and looked enthusiastic. </p>
<p>i hate being asian sometimesā¦the fact that iām korean brings down my chances. AND i live in california. (norcal, though) iām not a super genius with 47593485 awards like most asians living in socal/asia. :[ i got a 84% and 87% on my ssat and my ssat essay was horrible..</p>
<p>that reminds meā¦could you please pm me your friendās stats from eighth grade?</p>
<p>sorry, sheās not a close friend of mine and i didnāt actually find out from HER she was going to thacher. i knew she was going to los angeles or at least california because i remember her telling me, but sheās too modest to say more. plus sheās a year my senior, and she doesnāt even go to my school! we met from a mutual friend and only really talked during basketball seasons when we had something in common.
(if i get the chance to talk to her again, iāll definitely ask for some kind of statistic but she rarely comes online, and iām not an avid fan of facebook, so donāt expect results tomorrow. iām actually really curious myself, thacher is, despite my wanting to apply to all the prep-ivies, probably my second or third choice in where i want to go out of like 9 schools)</p>
<p>wow. youāre korean too?? HIGH FIVE! I live in korea though, so trust me everywhere you turn itās āyour kid should be learning intensive english, so why not start early? (age FOUR dayum)ā it literally translates to that. Thank god I didnāt grow up here, or else Iād be learning intensive english talking like i am a very good student whose grows up in the Korea Peninsula.</p>
<p>leanlikeacello, do you have an email? Iād say AIM like most people but sadly I donāt do it well, not that sad. too many messengers that stop working after a month. if you do, pm me :D</p>
<p>SSATs freaked me out the most.
I took one this year for a summer program but WOW. these kids sure took it seriously. they brought in study materials, 3 pencils, an ID card/passport, an eraser, and a pen. and their study guides were like 2304820348 pages long. I, on the other hand, had my ID card and a piece of paper that assigned my seat in the classroom. NICE. </p>
<p>my teachers are soā¦ creative -_-;;; They call hakwons hogwons, because they KNOW itās so cool to make it seem like harry potter, haha.</p>
<p>hahahahahah
my teachers try to talk back to the taxi drivers in korean.
O_O
ssatā¦
gahh everyone was obsessed with that for a while.
there were like 30 kids in the class.
youāre allowed to bring study materials???
hahahah theyre so crazy!</p>
<p>omg my proctor couldnt speak english for his LIFE.
gasp! that means i must have seen you at the ssat place?</p>
<p>well they just brought it in their bags. maybe it wasnāt study materials, but the test didnāt start yet, so Iām pretty sure it couldāve been. anyways some were putting papers in their bags and it was SERIOUSLY the width of your thumb.
but there are like a zillion places to take the SSAT (well not really, but letās assume in korea :D) and I didnāt take it in november, so :O</p>
<p>i love the taxi drivers that go like āwow you speak english wellā and youāre like THANKS. ITS THE ONLY LANGUAGE I CAN REALLY SPEAK WELL. in your head well I speak korean but I canāt write papers or anything in korean. maybe itās my lack of korean school lessons, but iām not very good at spelling. in KOREAN. where like you have the characters out for you AGH. like the ah-ee thing or uh-ee thing.</p>
<p>by the way if anybody is interested in a day school in the west coast, the Harker School is a great place I used to live near it, and theyāre a K-12 prep school, but the 9-12 is on a different campus. It reminds me of a day school west coast version of St. Markās, with rigorous courses and strict academic goals (or at least from what I can get out of my sources :D)
itās in Cupertino, which is near San Jose, so LA people might want to reconsider what I just said =/</p>
<p>There is also the Webb School in SoCal. Itās a beautiful old campus at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. My niece is a senior there. She has had a fantastic experience. Webb is located in the town of Claremont, which has some of the best small universities in the country. The town has a great feel to it.</p>
<p>Yeah, I heard of the Webb School, but dontā mix it up with the one in Tennessee or something =/
I considered it for a long while but chose not to because I had too many schools I wanted to apply to and of it all, I decided the campus was too āsmallā and the first two years were single-sex classes. I didnāt exactly want to spend only one year like that and spend the next two doing coed, it just felt slightly disorderly. If I applied for freshman year I might have thought differently, but now it seems a bit too complicated, added to the fact I already wanted to go to two other west coast schools.</p>
<p>But theyāre a very wonderful school, and with the smaller amount of land they have (which is still a lot, 70 acres) they make the campus beautiful (a few pictures on the internet have proven that.) Itās much more near the city than Thacher or Cate is, and there are people who graduate there and go to stanford and UC berkeley, etc.
thacher cate and webb are the three schools that I know of in California, and theyāre all scattered on the edges of Los Angeles, so south side people must be very proud ;)</p>
<p>Iāve heard of the Webb Schoolā¦I forgot the reason why we decided not to apply :/</p>
<p>kickme, lalalove- There were so many applicants from Korea accepted into Thacher last yearā¦about 5, which is significantly a large amount of international students from the same country.</p>
<p>Of the two Webbies I know, one is in his first year at Harvard, and my niece has received two acceptances so far, Wellesley and UCSD, with no rejections yet (I know itās early). I have heard of another at Harvard, and one at one of the Claremont colleges. They do extremely well with college placement.</p>
<p>In the 90s, admit rate was at a level of 1%. Recently however, an expansion in campus size has caused this figure to increase. Furthermore, the admissions office has lowered its standard as the average percentile for the SSAT (the standardized test required to apply to the school) is now a 65% whereas it was a 93% in the late 90s.</p>
<p>I wonder what made them lower their standards so dramatically..</p>
<p>and two came from the same international schoolā¦ huhā¦ thanks leanlikeacello Though thatās relatively a lot, I guess, that would mean MAYBE 2 koreans would get accepted in 10th grade, which is what scares me. But the truth is, nobody looks at west coast schools here. everybodyās looking for andover or exeter or at least the next choate (koreans love choate, this famous personās son got in there and went to harvard, wrote a best-seller book on how to get in and everybody then knew the name. scary, huh?) but what makes me mm I dunno, nervous, is that since there already ARE so many Koreans, is it possible for me to get in, especially in a year thatās not even freshman.</p>
<p>10-12 accepted in 10th isnāt very reassuring in my opinion. Our school is VERY good when it comes to leaving for another school (ironic, but i guess it has to be admitted) but it isnāt our school that determines my acceptance, though a fairly large portion of responsibility is held. Thacher itself has to decide whether I get in or not =/
That being said I hope they understand I HAVE BEEN STALKING THEIR WEB SITE SINCE FEBRUARY AND PLAN TO STALK ON AND ON UNTIL I GET ACCEPTED
Okay thatās a bit creepy. But Iām sure ambition and passion for the school means a little something, right?</p>
<p>jonathan, you hit the point exactly as to why I didnāt give another thought to webb. those little things seemed so strange, like how the admit rate in the first place was 1%, and how the SSAT average lowered 30%. Plus the fact it didnāt really hold much interest when I looked into the extracurriculars and sports. then again Iām a very picky person so Webb might have something awesome for you
and as mentioned before, webb alumni go to great places, but only if you study hard. I think thatās a kind of experience you canāt get from prestigious schools - you work your butt off in the āminor leagueā schools, but you get in the top notch universities of all time. Like in the movies, where you come from ānothingā to the best place around. Except Webb isnāt nothing, itās a boarding school, and a well-known one nevertheless.</p>
<p>āIn 2007, 87% of Webbās graduates were admitted to at least one of their top choice colleges. Over 94% will be attending colleges rated in the top 10% of the nation. And, Webb has an admit rate to the Ivy League and Stanford that is four times the national average. No matter how you look at it, Webb graduates go way beyond the standard.ā</p>
<p>Webb seems like a really great school. It says on their website they accept late applicants, so I might end up applying if I can visit.</p>
Depending on who you are, that could be a good thing. Sure is for me!
Apparently Cate was made as a second school of Thacher, trying to teach the same things and then eventually became a great school with its own curriculum.</p>
but she rarely comes online, and iām not an avid fan of facebook, so donāt expect results tomorrow. iām actually really curious myself, thacher is, despite my wanting to apply to all the prep-ivies, probably my second or third choice in where i want to go out of like 9 schools)</p>