What’s the college Matriculation like at Lawrenceville compared to Choate? I scoured the internet and have read many people’s responses on how college matriculation from a certain school doesn’t determine accurate chances for getting into xyz college. I agree to this statement, however, I think that one school has to have some sort of edge over the other. Which BS would a person be more likely to attend a better college? (Based off of the education, programs, prestige, etc.)
You’ve answered your own question. Go for the experience, not the “chances” of where you’ll go to college.
Although I don’t think that you should really care about college matriculation…
At Choate, 29% (231) of graduates have attended any Ivy League + MIT and Stanford over the past THREE years.
At L’ville, 24% (148) of graduates have attended any Ivy League + MIT and Stanford in the last three years.
These numbers are approximate because I couldn’t find the exact number of graduates for every year.
Choate has 250 students in the class of 2017, so I multiplied that by 3, assuming that they have roughly that number of seniors per year.
L’ville didn’t give me the exact number of seniors, so I divided total enrollment by 4 and multiplied that quarter by 3.
Please remember that the 18 to 28% of the classes that elite AND NON elite boarding schools send to Ivy and comparable schools include the same special populations that the BS draw. Legacies, Development, athletes, Geo diversity and URMs. For example, a great many of the Ivy admits from PA, Choate, PEA , SPS, Lawrenceville, Lawrence Academy, Proctor Academy, Tabor and so on are playing lacrosse, hockey, rowing and so on…every year.
That’s no reason to be alarmed. @Center Everyone has to have at least “something” extraordinary to get in a college with a singe digit admit rate. The few kids from your mediocre public school who got in had that “something” too. On the other hand, even if you are from a BS, that something doesn’t have to be legacy, athlete etc. There are kids who excel in their own ways with no usual suspects of “hooks” get in top colleges too. Just look at BS admission scenes. Not every Andover /Exeter admits are legacy or athletes. Why should Harvard/Yale admits be?
@panpacific @Center I have a family friend who attends Harvard. She had a very high gpa, test scores, all of that. However, she wasn’t extraordinary in any particular area. She’s from Miami, white, and attended an arts-oriented high school where she danced. She does dance occasionally at Harvard, but her admittance to Harvard was not dependant on the fact that she dance there. Obviously, she was in a couple of clubs, class president… but she wasn’t extraordinary. She wasn’t a legacy either.
Remember that if the school has PG, some kids are as good as admitted to a top school when they start their PG year. The are at BS at the request of the college to beef up their bodies and minds before putting on the pads at college.
I do think that at many BS, there are more hooked kids than in the general population which can make the numbers harder to sort through. It’s important to know this if you’re thinking that because a school sends a lot of kids to Princeton that your kid now has a better shot at Princeton. It may be that the school has a lot of kids whose parents went to Princeton or who teach there. Or the hockey coach at Princeton has a special relationship with the coach there. It’s not to say that Princeton doesn’t like kids from that school, but your kid may not be one of them.
I think the main thing you should take away from those lists is that the elite colleges believe that the school does a good job of preparing students for elite colleges. That, regardless of where you end up, is what you need to know.
“L’ville didn’t give me the exact number of seniors, so I divided total enrollment by 4 and multiplied that quarter by 3.”
Can’t really calculate it that way and get an accurate number as each class grows in size between freshman and senior year through the addition of new students.
I also think the best judge of BS college placement is to look at where the bottom half goes.
At the risk of sounding repetitive:
• Boarding schools do not get kids into colleges; kids get kids into colleges. While a BS may provide some of the tools, they will not do the work for the student.
• Correlation does not imply causation
@panpacific I am not alarmed. Just replying to the OP. Of course there will be some plain old brainiacs. BUT a great % of those impressive college admits are in those same pools. You only have to look at Ivy and Ivy like rosters for sports to see it. We cant “see” everything else like legacy and color but we know about it.
@doschicos CHEERS! “I also think the best judge of BS college placement is to look at where the bottom half goes”.
But it is the same students and families “full of hooks” asking the same question year after year, isn’t it? What’s the point of telling them hooks is all that makes all the differences? And you’d be fooling yourself not to acknowlwdge that it occurs more often than occasional that a non hooked kid gets in top colleges over a hooked. Also, even the “bottom half” of the class isnt your regular bottom half. They too are richer and more hooked… Oh I have to say sometimes the holistic admission in elite schools makes people so cynical!
Btw: As has been stated a couple of times already, going to a certain bs won’t get you into any colleges. I think it’s a overall poor decision to attend a certain school based off of matriculation. If 90 kids attend Harvard from school XYZ every year, you shouldn’t think that that has an effect on your chances, because it doesn’t. Make no assumptions.
Anyone willing to crunch and compare the stats for those who graduate in the bottom third, ot look at which are the LEAST impressive college matriculationd like at each school? That sounds much more interesting (though equally unhelpful in “chancing” an individual kid).
Well 2 things:
• The school will not give you the stats of the bottom 3rd (and you can’t make assumption about which college a student went to based upon the profile) and
• Least impressive will be very subjective. It’s not like any of these BS kids are going to North Central Community College.
Agreed. Our local magnet high school is often criticized by private school parents because so many kids go off to community college instead of elite 4-year schools. What these parents don’t understand is that it is a savvy money-saving move for first gen immigrant kids: They all transfer to UC Berkeley after two years and get their college degree for a fraction of the cost.
Hi - when my son was considering which BS to matriculate to, I was interested in knowing the same thing. I was able to get detailed matriculation stats from each of the admissions offices. I can’t seem to find the spreadsheet that I created. But in the end all of the schools had roughly the same % of students who matriculated to top colleges. There wasn’t a huge difference.
As others point out, the factors used by college admissions offices are heavily weighted towards things that are not apparent when viewing the matriculation reports. Things like legacy, development, and URM status have a huge impact on college chances. So take this with a grain of salt.
The best advice would be to pick a BS based upon where you think it would be easiest to excel. Both Choate and Lville have excellent college counselors and have excellent relationships with the admissions offices of all the top colleges.
I think each boarding school should label their matriculation lists like the mutual funds do: “past performance is not an indicator of future outcomes nor a reflection on any one student’s chances” 
@doschicos Preach!!