Why should elite schools “set aside” spots for kids from BS (or any school, public or private, for that matter)? I know they are well prepared, and talented but there are lots of kids who are well prepared and talented out there and they don’t have the privilege of their school being favored in the admissions process. This reminds me of my dad’s reminiscences about his days at Deerfield when the headmaster would tell the schools which “boys” he’d be sending them.
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I’m definitely not saying there should be “set aside” spots for boarding schools. There used to be at HADES, Choate, Groton, Milton, etc., but those days are over.
This topic is mostly just a discussion of the difficulty of equitably comparing grades among kids from different schools, and different types of schools.
I am not an advocate of admissions preferences for boarding school kids.
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standardized testing has the merit for comparing students from different backgrounds. I applaud MIT and PEA to bring the test requirements back.
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I think the issue is that most of the top 10% at my LPS would not be in the top 50% at Deerfield.
Looking at class rank alone isn’t comparing apples to apples. People send their kids to prep school with the idea of a more rigorous education giving them a leg up. But if colleges just look at rank and/or grades without the context, then elite prep school applicants are at a disadvantage.
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Nobody in this thread said that.
What is happening is that boarding (not “elite”) schools are selecting middle schoolers at an acceptance rate as low as single-digit percents, putting them through college level coursework, expecting/teaching them to manage themselves like adults, grading them very strictly (against their tippy-top percentile peers) and then they are competing for college spots using a metric (GPA) that is by no means comparable. Nobody here is discussing the need for an advantage…they are discussing what has become a substantial disadvantage for unhooked BS kids, particularly at top-tier state universities (including in-state). It has been very difficult for those kids over the past two admission cycles because (1) COVID led to outrageous grade inflation in public and local private schools, (2) SAT/ACT scores have fallen out of favor, (3) AP scores are not given nearly the weight of GPA, and (4) BS is equated with “privilege” - a word that some (including those at academic institutions) cannot resist pinning on some students, like a scarlet letter.
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Kids who go to BS or competitive day schools are a small minority of the population, and most of them are wealthy. This isn’t to say they aren’t smart kids, but we need to take into account that BS kids likely have better access to standardized testing and tutors/prep, not only in school, but out of school also.
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If one is so concerned with getting into college from a BS because they’re unhooked, that is a decision they need to live with. They could have picked a less competitive school or go to public school where they would have been a superstar. These were things people should have considered before choosing to attend somewhere. That is on them.
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What is on them? Being punished for choosing to challenge themselves? Huh…I guess that’s one way to look at it.
No one said that they are concerned about their child (or themselves) getting into college. Those who chose BS for the right reasons walk away with the value of BS, no matter the sentiment of the day. People are noting a disadvantage…that’s all.
And they didn’t. While top state universities may not recognize the maturity and value of that decision, those students certain will (or should).
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That was the quote I was referencing. I’m not debating the worthiness of BS students - they are smart and well prepared for college level work. I’m just questioning the idea of “setting aside” spots for BS students at elite schools where they are already over represented. The truth is that unhooked kids are at a disadvantage regardless of where they attend HS. That being said, I have several close friends whose kids attend/ed top tier BS and despite being unhooked they’ve all ended up at excellent colleges (U Chicago, G’town, Tufts, Wesleyan) - the biggest disadvantage (that they’ve shared) is that their kids have been shut out at the Ivies - losing out to classmates who are legacies or athletes.
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Not the 35-50% on financial aid, and the other 20% of families that struggle with full pay.
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There are pros and cons for every choice. BS is a privilege, not a necessity. It’s not a punishment, it’s a choice that simply has some downsides.
You can note a disadvantage, but like I mentioned, you can’t complain like you didn’t know. People coming from nothing are at a much bigger disadvantage than those who can afford to drop 70k/year on high school. Let’s be real. People should go to BS if they want that experience, and don’t mind a “disadvantage” if you will….they all still end up at great schools and can get great jobs than most…privilege is a real thing.
AOs have done this for a while. They understand what BS kids are like. Many have worked in admissions for BS also. The reality is that they recognize some people don’t have the opportunity, and are making sure that kids who are just as smart, who may not have so much access to schooling and jobs, get the education they deserved.
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That’s still not a majority. Average FA grant is not full tuition, and those families who are even struggling to be FP make much more than the national average.
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For clarity, I could have said “are no longer setting aside a predictable number” instead of “are not setting aside a predictable.”
Which is a good thing.
Which is relevant to the idea that “grade deflation doesn’t matter” or that “it is all relative”, as if it were the case that BS kids are only competing among themselves for an annual, fixed number of spots at elite colleges.
Those days are gone, and absolute grades do matter, not only within the BS, but when compared to non-BS kids.
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BS kids are largely overrepresented at these schools. Setting aside spots for them fosters privilege.
Yes, I think @SportyPrep was referring to the days when various boarding schools acted as feeders to certain Ivy league schools. Hotchkiss used to have a direct pipeline to Yale.
In my observation, schools that have jumped into this breach are the University of Chicago and SMU. Those schools seem to want boarding school kids as evidenced by their (relatively) high acceptance rates. Those are schools looking to raise their visibility with northeasern elites, and one way they are doing that is by taking more boarding school kids.
The Dean of Admissions at UNC told Hotchkiss parents, when asked about this disadvantage, said that boarding school kids, with the finest education and unparalleled resources were not the disadvantaged ones when compared to a kid from Appalachia. The boarding school kids would be just fine no matter where they went to college.
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This is exactly what my point was for anyone unclear.
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As a U. of C. grad myself, I will say (unless things have changed there a bunch over the decades), the university also accepts a lot of boarding school students because these kids are at relatively low risk of dropping out in the face of a very tough academic environment in a relatively gritty urban setting. When I went to U. of C. the drop-out rate for kids was pretty high, because some couldn’t handle the workload, basically, even if they got good grades in high school and were at least pretty smart. I imagine that students who do well academically at boarding school (say, top third of the class) and have already adjusted to living away from home are at lower risk of failing at a demanding university like U. of C., which, by the way, I think is at least as great a university as the Ivies.
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It is, after all, where fun goes to die…
Yes, walk around the campus on any given day and you’ll likely see at least a dozen or so students wearing t shirts emblazoned with “The University of Chicago, where…”
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If Chicago is concerned about kids unable to handle the workload, why don’t they require SAT scores like MIT?