But I thought HYP were national universities! Why are ALL schools so regional??

Parents Forum
701

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<p>Politics related to education matters is not! The only concern is that it appears impossible to find much positive in the ACTIONS of the government when it comes to education. Hence, most discussions turn into acrimonious debates between the critics and the ones who are blind and deaf to the enormous and cynical deficiencies. </p>

<p>Fwiw, there is ONE thing a competent and progress-minded government(s) could and should do, but it will never happen in our country as it would rock the corrupt educational establishment to its core. Education IS politics, and we have the results we decided on and … deserve.</p>

<p>So, in the end, all we can hope for is that the items 2 and 4 (inter-related really) continue to press for changes and do the work left by the element Number 3 in your list. </p>

<p>PS Your list was excellent. Kudos! </p>

702

<p>"You’re not aware of affluent upper-middle-class enclaves in Minneapolis and Chicago and Cleveland and Kansas City and Charlotte and Atlanta and Denver that are every bit as upscale and educated and well-traveled as their counterparts in Boston, NY or DC?</p>

<p>Also, is it your contention that Ivies / elite schools look mostly for high SES kids? If so, I wonder why they keep touting all their financial aid policies and how their educations are now affordable for many in the working / middle class. Do you think that is just for show, or do you think that’s a real institutional priority of theirs?"</p>

<p>I am not talking of upscale and educated and well-travelled. I am talking about the bloodsport of choosing private pre-schools with an eye towards college admission. I am not sure whether that’s commonplace in the cities that you mentioned, but I looked up the list of top-25 private schools in the country, and the geographical distribution is clar.</p>

<p><a href=“Private School Rankings - US”>http://www.topprivateschools.us/top25.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Note that Massachusetts itself has 9 out the top-25. Where do you think the top-10 kids in these 9 schools are applying? How do you think they are being prepped to apply to the local Ivy? </p>

<p>As for low SES, of course the elites try to attract qualified low SES students, which is why they offer financial aid. But the key operating word is qualified. As you yourself stated earlier, more than half of the public schools in the country do not even offer a single AP course. How well do you think the low SES kids as a group are prepared to meet the profile of a qualified Harvard applicant, vs. say, the top-10 students in the 9 top-25 US private schools in MA?</p>

<p>Low SES kids have 4 challenges to overcome when it comes to elite college admissions:</p>

<p>1) Cost - which financial aid is designed to mitigate
2) Awareness - which outreah programs are designed to mitigate
3) Educational excellence - which is the purview of the local school district
4) Mentors/Role Models - which is the purview of the community</p>

<p>Elite schools do a LOT on #1 and #2, but they really can’t do much when it comes to #3 and #4. I personally believe that we as a country should try to overcome the issues faced by low SES students when it comes to #3 and #4. But that would take massive political overhaul, and since politics is out of bounds for CC, I will say no more.</p>

703

<p>“Fwiw, there are reasons to not look at the Ivy League as an homogeneous group in terms of revealed preferences. Inasmuch as some hate the term “lower Ivies” the drawing power of each school is variable.”</p>

<p>That is exactly right. Which is yet another flaw in the original analysis, in that it expects Brown and Harvard to look identical, even though Brown is far lower ranked (lower than WashU, I believe) in college rankings and has far lower drawing power.</p>

704

<p>" I am not sure whether that’s commonplace in the cities that you mentioned, but I looked up the list of top-25 private schools in the country"</p>

<p>There’s more to life than private high schools, though. There are affluent public high schools similar in scope to those found on the east coast. What would make you think that these cities wouldn’t have suburbs that look pretty much like, oh, say, New Canaan or Short Hills? It’s surprising to me to meet an elite-school grad who has no personal or professional familiarity with anyone who lives in Minneapolis or Chicago or Cleveland or Kansas City or Charlotte or Atlanta or Denver, or even a sense of what living in those cities might be like. Have you spent most of your life within a small radius of where you lived / went to school? </p>

705

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<p>There are public magnet schools in the midwest which are basically equivalent to Thomas Jefferson High School, which I assume you’ve heard of. The top 10 students at these schools do more than just match up with the top private schools. Even among the non-magnet schools, there are some public high schools where the talent pool is extremely strong (e.g., New Trier in Illinois).</p>

706

<p>“Maybe U. of Chicago didn’t make it a priority to have national representation, but rather Harvard et al. made it a priority to have regional (Northeast) representation. Or perhaps they have a hidden (or not so hidden) Midwest bias. It’s clear that it’s not uncommon for Northeasterners to look down on Midwesterners, and it is most likely people from the Northeast who are making decisions at Northeast schools.”</p>

<p>Could be. We are all biased as human beings. However if that were the case, I would expect the MW and S participation in the Ivies to be even lower. As it is it is far higher than what I expected.</p>

707

<p>My kid goes to one of the schools on @CatalanNumbers‌’ list. There is a section of Naviance that lists the 20 schools that get the most applications from this high school. 16 schools were in the NE (including down to DC), 3 were in the Midwest and 1 was in the South. </p>

708

<p>“There are public magnet schools in the midwest which are basically equivalent to Thomas Jefferson High School, which I assume you’ve heard of. The top 10 students at these schools do more than just match up with the top private schools.”</p>

<p>I have not heard of Thomas Jefferson High School. However, please note that there are similar magnet schools in the NE as well (over and above the private schools). For example, Boston Latin sends a few soccer team worth of kids to Harvard every year. So, public magnet schools probably even out between the two regions and the differentiating factor becomes the private schools.</p>

709

<p>“Have you spent most of your life within a small radius of where you lived / went to school?”</p>

<p>I do not think that is relevant.</p>

<p>“There’s more to life than private high schools, though. There are affluent public high schools similar in scope to those found on the east coast. What would make you think that these cities wouldn’t have suburbs that look pretty much like, oh, say, New Canaan or Short Hills?”</p>

<p>Yes, and I believe the public schools balance each other out. The core differentiator remains the private schools.</p>

710

<p>" It’s surprising to me to meet an elite-school grad who has no personal or professional familiarity with anyone who lives in Minneapolis or Chicago or Cleveland or Kansas City or Charlotte or Atlanta or Denver, or even a sense of what living in those cities might be like"</p>

<p>I lived in one of those named cities (ok suburbs of same, technically) for over ten years My kids went to the “best” school systems there, from elementary school through D1’s graduation. We lived in one of the swankiest suburbs, and my kids went to both private and public schools there. I currently live in the suburbs of New York City, where D2 and S graduated from a “good” public school.</p>

<p>My impressions based on my experience living in both of those areas, and kids & classmates applying to colleges, were posted previously on this thread.</p>

<p>Yes there were wealthy people in the named city, but far fewer of them than in the NYC suburbs. The whole population was smaller.
And many of those very wealthiest people were absoultely fine with their kids going to the flagship state U. To a far greater extent than is the case where I live now.</p>

<p>I lived in another of them for about three years, but I was a young single guy at
the time and cared nothing about college application trends.</p>

711

<p>“My kid goes to one of the schools on @CatalanNumbers‌’ list. There is a section of Naviance that lists the 20 schools that get the most applications from this high school. 16 schools were in the NE (including down to DC), 3 were in the Midwest and 1 was in the South.”</p>

<p>Not surprising. It is the regional bias. Kids like to go to college close by where they went to for high school.</p>

712

<p>"And many of those very wealthiest people were absoultely fine with their kids going to the flagship state U. "</p>

<p>I cannot imagine some of the very welathiest people in the NE (and I do personally know a few) being absolutely fine (or even marginally fine) with their kids going to SUNY or UMass. Getting into an elite college is a blood sport here.</p>

713

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<p>I am afraid that it is no different from other areas in the country where parents who went to elite schools live. We know that many such parents have found employment in cities such as NY, Boston, Chicago, and add as many as you want. </p>

<p>It would, however, be a mistake that the “blood sport” has no life in other cities. Take Texas, despite the rat race to rank enough to earn a “joker” to Texas AM or UT, the rat race that starts in pre-K is real in cities such as Dallas, Houston, or Austin, and developing in “hamlets” such as Southlake, Coppel, or Grapevine. The people from Houston and Austin will add their own “farming system” that has developed in the suburban Shangri-Las.</p>

<p>I can assure you that the omnipresent discussions among high middle class parents with kids looking at 1st or 5th grade was none other than about “getting in” in the right school that should help getting into HYPS first and foremost or in the “second tier” represented by Vanderbilt, Chicago, Washington St Louis, or Duke. Again, add a few of those second ranking schools including the “lower Ivies” or the few LACs that have enough prestige. The only time “lesser” schools would be in the conversation was when the student had shown promise at the local YMCA and athletic scholarships started to shine. And, then there were the chosen sports of Lacrosse and fencing over soccer or baseball. </p>

<p>Simply stated, when a local preK to 4th grades gets more than 100 times more applications than spots available, you KNOW that the Northeast virus did spread with vengeance! While NOT all the parents look at the Ivy League with the same envious eyes, the drive to get into a highly selective school is real. Very real! </p>

714

<p>"I cannot imagine some of the very wealthiest people in the NE (and I do personally know a few) being absolutely fine (or even marginally fine) with their kids going to SUNY or UMass. "</p>

<p>If they are really as wealthy as you portray, it’s really of no consequence where their kids go to school, as they’ll be able to do whatever the heck they want and live how and where they want to live. They don’t have to impress anyone with any Ivy or similar degree. It’s the layer below that desires that stamp of approval. </p>

715

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<p>Yeah, I don’t know about the super-rich in the NE. I would guess that if they are really that rich, they can just donate a million dollars and then their kid can go to Harvard–maybe it’s more than that now considering how steep the tuition is. It’s not exactly a “blood sport” to get in. But there may be a status thing to it–send your kid to Andover and then Harvard/Yale. </p>

<p>I do know some super-rich business people in the midwest (e.g., net worth above 50 million), and they couldn’t care less where their kids went to college. It’s the professional class (doctors, engineers, lawyers) who tend to care about it, but those people tend to care more about intelligence than the business people.</p>

716

<p>"And many of those very wealthiest people were absoultely fine with their kids going to the flagship state U. "</p>

<p>I cannot imagine some of the very welathiest people in the NE (and I do personally know a few) being absolutely fine (or even marginally fine) with their kids going to SUNY or UMass.:</p>

<p>One gets the sense that you perceive (say) Michigan or Wisconsin or Berkeley or UVA or UNC as sort of the out of region equivalents of U Mass, when in fact they are fine schools. </p>

717

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<p>There are magnet schools in the midwest with better measurables than Boston Latin that send zero to two to Harvard per year. From these schools, it’s easier to get on the faculty at Harvard than to get admitted as an undergrad.</p>

718

<p>Because they don’t apply, or because they don’t get in?</p>

719

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<p>Because they don’t get in… I had one person PM me saying that their high school went through a 10-year drought with nobody getting into Harvard. Meanwhile, they sent boatloads to MIT. </p>

720

<p>Well, shrug, admission rates are so low, I don’t think any high school should feel “entitled” to have kids get in. </p>