<p>Hunt - Looks like the legacy numbers went up a little bit from last year to this year at Yale! If you keep defending Yale too much then those numbers will go down this year.</p>
<p>If Hunt weren’t so nice, Hunt would just be agreeing with annasdad and pointing everybody towards Cleveland ;)</p>
<p>or Caltech</p>
<p>4-year grad rates are also strongly impacted by both the wealth of the incoming student body as a whole, AND the funds that the college has to grant from a financial aid perspective. (It’s also impacted by the extent to which students participate in co-op types of programs such as in engineering or journalism, but I’ll waive over that for right now.) </p>
<p>I am aware of a highly ranked LAC that explicitly went from need-blind to need-aware after the most recent economic crisis because they wanted to make sure they could keep their current students “whole” from a financial aid standpoint - many of them had parents who had lost their jobs, etc. So in doing so, one side effect was that they protected their graduation rate (as students weren’t dropping out due to inability to pay). Was that a good thing, or a bad thing? </p>
<p>If it had dropped, would the conclusion have been “they are indeed getting tougher / not letting those slacker students skate by without turning in papers on time” as annasdad seems to think, or would the proper conclusion have been “they let down some of their current students by not being able to provide the aid they were used to, so those students had to drop out”?</p>
<p>Maybe he’s not teasing Hunt…</p>
<p>What if annasdad is not so nice and trying to discourage Yale applications this year?</p>
<p>If so, I think he’ll have to come up with something better than Deresiewicz.
:)</p>
<p>…Still thinking about annasdad’s example of the young woman who wasn’t sufficiently challenged but was accepted into a top MD/PhD and then this quote from the article he first brought up.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[The</a> American Scholar: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education - William Deresiewicz](<a href=“http://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/]The”>The American Scholar: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education - <a href='https://theamericanscholar.org/author/william-deresiewicz/'>William Deresiewicz</a>)</p>
<p>I don’t think you can measure how you make minds by talking about grading and graduation rates. It’s a different and, to me, much more interesting discussion.</p>
<p>obviously I’m more than a bit engaged with this article at this point :)</p>
<p>Hunt actually attended Yale and sent a kid there undergrad. I’d say his perspective is arguably more informed than others on here. My kid went to a Yale peer school. You can put me down as being doubtful it was worth it to go full pay but thoroughly convinced now it was an incredible opportunity and one we are very glad we were able to help support.</p>
<p>If our younger one hits the lottery and gets into one of them and wants to attend then we will pay for it. We won’t even hesitate.</p>
<p>sewhappy: What about it makes it seem worthwhile and worth the price to you?</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>Did we not thoroughly beat that horse to a pulp in the past? </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1197513-lacs-worth-200k.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1197513-lacs-worth-200k.html</a></p>
<p>Replace LAC with the blank of your choice!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I do not know anything about IMSA and never heard about it. Inasmuch as I have no reason to doubt what Annasdad says about his D’s school, I’d like to point out that elite high schools will rarely admit that their mission is to send kids to “good” colleges. Their stated mission is to provide the best education. However, I do not think that you will find many parents who pay substantial tuitions or kids who go through the grueling years of K-12 to NOT measure the success of the school by the simplest metric of:</p>
<p>“WHERE DID THE KID GET IN”</p>
<p>That is why college matriculation lists are on the most regular broadcast channel.</p>
<h1>608</h1>
<p>I can only plead advanced age and loss of even the shortest term memory.</p>
<h1>609</h1>
<p>I have encountered a few parents who don’t measure the success of an elite HS by “where the kid did get in”. Usually their kids are majoring in a performance art of some kind. And the parents had enough money the HS tuition really didn’t matter.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>I do not think that you will find many parents who pay substantial tuitions or kids who go through the grueling years</p>
<p>Not even “college prep” schools say their mission is to get kids into great colleges!
Their goal is to enable them to handle and thrive and learn as much as possible in college.
The system may have seemed like a feeder in days of yore, but those days are long gone.
IMO, a lot of the former feeder prep (day and boarding, public and private) schools have college level courses available and expectations are as high as in college, maybe higher in some cases. The onslaught of AP courses across many high schools has now levelled that field quite a bit.</p>
<p>One valid question that Annasdad is asking is: “Are the top colleges rigorous enough? Especially given that many/most of the students attend DID take rigorous and advanced courses in HS, even college-level courses in HS?”</p>
<p>I feel that he is judging rigor as indicated by number of failures: to be truly rigorous, the colleges should be failing out a percentage of their students.<br>
Hmmm…</p>
<p>Back in the dark ages when I was at a very prestigious college you all have heard of, I DID feel that I was almost over-prepared as I came from a nationally ranked and super-rigorous HS. Since it was a BS, I was also very prepared to live on my own, manage my time, make responsible social decisions, etc. My classmates at this college came from a huge variety of high schools. Many were initially very very challenged, both by the course-work and by living on their own. Clearly most were very bright, and most did acclimate well by the end of Sophomore Year, often after a big epiphany about their priorities, and sometimes even a bit of a breakdown in confidence. Many were also getting used to much higher standards in grading and expectations, and living through the experience I already had at BS of not always being the best or at the top.</p>
<p>I did see slackers, some who feel into partying away their time in their newfound independence, others who were overwhelmed academically and gave up, and others who were burnt out by a competitive HS experience. There were some genius types who got distracted and lazy, and accumulated a load of Incompletes, sometimes missing the opportunity to graduate on time. I know some who did drop out. And there were classic cases of less qualified athletes and legacies and celebrity kids, who took guts to get through in SOME cases, not all. Other classmates got so wrapped up in exciting EC’s (newspaper, a cappella, sports, debate…) that they under-did on the academic side, but definitely grew and matured into capable souls with much to offer later on. </p>
<p>What MAY be different now is that the average preparation of a student admitted to an elite/challenging college environment may be HIGHER: more rigorous, more advanced, more competitive. And the ability to juggle many activities with academics is usually a given for the students at the elite colleges.</p>
<p>So, are these elite colleges challenging their amazing students enough?</p>
<p>I was curious about IMSA … and I googled it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with the above, but the “focus” on “nation’s most selective colleges and universities” is NOT different from about every elite high school in the country.</p>
<p>annasdad has kept the discussion fairly general. It makes me uncomfortable when we start getting into areas where it may be possible to identify students based on what their parents have posted, probably without the student’s knowledge :(</p>
<p>My kids attend/attended a public magnet program. There is a lot of hand-wringing about whether they do worse in getting into selective schools than they would have if they had attended their “home” schools. I think the school does a good job, and you really can’t know how your kid would have performed in the home school. Perhaps he would have cruised for the easy A, and wouldn’t have gotten involved in interesting ECs. They still do pretty darn well, although it’s debatable whether they do as well as one might expect at the very most selective schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>M e, t o o.</p>
<p>What the heck is IMSA?</p>
<p>My impression is that the truly high power high schools don’t need to publish that kind of rhetoric to attract applicants. It’s just known.</p>
<p><a href=“https://www3.imsa.edu/system/files/2012%20Profile_0.pdf[/url]”>https://www3.imsa.edu/system/files/2012%20Profile_0.pdf</a></p>
<p>Actually, I knew a family who had a son who went to this school, I believe. They were from Chicago and he made math olympiad (the national team), then went to MIT, didn’t graduate, moved to Silicon Valley and works for startups. The parents were not happy. Their second son graduated from my kid’s high school and he also went to MIT. He also learned how to write a literary analysis along the way. The website seems kind of demented to me. Seriously, these are kids! Who really knows if they want science and technology for their careers when they are what, 14 years old? I think I’d be with Pizzagirl on this one. What if Jobs had gone to such a school? Sheesh.</p>
<p>annasdad has revealed a lot, yes. It was his choice. He has revealed more on other threads, too. Just saying… He also chose his screen name, an unfortunate choice. I feel he is very very, and rightfully so, proud of his D, and loves this school.</p>
<p>I think it is perfectly appropriate for a specialized, competitive admission, rigorous school to advertise their college acceptances/what sort of preparation they are giving, what makes the school unusual, etc.
The school wants to attract the right “fit” of students.</p>