<p>The top tier boarding schools generally all claim to produce confident and mature graduates well prepared for most selective universities etc. etc.... This is probably true but I think many parents would also like their kids to go on to elite colleges - lets say, one of the most selective 20 . My question is how elite universities view transcripts from top tier boarding schools when there are more than scattering of B's as opposed to straight A's from some unknown schools (given similar SAT and EC). In other words, is there consideration of the "degree of difficulty" and level of competition when looking at transcripts from one of the top tier boarding schools? Would like to know if there is "brand" aura that helps when applying to college.</p>
<p>Yes, it is taken into account. Colleges will see how a prep school applicant stacks up against his peers, as opposed to an arbitrary grading-scale, and will even then probably factor in the difficulty of the courses, and the intelligence of the student body. Top 20% at Andover is better than most valedictorians.</p>
<p>Oh, definitely. I would say top 30%. And they know the schools very well; they are happy to take them, often, because they know they will be getting kids who are extremely well-prepared. Of course, they wanted diversity of children from all different places, but then, at some boarding schools, like Andover, there is at least a fair amount of diversity.</p>
<p>Andover is not the exception, most nearly all boarding schools prepare their students well for college. In fact, many of the schools not often mentioned here have stellar placement records. However, imo, if the reason you're going to bs isbecause of their college placement, you may be taking up a spot from someone who is bent on learning. Please don't say that's why you're going to bs! If you're always getting back to the subject of matrics and the smartest students go to ????. It has been said on these CC prep threads if you want to go to an ivies school, you may be better off at a public school where you may stand out. Unless you're a math god or any other kind of Subject "god", you'ree probably going to be surprised by the smarts some of these kids have in bs and most of you, yes, most of you probably do not fit the status. if you do truly go to boarding school for the chance to learn in an awesome environment, guess what you're probably going to get into a great school anyway. Maybe not the ivies, but a good school nevertheless.</p>
<p>Let me ask you students, at an interview, If they ask you why you want to attend our school, or what can you contribute to our school? Are you going to say, I want to go to your school because of your matrculations? Or I want to go to your school because I can pad your ivies matrics because my dada went to princeton? There's no way you would. I'm so sorry I'm ranting, but please if you're really interested in where a school matriculates its students, and than judges whether the school is worthly of you maybe you need step aside and let the students who really want to go to truly learn, that are'nt grinding grades for college placement.</p>
<p>Prepparent--I'm sorry, that wasn't what I meant at all. I meant that Andover had a bit higher diversity that most prep schools. I wasn't talking about readiness for college or matrics.</p>
<p>I think that it's fair to say that after getting an awesome education at bs, people go on to colleges and hopefully, it's the one that they want to go to. Learning is obviously the right objective but college question is not far from anyone' mind (cc exists for that). It's nice to know that the college admissions people recognizes the difficulty of competition and the overall superiority of "experience" as I would think it's much more difficult to stand out in terms of grades at places like SPS or Milton.</p>