College Choices of Portland's elite

Parents Forum
21

I expect familiarity breeds content and the grass is greener.

For example, the Catholic and Jesuit schools here in the Northwest (Gonzaga, Seattle University, and University of Portland have similar rankings, endowments, and selectivity as the CA Catholics (USF, Santa Clara, LMU, and USD). Well, Santa Clara is become a bit more like a mini-USC, but the others not so much. But the CA schools are a lot more popular. I think kids just want to get away from home and LMU or USD sounds a lot more interesting than Gonzaga or UP.

I think there is also probably personal connections and follow the leader happening.

For example, Catlin Gable sent 8 to Occidental and 3 to Santa Clara
Lakeside sent none to Occidental and 16 to Santa Clara over the same time period.

Either the admissions counselors at the two schools have different sets of connections, or kids are playing follow the leader and applying to the same schools that the kids who went before them did.

For these two groups of kids, those two schools look like the two most popular choices that aren’t ultra-selective. I guess they are where you go if you don’t get into Stanford, Pomona, or one of the Ivies.

22

“I think kids just want to get away from home” The majority of kids still go to community college or stay within driving distance of home for college. Private high school matriculation lists are not going to be representative of where most kids end up. Some of this is also state and regional specific.

23

“It may not be surprising that the college counselors could have developed good relationships with elite colleges and can steer the (elite-college-qualified) students toward the specific elite colleges that will see them as good fits.”

In addition to getting them into the elite colleges, I actually the biggest value add of the elite/private high school GC is getting many kids in to the next tier down (however you want to define that) as good fits as well.

24

I noticed that the mid-size Catholic schools seem to be pretty popular: Gonzaga, Santa Clara, LMU, USD, and so forth. I even noticed that Furman popped up. So that seems to be the most popular choice for the “next tier down” for this affluent subset as opposed to public university options in-state or in other nearby states.

I just find it interesting to see the choices made by folks across town who have unlimited resources. Not just what they choose, but what they don’t choose.

25

I really don’t find this list interesting or exceptional. This is a small selection of extremely privileged students with wealthy parents. Oregon in general is a poorer state with public schools that show that. I grew up in Portland at one of the poorer districts and nobody from my hs went to an elite college. The two valedictorians one went to OSU the other the navy. A few students went to Linfield, Pacific or George Fox otherwise it was cc or PSU. Even my upper middle class friends from other parts of the state went to UO or OSU.

I now live in NJ in the poorest county in the state and kids from the local hs go on to a lot more elite schools like NYU, Drexel and Pitt (just ones I know of this year other years Yale, Bryn Mawr etc). We have much better funding in all educational areas like AP classes to special education that set students up better for college. In NJ I have hundreds of 4 year colleges within a 6 hour drive in any direction. In Portland I had maybe just over a dozen. It takes disposable income for kids to move far away that so many of my classmates and current friends of near/college age kids just don’t have. It’s also not surprising that Dartmouth would be top of a PNW full pay students list. I’m sure their hobbies align with rural NY and showing real interest was easy.

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26

Lots of kids think they “know” a school if they grew up near it, so won’t consider it for college. My own daughter grew up riding her bike around Wellesley’s campus. Up until she was applying to college, she literally thought it was a community college.

She graduated from Wellesley in 2017.

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27

I don’t think this list is strange at all. It looks like a lot of matriculation lists from private and Boarding schools on the East Coast. The only exception is there are more students attending schools on the West Coast than is typical of East Coast schools (which makes total sense). These kids are likely full pay and come highly prepared.

28

I didn’t mean to imply that it is strange. I don’t look at matriculation lists for east coast boarding schools so I don’t have anything to compare to. This is the first one I have looked at for my community. I find it interesting to compare to where the top students at my daughter’s public HS go. Which is a list that has some Ivies and elite LACs, but is also MUCH more heavily populated by public universities, mostly OOS. For those with unlimited resources the strong preference seems to be even mid-range privates over public schools.

This is where the graduates of the science/technology magnet program at my daughter’s public HS have gone recently. These are not poor kids. Mostly children of tech engineers and doctors, that sort of thing. So not chasing need-based aid. And lots of Asian-American kids.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1Msv42a-HfPKaqYBtbDlYsKwbFOI&ll=40.995450123652304%2C-109.9812527889128&z=4

29

“But yes, they must have really cracked the code”

It’s the same code that has always been in place. Per WSJ/Pulitzer Prize author Daniel Golden’s book, “The Price of Admission” (https://openlibrary.org/books/OL9818415M/The_Price_of_Admission)

Wealth & connections = Easier road to elite colleges.

“Today, the prospects for these unconnected applicants, who are predominantly middle-class whites and Asian-Americans, are even bleaker. The poor schmucks have to walk on water — during a tsunami.” - Daniel Golden
https://www.propublica.org/article/jared-kushner-isnt-alone-universities-give-rich-applicants-a-leg-up

@homerdog

"Every spring thousands of middle-class and lower-income high-school seniors learn that they have been rejected by America’s most exclusive colleges. What they may never learn is how many candidates like themselves have been passed over in favor of wealthy white students with lesser credentials–children of alumni, big donors, or celebrities.In this explosive book, the Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Daniel Golden argues that America, the so-called land of opportunity, is rapidly becoming an aristocracy in which America’s richest families receive special access to elite higher education–enabling them to give their children even more of a head start.

Based on two years of investigative reporting and hundreds of interviews with students, parents, school administrators, and admissions personnel–some of whom risked their jobs to speak to the author–The Price of Admission exposes the corrupt admissions practices that favor the wealthy, the powerful, and the famous.

In The Price of Admission, Golden names names, along with grades and test scores. He reveals how the sons of former vice president Al Gore, one-time Hollywood power broker Michael Ovitz, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist leapt ahead of more deserving applicants at Harvard, Brown, and Princeton. He explores favoritism at the Ivy Leagues, Duke, the University of Virginia, and Notre Dame, among other institutions. He reveals that colleges hold Asian American students to a higher standard than whites; comply with Title IX by giving scholarships to rich women in “patrician sports” like horseback riding, squash, and crew; and repay congressmen for favors by admitting their children. He also reveals that Harvard maintains a “Z-list” for well-connected but underqualified students, who are quietly admitted on the condition that they wait a year to enroll.

The Price of Admission explodes the myth of an American meritocracy–the belief that no matter what your background, if you are smart and diligent enough, you will have access to the nation’s most elite universities. It is must reading not only for parents and students with a personal stake in college admissions, but also for those disturbed by the growing divide between ordinary and privileged Americans."

30

@Camasite:

Not terribly surprising. And the lists aren’t terribly different either.

Biggest differences between the private school and STEM-focused magnet:

  1. Private school kids more represented at LACs and Catholics. Probably due to guidance counselors who know of many of those schools and know where to match up the non-elite kids up best based on fit.
  2. Private school kids less represented at OOS publics for several reasons:
    A. Pretty much all decent-sized publics have engineering schools and most LACs don’t (Catholic schools may but typically they are not the strongest) while many of the STEM magnet kids would be interested in engineering.
    B. Many more of the magnet-school kids would be chasing merit money, and various publics would be more likely to offer that. I attended a magnet-school too and we had nearly the whole range of SES from upper-middle class to poor. But pretty much zero truly rich families represented. Families with net worth in the 8/9/10 figures typically aren’t considering tuition cost as a factor when looking at HS’s and colleges.
31

Goldman raises some worthwhile points, but the issues he raises don’t apply to the vast majority of students at elite schools.

32

That makes sense. And probably explains why STEM magnet parents would be sending their kids to places like Cal Poly and UC-Irvine and prep school parents would be choosing places like Santa Clara and Occidental, even if the costs are likely to be similar. Well, Santa Clara has an engineering school so that might not be the best example. But you know what I mean.

33

Interesting. My D (a “regular” kid in terms of grades and test scores) looked at a lot of these schools. We are at a small Title I public in South Texas where hardly anyone leaves the state for school. Looks like she’ll meet some of these kids at the school she’ll be attending in the fall!

Did anyone else notice the relatively high number of kids attending art or music school?

34

Just a guess, but some of these fancy private prep schools might be more likely to accept music prodigies in the first place. If your 10 year old is already performing with the local symphony and recording music, that is probably more likely to catch the eye of prep school admissions committee than the average 10 year old who spends their time skateboarding and playing video games.

So it might not be surprising that they send a higher percentage of kids to places like Juliard, Curtis, and Berkelee.

Art school is a different thing. Maybe some of those are just wealthy kids who just need some kind of artistic pedigree before they start drawing on their trust funds. My own child is free to take art classes in college, but I’m not sending her to an art school.

35

In general, kids whose parents are well-off are more allowed to indulge in majoring in the music and the arts (music, especially, at higher levels, costs real money).

Kids from middle-class or lower backgrounds may not be allowed that option and also may not be keen to go down that path when they know that they won’t have an inheritance to live off of and they’ve have to build their own retirement funds.

36

Catlin Gabel (note the spelling) is indeed an elite private school in the Portland, Oregon area.

A few clarifications:

  • Catlin has always had two college counselors for a graduating class of about 70-80 students.
  • While it is true the school is in the midst of sexual assault allegations, all the alleged sex acts took place over 30 years ago. The current Catlin administration is doing everything they can to acknowledge the past and to be completely transparent in the investigation.

Catlin’s college counseling department at Catlin is excellent, and while its results are impressive, it is important to remember at all elite private schools, legacies and athletes comprise a large percentage of impressive college admissions statistics.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that well-resourced legacy families are going to send their kids to the best high schools they can. Similarly, gifted athletes are going to go to the well-resourced schools. This is true nationwide, not just in Oregon.

It is worth noting that the other elite private schools in the Portland area (OES, Jesuit, St. Mary’s) their college admissions stats are not much different. To the degree there are differences, I would argue that the results have less to do with the affluence of the families, and more to do with the nuances of the different educational programs at each of the schools.

As someone who has been an alumni interviewer for an Ivy League university for the last 10 years , my anecdotal experience tells me that elite private schools in Oregon are at a growing disadvantage to the public high schools as the Ivy’s move (nationwide) to be more diverse and inclusive.

Some of Portland’s public school college admissions stats are very impressive.

37

The art and music factor is likely the result of lessons from an early age. Many high-income families send their kids to a variety of activities including music lessons and art. Some kids continue, some do not. Private schools are filled with musical kids just as they are filled with athletic kids. Since most private schools don’t accept every student and some accept very few, any skills are weighed in admission. And kids will just continue with what they like to do.

The kids from the magnet school attending large OOS universities with STEM programs makes perfect sense. In our state, the few STEM magnet schools are extremely large ( so the size would be an easy adjustment) and kids would be mainly from lower to upper middle-level incomes. Many of the very wealthy would still send their STEM kids to private schools.

It’s true a kid who doesn’t have to worry about paying loans might choose a different career ( in music or art) than someone else who knows those fields are rarely lucrative. Though there are many kids at the top music and art schools who are from low and middle-income levels as well.

38

I did not mean to start this thread to pick on Catlin Gable. But I would point out that according to the news coverage, the allegations range in time from the 1970s up through 2013 involving at least nine teachers over a four decade period. So some of it is recent. The troubling thing from the point of view of a parent and teacher is that they apparently had many multiple reports and warning signs over the years and did not address it. But this has generated 2-years worth of front page news coverage in the local press so anyone can google it. For example: https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2019/12/scathing-report-outlines-decades-of-sexual-abuse-inadequate-response-at-catlin-gabel-private-school.html I can’t think of a public school anywhere that has such a poor track record.

As for

Yeah sure. I suspect they have NEVER been at a disadvantage, much less a GROWING DISADVANTAGE to public schools in Oregon or anywhere else. It might be the case that they are losing a little bit of their enormous ADVANTAGE. But that’s probably more cause for celebration than concern.

So Catlin Gabel has two counselors for a class of 70 students and their primary or perhaps sole job is college admissions? My daughter attends one of the most highly rated and affluent public high schools in the Portland metro area and they have 7 counselors to cover nearly 2300 students which is a better ratio than many schools. What are they doing most of the time? Not college admissions. They are making sure special ed students get the proper testing and evaluations. They are making sure homeless kids have food, shelter, and warm clothing. They are making sure at-risk kids are doing summer school and credit recovery so they can graduate. They are doing a thousand other things besides college admissions. My own daughter’s counselor has not had time to do anything more than look at her transcript and course selection for next year and tell her she is on track to graduate with an excellent college-track selection of classes. The counselors are actually pretty good at guiding disadvantaged kids into the local community colleges and public universities. But they most certainly do not have the time or skills to guide top students into highly selective elite schools. The kids either do that all on their own, or their parents sometimes hire private admissions counselors.

From CNBC:

Yep, those public school kids have one heck of an advantage.

39

This is obviously old, but I thought I’d chime in here with context as I grew up in Seattle and attended Lakeside, and now live in Portland and I’m very familiar with Catlin Gabel.

Lakeside is one of the top schools in the entire country; college is easy after Lakeside. I went to high school with kids who were smarter than anyone I’ve met, in any capacity. (While I can hold my own, I was not one of those kids!)

Catlin Gabel is a fine school, but it’s mid-tier college prep.

40

We live in Portland, about a half mile from Reed, and sometimes walk through the lush and peaceful campus canyon. My 11th grader’s initial sense is that it would be “weird” to go to Reed because he could just walk home; it’s too close.

My reluctance about Reed is the INTENSE reputation, along with
ah, shall we say “substance-friendly” atmosphere. It seems like an excellent place to go if you’re planning for your Phd., but the retention rate and graduation rate imply that it’s perhaps a somewhat polarizing school - and not as supportive of students as peer colleges.

We know a former professor of Reed, who’s up front about burn-out amongst students there, and while it’s academic reputation is fabulous, I don’t think it’s the right fit for my student. I wish it were! We shall still visit, and my student doesn’t yet know my thoughts about it as I’d rather they form their own opinion; perhaps they will fit right in and then long drives or plane flights will no longer be something I have to think about!