<p>I have to say that is very impressive
how long did it take</p>
<p>OK, I had a great long rant about the obsession parents seem to have with college matriculations but I deleted it. </p>
<p>All I really need to say is that I don’t understand why this matters so much to so many people. Is there something that I am missing? Is there something that I have failed to consider in all the soul searching I’ve done in finding a boarding school for my son? Why have I not considered this bit of information that seems to be so important to other parents?</p>
<p>I was just about to say the same thing! Boarding school is an experience, not a ticket to a free ride on the ivy leagues</p>
<p>neato, there’s nothing wrong with different things being the most important drivers for different people - is there? We’re actually most concerned with our son getting the best and the broadest education possible in his last 4 highly formative years - which is really our sole reason for nurturing his boarding school interests. If an Ivy League admission was the most important thing, remaining and working hard in a Maine public high school might actually be a better ticket for him.</p>
<p>I think what neato also means is that parents shouldn’t be driven because of college stats…they should be driven for what their child wants.</p>
<p>*All I really need to say is that I don’t understand why this matters so much to so many people. Is there something that I am missing? Is there something that I have failed to consider in all the soul searching I’ve done in finding a boarding school for my son? Why have I not considered this bit of information that seems to be so important to other parents? *</p>
<p>I’m certainly glad you’ve done a lot of soul searching in selecting a boarding school for your son. I’m sure you’ve considered the many important criteria which should go into making the best possible decision.</p>
<p>But, why does it surprise you that matriculation statistics would be of importance to other parents in making this decision? I certainly agree that people put too much emphasis on this statistic (and have essentially stated so at length on my website). Nonetheless, to completely ignore a piece of information useful in helping evaluate what happens next after the boarding school experience is a bit mystifying to me. In making decisions, I like to to consider all relevant information. Then I decide how much importance to place on each such piece of information. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of overemphasizing matriculation statistics simply because they are much easier to quantify than most other relevant (and possibly more significant) pieces of information. But, I think it’s also a mistake to err in the other direction and say that they are irrelevant.</p>
<p>If you’re looking at HADES type schools, which I am and being an eighth grader myself, I think that college matriculation stats aren’t really relevant. A parent asked that at an Andover open house, and the person leading it said we are not here to get your kid into school ABC, we are here to educate future leaders. Though this comment was dramatic, I think that sums up what I think. Also, your kid should work hard personally to get into the college of their choice. People from public schools can just as easy get into an Ivy League based on their own merit as a person in BS.</p>
<p>*I have to say that is very impressive
how long did it take *</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Hard to say exactly. My 8th grade son did all the website stuff and I have no idea how long it took him. I did all the statistics stuff. It took about 3 hours to set up the spreadsheet for the analysis including thinking it through. The first half-dozen or so schools took a long time to input since I had to keep adding new colleges that students were matriculating to. It now takes anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes to add a new school depending on how easy it is to get the information from a school’s website into useable form and whether my younger son reads the colleges and # of matriculants to me or I’m doing the input all myself.</p>
<p>Why did you decide to do this? If I were to track something, it would be which BS do CCers get accepted to based on their stats.</p>
<p>thats great that you and your son did it together family bonding. Do you think that RCS is comparable to say Choate and MX. I assume that did not include this years EDs and EAs from the schools. Because RCS is having a great year. The last two classes were filled with idiots and slackers, but this year has been great.</p>
<p>*Why did you decide to do this? If I were to track something, it would be which BS do CCers get accepted to based on their stats. *</p>
<p>It was something that tickled my fancy and that I could do fairly readily. Also, it gave my son a reason to get some practice setting up another website (he had previously set up a blog for himself, but this was a bit different).</p>
<p>You’re certainly free to track that information if you’d like. Why don’t you look at the CCers stats now before decisions come out and make your predictions (to yourself only) and see how accurate you are?</p>
<p>*thats great that you and your son did it together family bonding. Do you think that RCS is comparable to say Choate and MX. I assume that did not include this years EDs and EAs from the schools. Because RCS is having a great year. The last two classes were filled with idiots and slackers, but this year has been great. *</p>
<p>The statistics do not include any class of 2010 matriculants. If you tell me what RCS is, I can add it to the list of schools to be added. The plan is to continue to add boarding schools for awhile.</p>
<p>8 Upenn
1 Georgetown
2 Stanford
1 Princeton
4 Columbia
5 Brown
2 Yale
1 Colby
1 Union
2 UM
1 Bucknell
3 Cornell
6 Duke</p>
<p>i think it is pretty accurate but im no 100% sure</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Of course there is nothing wrong with weighing things differently. I probably look at average SAT scores more than others simply because I don’t think a school that has an average that is lower than what my son had at 12 would be a good all around academic fit. So that’s how I USE that bit of data.</p>
<p>How does one USE matriculation lists? That is the bit that I don’t understand. What understanding does one gain about the school? There are so many factors that go into a college acceptance that I don’t “get” how it can really say anything about the high school that it came from.</p>
<p>Besides, most lists that I have seen only show where students have matriculated. Wouldn’t it be most helpful to know how many were accepted/denied at the various colleges?</p>
<p>Hcos12893:</p>
<p>You’ll have to excuse my ignorance, but I have no idea what “RCS” stands for. I can then check the school’s website for any matriculation information that it might have.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I can’t use the data that you present because, by your own admission, you’re not sure if it’s 100% accurate.</p>
<p>one of hill schools
i think it is enough</p>
<p>*one of hill schools
i think it is enough *</p>
<p>Ah, now I know what you’re talking about. Never heard it abbreviated that way.</p>
<p>As far as these statistics go, those three schools are all shown, so you can make your own comparisons. It’s difficult to extrapolate from the ED and EA results to how the class will do once admissions season is over. Sometimes classes get off to a quick start and finish slowly, and sometimes they do the reverse.</p>
<p>yeah most people just call it by its first name you being a fellow new yorker would get the abbreviation while others would not. that way keeping a little bit of anonymity for the school. I don’t understand why people rank it so lowly it has the best senior required class in the class. and has a great english and history departments</p>
<p>“Besides, most lists that I have seen only show where students have matriculated. Wouldn’t it be most helpful to know how many were accepted/denied at the various colleges?”</p>
<p>@Neato: Naviance scattergrams are very useful in this regard. They show the acceptances/denial/waitlists for a high school by a cross section of SAT/GPA stats for each applicant. Of course, you typically need to be a high school student to secure a family connecton password. However, there are some schools that allow “guest” accounts, fwiw.</p>
<p>Neato, I agree that matriculation statistics aren’t that useful, particularly when we’re considering boarding schools. </p>
<p>On the whole, the top boarding schools draw a population of families who are wealthier, better informed, and better connected than the norm. It’s not surprising that they do well in the “top” college sweepstakes. For the average applicant, though, the picture may look very different, if you knew more about those accepted to top schools. If the colleges accept the hooked (athletes, development, alumni, urm, faculty children) at far higher rates than the unhooked, then for some candidates, boarding school could decrease the chances of admission to elite colleges.</p>
<p>Lacking the information about “who” gets in renders the statistics meaningless. For all we know, a bright, non-urm, non-athletic, non-minority student who needs FA might do much better at a “lower tier” school at which he/she is a star in multiple areas.</p>