<p>would a college adcom like to accept prep school or public school more.</p>
<p>The advantages and disadvantages I could think of are...</p>
<p>Prep School</p>
<p>Grade won't be near as inflated
students in school score better in SAT since they are pushed to work hard
higher SAT score</p>
<p>Pub School</p>
<p>Grade would be inflated
SAT score would be much lower, but a high SAT score would show that the student shows self-motivation</p>
<p>If students had the same stats, would college adcom take the kid who went to a famous prep school or a pub school student.</p>
<p>Personally I go to a pub school and having a 2200 would make you the highest SAT scorer in your class of 700 students. Heck, in the class of 06, the highest SAT scorer was 2050. I've talked to students from prep school and students getting a 2200 is no big deal. Personally I scored a 1880 from no study, I will expect my score to maybe raise into 2050. With a 1880 score, I probably scored the 4th highest score out of 700-800 students.</p>
<p>um... yeah this is probably jsut going to start a debate but w/e</p>
<p>If someone from my (private) school got an 1880 it would most likely be the lowest score in their class </p>
<p>Unless the public school student was an URM or something, I would assume the college would take the prep school student (if you mean they have the same GPAs also) because obviously a GPA from a good prep school is much more impressive than that same GPA from a (non magnet) public school</p>
<p>hmm i've noticed that from prep schools. I've also noticed that all prep school students don't really need any self-motivation since they are already pushed towards top college. My public school (even though its considered one of the better schools around my district) recommends you to attend state university(PSU and U of O). Our class curriculum basically covers stuff the school board requires.</p>
<p>Oh, my other scores are...
GPA: UW 4.0 (we don't weigh the GPA :( )
courseload: most demanding</p>
<p>and of course, its also not too fair that prep school students receive the luxury of a good education with good preparation for the SAT.</p>
<p>I started preping for the SAT writing (my main area that pulled my score down) and they seem to assume you know your basic grammar. In most pub schools, they put no emphasize on grammar. I remember my freshman year in Adv. English where we took a grammar test and we basically all failed, but the teacher didn't do much to fix our weakness.</p>
<p>In answer to the OP's question, of two identical students at a public and private, colleges will probably take the public school one. That's because colleges assume, given the private school's connections, students will have more chance to excel and therefore the college expects more out of the student. Although I think if the private school isn't amazing, like nationally ranked, colleges won't care..</p>
<p>july: thats what I assume. but then again, prep students would argue that their 4.0 GPA is amazingly hard to earn while I haven't put too much effort in earning my 4.0.</p>
<p>I guess theres plus and minuses, but i hope you're right about the pub school.</p>
<p>Haha, I wish they would at my school. At Andover, only a few people out of the entire student body earn straight 6's, which is the highest grade. The median GPA is a 4.5/6.</p>
<p>
[quote]
SAT score would be much lower, but a high SAT score would show that the student shows self-motivation</p>
<p>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>On what are you basing this conclusion? Perhaps the high scoring public school student is brilliant and rolled out of bed on a Saturday morning and got a 2400 without opening a review book. Just because the average score of a private school is higher than a public school doesn't mean the top scorers aren't in the same range, it's just that the prep school doesn't have the same number of lower scoring kids.</p>
<p>quote: "because obviously a GPA from a good prep school is much more impressive than that same GPA from a (non magnet) public school"</p>
<p>Hasn't it occured to any of you that at a private "prep" school where parents pay a ton of money to send their kid , and where the private school DEPENDS on this influx of cash that just PERHAPS occasionally the prep school will pad the grades of certain students so that they can still attend those ivy league or more selective colleges? You don't think that mommy and daddy haven't showed up to talk with (bully) the teacher/principal on more than one occasion to argue the grades for spoiled junior (and threaten to withdraw their support)? Please.</p>
<p>So give me a break. Private school can offer smaller classes (sometimes, NOT always - depends on the school), but grade inflation does and will continue to go on at these institutions.
If anything the grades at the public schools aren't "padded" nearly as often as at privates.</p>
<p>I've never heard of that happening and can't imagine it's frequent enough to be relevant. Very good prep schoools have more than enough donors so why should they care about one jerk? Several of my friends are extremely extremely wealthy and their grades are worse than many</p>
<p>Grades at public schools shouldn't even need to be padded frankly they already are usually... generally the classes are not nearly as demanding and there are so many people who don't care/are not intelligent that the people who are of average intelligence can easily get the same grades that someone at a good prep school has to spend hours to get</p>
<p>They don't care about one jerk...they do care about dozens of pretentious (and wealthy) jerks. It happens all the time. It's also just the way of the world - better to understand the dynamics and deal with it the best you can than to pretend that it doesn't occur. </p>
<p>If it makes you feel any better - a school can't prevent you from getting a solid education no matter where you go. Those who push themselves will learn.</p>
<p>Right well, at my school at least, it's not the extremely wealthy kids going to the Ivies etc, it's the upper middle class kids because they have better grades (and they obviously don't have anything to be threatening the school with). This isn't always the case but I can't imagine the situation you mention is very frequent. Have you personally witnessed this?</p>
<p>Okay, I completely agree with your last point. The decent SAT score of a public school student/poor person/URM should not be viewed as special</p>
<p>well lets just say in my pub school with a class of 700 only like 2 students would make it to top colleges. And if one makes it, that person would be famous within the school. Example would be somebody who made it into MIT and everybody has been talking about her for the last 2 years.</p>
<p>See personally I really dont think it is the school that matters prep or public its your peers at the school. If you go to a prep school where most of your peers are average students in the 1800-1900 SAT range then a public school with many talented students is the better choice. Think of it in the sense of universities. For example one of the reasons that MIT students are smart is not always because of their teachers its their fellow students who are extremly talented as well and this tend to push the student further and hence excell. So in the end it comes down to your peers if you attend a Public school where there are many talented mathematicians or watever chances are this pushes you to become better. But in the end public school or private school if you want to go to a good university you better be smart.</p>
<p>[Pearl]: If it makes you feel any better - a school can't prevent you from getting a solid education no matter where you go. Those who push themselves will learn.</p>
<p>True to what Pearl said, but its also true that a solid education would go a long ways. The average SAT score for our school is probably around 1350 since I've been seeing a lot of high rank students get 1500 on the SAT.</p>
<p>edit: btw, our school only has 2 AP class offered. The rest are college classes.</p>
<p>They are going to accept both and depending on the school system and the demographics, you might have a much better chance at a public than a private. Its a numbers game. If you are in an underrepresented block you are going to have a better chance than you are in an overrepresented block.</p>
<p>Take DC public schools for example. Smart kids from DC public schools are golden just about anywhere. They meet the public school criteria and they meet the inner city criteria. </p>
<p>So assuming you have 10 kids from DC public schools and 10 kids from St Albans in DC with the same stats that are acceptable to an Ivy. The Ivy will accept 2 kids from St Albans and probably all the kids from DCPS knowing that probably 2 of the DCPS kids will choose their offer. The thing is that if you are competing in the pool of all the private school kids, that pool of acceptable candidates may be much larger. So they may accept the entire pool of DCPS kids hoping to get one or two, they know they will get their numbers from the privates. They arent going to accept you if you dont have the grades, but if you do, and youre in the right place your chances are better from a public.</p>