<p>Woodwork:</p>
<p>I hope your D got in ED! It's good that she was able to fix on fit rather than on "slightly more prestigious schools." But I have to commend the GC for caring enough to meet with you and explain the options.</p>
<p>Bern700 wrote: "In my graduating class of 60, 32 went to an Ivy, 2 to MIT, 4 to Stanford, 1 Caltech, 8 to UCs (out of state), 11 to top LACs (Pomo, Swat, Middlebury, Williams, etc.), and 2 to the local state honors college."</p>
<p>Bern, I thought BCPs graduating class was closer to 300, not 60. I know they have a good college placement record, but it isnt that good! In fact, there are only a handful of schools in the country that send even as much as a third of their graduating class to the Ivies.</p>
<p>Admission to top colleges definitely goes much deeper into the class at many private schools than at the typical public school, but youd expect that at competitive admission private schools, because theres already a screening process at the 9th grade level. Competitive admission public schools (e.g., Boston Latin, Thomas Jefferson, Stuyvesant, Bronx Science) also send huge numbers of kids to top colleges. So I dont know how much of the college placement advantage is really due to the school and how much is due to the quality of the kids at the school.</p>
<p>In my view, the reason to consider a private school is the quality of the education and individualized classroom attention in comparison to the public school alternatives, rather than worrying about college placement. And if a student is happy and doing well at a public school, I don't see any compelling reason to move.</p>
<p>It is really impossible to answer this question.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>on the one hand, some academic research has shown that kids attending elite public exam schools are handicapped in college admissions. does this research extend to private schools? Don't know. </p></li>
<li><p>elite prep schools can be as difficult to get into as elite colleges. Most of the top schools in the Boston area, where I have knowledge, have well over 10 applicants for every acceptance. So of course you end up with a highly capable student body.</p></li>
<li><p>college admissions offices clearly have a different approach to preps than to publics. I personally know of some top schools that will always visit the local prep schools but may not visit most local publics. </p></li>
<li><p>The top admissions folks from MIT and Harvard regulary visit the local prep schools. Park school, a private k-8 near me, had the head of admissions from Harvard hosting a parents meeting last year. (not even a HS!) My D's public school, in the same town, got a mid level adcom from BC to talk about the process.</p></li>
<li><p>during prep school break (going on now around here), the kids visit colleges and often get private campus tours and visits with adcoms that other kids do not get (any posters here find this?)</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Personally, I don't know how this adds up. I saw a lot good kids get into top schools last year from some local prep schools that made me wonder, but I also do not know these kids' academic records, whether they were development candidates, legacies, or what.</p>
<p>I DO think athletics is the sleeper here. There are a number of recruited sports in the ivies, for instance, that few public schools offer. Crew? Fencing? Lacrosse? Field Hockey? Who do you suppose is competitive for these spots?</p>
<p>I have posted this on other threads. We had to drive a hundred miles to get to see visiting admission officers along with hundreds of other public school students. You get a presentation and a half hour q and a for the entire group and maybe three minutes of personal time. The private school in our city gets visits and the students get to do interviews on campus, after having taken the "interview class" with the college counselor. We don't even have a regular college counselor for our high schools, only guidance counselors who have been given extra assignments over their regular work.</p>
<p>Marite,</p>
<p>She got in to her ed choice and is very-very happy about it.</p>
<p>"- during prep school break (going on now around here), the kids visit colleges and often get private campus tours and visits with adcoms that other kids do not get (any posters here find this?)"</p>
<p>We certainly did not find this. The prep school break is actually not a great time to visit colleges - many colleges are still on their spring break, and info sessions/interviews are not going to be with adcoms right now - they are too busy finishing up on decisions. We found most info sessions/interviews last March were with student interns. But since it was the only free time for my son from sports, we didn't really have much choice.</p>
<p>I'll echo some of what has been said above. The reason to send your kid to a private school if $$ permits is the superb education, not college admissions. I think my son would have ended up at the same college coming from either private school or public school. I do think he is much better prepared for the first year of college; many of his friends who are college freshmen right now have confirmed this.</p>
<p>Again, it depends on so many things. My S has not gone to any of the college info sessions in his school, but from announcements, I know the school has been visited by adcoms from a host of colleges from ivies to state unis. Our convenient location plus size, plus high proportion of college bound students surely helps.</p>
<p>BTW, college counselor at S's private school also discourages ED. Thinks that kids do a lot of growing during senior year. Their emphasis is always on "fit" - not on status or rankings. And we hear that from the admissions (to HS!) process on through the four HS years. We do get kids into the top schools routinely, but great efforts are made to not make that the emphasis. Once all the decisions are in, I can give you the stats.</p>
<p>The counselors advising against ED is interesting. I would say at 99% of top privates, they highly encourage it. Now I'm wondering if that's just because they have such tight relationships with the schools that they know they can get a certain number through that way.</p>
<p>The counselor at my daughters prep school didn't encourage it, however the counselor at her sisters inner city public does.
The prep school encouraged students to apply to a range of schools although a few students who were certain what school they wanted to attend and didnt care about attracting merit or need based aid- did apply ED. Not many however. At the public school many students attend out of state public and lesser known private schools but every year a pretty large chunk attend top colleges- the school has a pretty close relationship with several of the Ivies among others- since it is an inner city school on the other side of the country- I imagine they aim to increase diversity by encouraging students to apply.</p>
<p>One of the reasons that we have our kids in private school is that aside from the education, the culture of the school is more in tune with our ideas about leaving the state for college. Even the IB grads in the public school here end up instate because the price is right. Basically the GC's there push for instate as well. They don't have the established relationships that the private schools have. (as mentionned in above posts).....Our kids would be swimming upstream if they were the few who didn't want to stay here, and we didn't want that for them. The public school students all go together instate like an extension of the high school.</p>
<p>We sent one D to a boarding prep and the other to a chuch affiliated day school. Like college it is all about fit. (Aptare omnia est)
Re ED The rep from a prestigious women's college came to my D's school in Sept.. 8 out of 8 girls at the meeting applied. Three were wanting to go ED. GC advised against it.</p>
<p>I think the GCs at private schools recommending against ED is a relatively recent phenom - there is some evidence that the number of EDs has decreased at a number of selective schools - although that could also be due to more people trying SCEA, just to see.</p>
<p>I go to a private school in philadelphia. I think the best part is the education and I actually learn instead of just memorizing information. Also, I am really close with my teachers and gc. However, there are some aspects I do not appreciate. The grading system is rough and our grades are not inflated at all. That can be a pain when competing against schools that have a lot of inflation. Also, my school does not publish rank..so we really don't know where we stand until high school transcrips, which we have an approximate percentile about where we rank.</p>
<p>My grandmom (yes, much like gilmore girls) pays for my schooling and I am very glad. Nevertheless, the money issue can be hard since a lot of the girls (all girl) have money. It doesn't effect me on a day to day basis however, it comes up every so often, especially in this prom season.</p>
<p>Kittie_rocks, I know what you mean about lavish spending in the private school scene....(although it happens at public schools, too, depending on which town you live in)....My kids are already asking why we don't go to Aspen for spring break, have limos for the birthday parties, etc. and they're in elementary and middle school!.. Ironically, we could do that at our income level but its not our lifestyle. I went to a boarding school myself where there were alot of VERY well off girls and what I learned from it all early was that it didn't make for happiness. In fact, the money often caused problems.. Lucky you to have a caring grandparent who's giving you such a good educational start....enjoy every minute of it!</p>
<p>This is an interesting question. My D and some friends from grammar school attend a small middle class private catholic girls HS. Some of her classmates went on to a very presigious prep school due to the lack of "teaching to the SAT" and prestigious college placement at the all girls school. Well, I have yet to report final statistics yet, however so far the girls at the catholic school have reached commended status for PSAT and have outshown the prep school girls in college placement. The prep school girls have been rejected from colleges and the catholic school girls are invited to honors programs at some top notch colleges. We are all in Connecticut and with that the kids contend with geographic diversity and competition from extremely good public as well as prep schools.</p>
<p>Well, I had avoided this thread, but what the heck! here goes:</p>
<p>My kids went to public school (not a highly regarded one). We made this choice first for the economics, and then when we had more choice, for the education they could get there that they couldn't get anywhere else.</p>
<p>Let me explain that. As an example, one group of eight kids from my D's kindergarten class went through the entire 13 years of school together. Here's where they are now:</p>
<p>D graduated from Wes, the other two girls graduated from LoyolaMd and a state school. D is a canvasser, others are a teacher and a grad student in environmental science.</p>
<p>Of five boys, one is a prison guard, one is in Iraq, one is about to graduate from Stevens Institute, one went to Penn and now works for a major firm in NYC, one is bouncing from school to school, looking at business.</p>
<p>They represent, to me, real life. Friends of my kids are in several armed services, in unions, in every level school. Their classes were intergrated because our neighborhood is integrated, both ethnically and economically. </p>
<p>Sure, our SATs suck, are AP's are low (when they're offered), we don't have MUN or debate or a slew of programs other people talk about. </p>
<p>However, we have a few teachers and counselors who care, and my kids managed to get into pretty selective schools. I think that they are more grounded than quite a few of their classmates. So our unorthodox approach worked for them.</p>
<p>I've had kids in good public schools, good private days and have recently toured top boarding preps on the E. coast. IMO, if you can afford it, the private schools are worth every penny. I really wish I had understood that for my oldest.</p>
<p>I think most all parents think their children's school is good. Afterall, what kind of parent would you be if she sent your children to a bad school? As a young mother I listened to my friends and neighbors defend our highly ranked public schools and never even looked at privates. So I encourage everyone who can afford it to at least look.</p>
<p>When we ran into some issues with our public school, I looked. I was shocked at the difference. The difference in attention the kids got. The counseling, not just for college but for following your strenghts and passions at that moment. I saw that smaller classes translated to depth of learning. My kids took off and florished.</p>
<p>We started looking at the boarding preps when we noted that so many of the kids we really admired, kids that seemed to have passion for learning and loved school, went to these schools. I had never been on a boarding school campus before now. Wow!!!! The difference between these and day preps was startling. If not for the issue of not having my child at home, one of them would be my hands down choice. Given my daughter's wishes, one will probably end up our choice.</p>
<p>These schools are like colleges. The choice of classes boggles the mind. The unbelievable facilities-science buildings, libraries to rival an ivy league school, sports coaching that's a world apart, trips abroad with classes frequently, motivated kids from all over the world. Wow! These are fortunate children.</p>
<p>When you think about it, how can public schools be expected to do the same job as a private school that gets to choose it population, dismiss anyone who doesn't cut it and must be responsive to parents?</p>
<p>I'll also mention that at the boarding schools an unbelievably high percentage of the students apply ED. School after school told us this. One reason, I would guess, is that there seems to be few middle class kids at these schools. You have wealthy kids and scholarship kids on the whole.</p>
<p>I have a feeling that the pressure to get kids into the ivies varies by geographic location. Our Upper School head came from a prep school back east and he remarks often when we talk about college that we (the parents and kids) are nothing compared to the driven folks he knew back east. As such, our GC can discourage ED, because perhaps less is "riding" on her success in getting kids into Harvard.... The school will do everything they can to help if a kid chooses to go ED, EA or SCEA but do not push it as a way to up the stats at the school. I imagine the GCs in other prep schools feel more pressure in that regard.</p>
<p>My daughter attended a very good private school and is a freshwoman in college. Her experience provided pluses and minuses.</p>
<p>Pluses: the teaching was spectacular. She had MANY phenomenal, change-your-life-teachers.</p>
<p>She can write and read critically. She regularly assists kids in her class who, despite their high school 4.0+ GPA's, can't write.</p>
<p>She had a wealth of experience outside the classroom as a part of her HS program: worked for a US Senator for a year; interned at a professional theatre; was a student teacher/teacher's aide in a city-wide arts resource program for less priviledged kids.</p>
<p>College counseling was good, although not at the "GC calls the admissions person at the college" level.</p>
<p>Minuses: grading was TOUGH. She emerged with a B average, which eliminated her from acceptance by a number of schools that would have been good matches for her abilities. Instead she's stuck at a school that's not in the least challenging, surrounded by students who don't care, taught by a number of teachers who aren't that good.</p>
<p>The tough grading and lack of being inthe top % of her graduating class also prevented her from qualifying for a number of merit scholarships and honors programs, although her SAT's exceeded the cut-off.</p>
<p>Bottom line: the "get into college" aspect of her HS education was not a winner However, the "prepare for life and success" portion was far better. It's just hard to wait for that deferred gratification.</p>