<p>Most of cc is not about getting into Harvard. That’s a circumscribed segment. And referencing a small sampling of 2, my s’s did not go to grad school. They are in the engineering field and employed in Silicon Valley. One of the 9 or 10 people that interviewed DS#1 for his position happened to have attended the same small undergraduate institution. Couldn’t hurt. </p>
<p>IMO, the biggest advantage that certain privates with a reputation for being feeders offer are the guidance counselors.</p>
<p>Anecdote: My D at a private was in top 5-10%, struggling to keep her A- in AP Euro. Her friend, val at the local, good HS, had a 104% average in AP Euro. My D’s AP score was a 5; her friend’s was a 3. Sometimes with privates and publics, you’re comparing apples and oranges.</p>
<p>The valedictorian requirements at various schools and the weight that title holds is definitely interesting to look at. at my public HS, we had a graduating class of 805 students. A valedictorian was simply any student that had an unweighted GPA of a 4.0. We had like 30 of them, but half were students that took 0 APs and honor classes. Those students who did challenge themselves with 8-9 APs typically weren’t valedictorians, simply because they might have had one B in a class along the way. </p>
<p>The most elite private schools (and some public magnet schools, too) have acceptance rates that aren’t much higher than the most selective colleges. Many, if not most, of them decline to rank their students, furthermore. It shouldn’t be surprising, therefore, that a student who is not a valedictorian at Bronx Science or Exeter might be deemed more accomplished than a valedictorian from a standard high school. The competition is much more intense, and the curriculum more rigorous. Maintaining a high GPA at elite schools is proof that a student is capable of the courseload at any college, and a 3.9 for them probably means more than a 4.0 everywhere else. </p>
<p>My kids attended a very good private school for freshman year, but then attended public schools in middle class communities. The private school definitely would have been easier for them to launch to a high level private college. The private school had more resources - practice SAT tests and tutoring for everyone (no extra cost), small class size, teachers who willingly stayed to give extra help, opportunities to be leaders, for ECs, for sports, for travel. GC who could spend the time with the students and family to pick colleges, to figure out finances. The school was Catholic, and there were connections all around the country for admissions to good Catholic schools. The class that graduated the year we were there sent kids to Brown, Dartmouth, GW, Catholic, all the California schools, Stanford. About have the school came from very wealthy families, but there were a fair number of ‘just making it’ families and many scholarship kids. I’d say it was the individual attention that made the difference.</p>
<p>At the school my kids graduated from, there was very little help from the GCs. They just had too many kids, too many problems to deal with, to put getting a kid into a specific college at the top of the list. Their job was to get the kids out of high school. Kids did go to OOS flagships, kids did get athletic scholarships, and a lot of military scholarships, but most of the work to get into college was done by the family I went to a few group meetings, but did not have meetings with the GC about schools or even the type of schools my children should apply to. If you wanted the state flagships or even smaller schools in the south, the GC’s could help a little, mostly with due dates and general scholarships.</p>
<p>So yes, I think it is easier to go from a private school to a top tier college because the private school students have better resources.</p>
<p>My nephew and my son were very similar in abilities. He went to a private school and ended up with slightly lower grades, my son graduated near the top of the class at a decent very large suburban high school. Their college acceptances were very, very similar. Colleges know schools very well and are generally pretty good a sussing out what a kid is like. Not all valedictorians are created equal. Highly selective magnet programs, or private schools have already sorted for what might be the top 10-25% of a regular high school. (And some private schools aren’t worth the tuition parents pay for them.)</p>
<p>While I think 1000 kids to a GC is deplorable, I don’t think colleges expect that much from a GC at a large public school. We were very lucky that while our GC had about 200 kids each - they had a pretty well-oiled system that ensured that GC letters were as helpful as possible.</p>
<p>Even AP classes are not created equal. What is really telling is what the score is on the AP tests. In a lot of schools, A’s in the class do not equate to 4’s or 5’s on the test. At rigorous private HS, it may be virtually impossible to get an A, but most students get 5’s, with the bulk getting 4’s. Of course this would be noted in the application process by AdComs.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, my kid attends a “tough” (the word people always use as the adjective 
urban public school where 65% of the students are on lunch aid and 15% of the class that started freshman year has dropped out by the beginning of senior year. There’s one counselor for 280 seniors. And even with that, an astonishing number of the kids go to Ivys, near Ivys, and honors at the state level…in their case, I think being from that school gives them a lift with admissions. </p>
<p>@Jarjarbinks23, not every valedictorian is the cream of the crop. And sometimes other kids might seem more interesting or just a better fit for the school. For example, in my older son’s class, the valedictorian had lower SAT scores than my son. He had done debate/Model UN my son did Science Olympiad (went to States every year and it was the freshman on the team that got the scores at the local level to take them to States), and was on Academic Team (which went to Nationals). I think he did track, but not a recruitable level. My son had a bunch of computer programming related stuff - acknowledgement in a published paper, extensive work experience, a recognition from Gaming magazine and a bunch of self-taught stuff. A university that was looking for more computer nerd type kids would take my son over the val. My son had to take non-honors physics because of a scheduling issue, and Latin 2 and 3 did not have an honors version while all the other languages did, all of which cost him the weighted GPA department. Latin certainly wasn’t any easier than those other languages, but it didn’t seem worth challenging when I realized it might have cost him a few places senior year. One of his female friends got into some tech schools he didn’t - was that because she was female or a couple of places above him in rank? Who knows, but I fully respect the right of those schools to give a tip to an outstanding female. </p>
<p>In the end all the top 10% kids in my sons school did very well in college admissions. The system seemed to work pretty much the way it’s supposed to even if every kid didn’t get into their first choice. I think my son was probably happier at the place he ended up than what he thought was his first choice.</p>
<p>“Colleges know schools very well and are generally pretty good a sussing out what a kid is like”</p>
<p>“The system seemed to work pretty much the way it’s supposed to even if every kid didn’t get into their first choice.”</p>
<p>mathmom is absolutely correct. OTOH, if everyone bought into statement #2, there would be not much need for CC. So let’s just keep that sentiment between us. </p>
<p>@jarjarbinks23,
I haven’t read all of the intervening posts. But I would agree with your assessment. This is similar for my kids’ elite private HS which has grade deflation where the kids work hard and a 1:30 GC to student ratio. However, to get admitted into the elite private HS, kids have to apply with grades, test scores, LORs, ECs, interviews, etc, so the average at the HS is already quite high. The admission rates to these types of HSs mirror the rates of admission to colleges. </p>
<p>You noted:
"Still it’s somewhat strange that a valedictorian of a class of 700 kids might be rejected over a student in the top 10% in a much much smaller class.</p>
<p>Personally I’d think a valedictorian demands more merit than the student in the 10%."</p>
<p>Yes, admission to HS, college, and jobs are not a true meritocracy. Often it’s based on connections, networks, and well worn paths which goes against the grain of some things that we are taught when we are young.</p>
<p>Editing to add:
My son is in the bottom 50% of the elite private HS. It’s unclear where he will end up in college (applying now) and how that would compare with if he attended a good, suburban public HS.
Basically, parents can’t predict how things will go and we try to choose the path based on the information that we have at the time.</p>
<p>I think people pondering these things are much like the kid who says “what do I have to do to get into Harvard?”, as if there’s a magic formula. There is no simple answer. Being the valedictorian is no guarantee (and shouldn’t be IMHO), nor is going to an elite private, nor is being on all the “right” ECs, etc. etc. All one can do is make the decision about what is best for you or your child at the time, and it should never be based on what you think will get them into a particular college (or college in a particular athletic conference). </p>
<p>^This will make the college application very stressful instead of having fun memories for the rest of your and your kid life. It really should be fun times that being family closer, not stressful with potential for depression.</p>
<p>
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<p>@Tperry1982: and the Adcoms know what the grades mean at the different schools. My son felt that he had deserved an A in APUSH at his selective private HS, and was piqued about not getting one. He scored a 5 on the AP test and a 780 on the SAT II USH. The public HS in our town is highly rated, but I do not think that someone with a B in APUSH would get a 780, and I think that influences the adcoms’ interpretations of GPA. </p>
<p>
Very rarely, nowadays. When it comes to the tipsy top colleges, wherever you are, unless you are high potential URM or recruited athletes, you should be at least in the top 10% of your class to have a serious shot. Now, when you are “in range”, the “feeder school” tradition may affect to WHICH tipsy top you might have a slightly more advantage. For example, Boston Latin may give you a boost to Harvard; Andover to Yale and Harvard; Exeter to MIT and Harvard; Lawrenceville to Princeton and Penn, etc. The biggest advantages I have witnessed with selective private schools however are for the non-Ivy top colleges. Top LACs love private school graduates, so kids with lower class ranking in these schools should still have a decent shot for these LACs if they are open to the option. That said, I’m not sure if this outcome has something to do with the stronger “full pay power” that’s more common among private school families. </p>
<p>To elaborate just a little bit on the point of “paying private HS is no ticket to top college”, if you look at the matriculation stats of private HS, the top college (note: not just Ivies) matriculation rates vary greatly. The tuition rates in different schools however don’t vary that much, so just paying for a private HS doesn’t necessarily lead you closer to a top college. Just as with college admission, full pay power is less of a leverage as the school becomes more selective. Andover and Exeter are giving partial to full financial aid to almost half of their student body and full payers are routinely declined over those who need FA, so while the “business model” of a private school is very much still there, at the individual level, being able to pay is nice to have but getting admitted is a much bigger challenge.</p>
<p>You are making my point exactly IxnayBob. I agree. In my D’s school, almost no one gets an A in APUSH, but most get 5’s, with some 4’s smattered in.</p>
<p>Hey OP, fwiw being val and class rank does matter in some states. In Texas top 7% gets into UT, top 10% gets into the other state schools automatically. Val gets a scholarship at state schools. Other states have less rigid programs that reward kids for GPA and rank. </p>
<p>The private schools in Texas do suffer when it comes to UT because of the class rank rule. A great kid at a top private who is 8% will get thrown into the holistic admit basket where he will have to compete with a tougher crowd. He might get in, he might not. </p>
<p>And I do agree that the val isn’t always the best student. He may just be the guy who best understands the system.</p>
<p>My kids attended both a famous private school with a top academic reputation (and the college admissions track record to back it up) and a large urban public academic magnet about a mile and a half away, so they (and I) had a pretty good vantage point from which to compare.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The kids at the top of the respective classes were very similar in ability. The kids who did really well at the public school would have done really well at the private school, and vice versa. And it would not have been the case that a kid in the middle of the class at the private school would have been at the top of the class at the public school. But the private school had about 90 kids per class, and the public school around 550; the median SAT at the private school was 1330 (1600 scale), and at the public school it was 1100. Kids at the bottom of the class at the private school would have been around the 75th percentile at the public.</p></li>
<li><p>At the private school, about 40% of the class went to Ivy League universities or what I would consider the equivalent (Duke, Stanford, MIT, Chicago, top-5 LACs). If you expanded that list to top-20 unis and LACs – and this was my top 20 list, not USNWR’s, which is important because my values at those of the school were aligned – it was about 60% of the class. The public school actually sent more kids to Ivies – but only 5 of the 8 – and beyond that only a handful of kids to top universities or LACs. (The public school GC’s and its principal had all sent their children to LACs, and relentlessly promoted LACs, but only a tiny number of kids ever applied to them, and they were mainly kids who demographically resembled the private school kids.) The kids going to highly selective colleges at the public school represented maybe 7% of the class, a little more if you count Penn State honors college as highly selective (but not much more, because it wasn’t very popular).</p></li>
<li><p>The private school had a number of advantages, none of them really unfair, except to the extent that the world is unfair:</p></li>
</ol>
<p>-- Most (not all, but most) of the kids came from affluent families, and did not have to make college decisions based on cost. At the public school, only a handful of kids did not have to worry about cost first and foremost. Almost everyone at the private school applied ED or SCEA somewhere. At the public school, that was popular among the top students vying for Ivy seats, but not so much for others.</p>
<p>-- Probably 3/4ths of the class at the private school were legacies at one or more excellent colleges. At the public school, you wouldn’t have needed all your fingers to count the legacies. But of course the public school had lots of first-generation college-goers, and the private school one or two. The public school had many URMs, the private school about 10%.</p>
<p>-- The private school had a bunch of recruitable athletes at the Ivy level in sports like squash and lacrosse, but also in basketball and baseball. The public school had recruitable athletes, but not Ivy-eligible recruitable athletes, except for one woman whose athletics helped her get into Swarthmore.</p>
<p>-- The private school had only one full-time counselor, but faculty were assigned to counsel students and to write their school reports – about 15 students per counselor. Each report was lovingly and sensitively crafted. The school’s head counselor assiduously cultivated relationships with college admissions staff. The public school had 5 GCs for the entire school (2,400 kids). Their entire effort with college counseling was to make certain everyone’s paperwork got sent out on time, and that everyone had applied to at least one college. Actual counselling the students did for each other. This worked surprisingly well, except for one kid who decided that she only had to apply to Brown and Swarthmore. But it’s not like her friends supported that – they were tearing their hair out over it. (She took a gap year, and went to a good women’s college.)</p>
<p>-- For all that, the real advantage the private school had – and that it worked hard to maintain – was that its students applied to a very broad range of top schools, and often did not compete head to head with one another. In one class – not my kids’ – there were three students with almost identical grades and test scores at the top of the class. One applied early to Stanford (a legacy), one to Yale (a triple legacy, both parents and a grandfather), and one ED to Amherst. All three were accepted, and none applied anywhere else Would you want to bet that all three weren’t identified as the best student in the class (the school, of course, did not rank)? At the public school, as mentioned, almost no one applied to LACs, and very few applied to places like Chicago, Duke, Northwestern, Tufts, or even Dartmouth. It was fairly common for a good student to apply to Penn (ED), Harvard, and Pitt or Temple, maybe Drexel, maybe UDelaware. Some chased merit scholarships at distant state universities. The private school counselors worked very hard to make certain students had a broad range of first choices, and of course as a result there were a lot more students who got their first choice.</p>
<ol>
<li> Where the private school really made a difference was for the students at the middle or the bottom of the class. It worked really hard to find those students good fits. It did a great job of marketing them. Kids in the middle of the class got into great colleges because the school was a reliable source of good students for those colleges. At the public school, the equivalent kids – say, the second decile – were totally on their own, and mostly wound up deciding to go to Temple.</li>
</ol>