<p>I'm a prospective applicant for boarding school next year, but my parents aren't totally onboard yet. They brought up the point that if I go to one of these top schools, where there is a ton of competition, that I won't be able to get into top-tier colleges as opposed to staying at the public high school I am at (which is very good for a public school) and being one of the top if not the #1 in my grade. The parents of someone I know who goes there said this as well. Is this actually true or unjustified? College would take priority over high school for me.</p>
<p>It depends on what your definition of “top-tier colleges” is.</p>
<p>Does that mean just HYPMS? Or top 25 colleges? Or top 50? At the top-tier BS’s the majority of the grads will go on to a top 25 school-- does your present school boast the same?</p>
<p>Here are some stats for you. You can decide for yourself if BS is worth it for you:
[url=<a href=“http://matriculationstats.org/boarding-school-stats]Boarding”>http://matriculationstats.org/boarding-school-stats]Boarding</a> School Stats : Matriculation Stats<a href=“click%20on%20the%20column%20header%20to%20sort%20the%20schools%20in%20percentage%20order”>/url</a></p>
<p>“Boarding School Matriculation” website has not been updated recently, most data is from 2010 or before.</p>
<p>The opinion of the Andover student body majority as polled by the Phillipian in June 2012 (reference is online under “Phillipian”) was that “Andover hurt college chances more than it helped” - this is the first year in the annual poll that this is the opinion of the majority of the students. Reviewing 2012 HYPSM statistics for Andover (see their web page), suggests that HYPSM matriculations are indeed lower than they have been in the last 5 years. Maybe it’s just a blip, though. Year to year is hard to compare.</p>
<p>At Exeter, to pick one example, about 10 kids matriculate to Harvard every year. Five of them are early cum-laude (top 5% of the class), so about 1.7% of the class looks like they are admitted to Harvard on academics. The rest of the matriculants are probably athletic recruits, or hooked (although at Exeter they will also be strong students too).</p>
<p>The problem is that the students at these elite boarding schools are all admitted because they were stellar applicants. Fully 50% of them, by definition, now find themselves in the lower 50% of their class. Arguably, they may have a considerably better chance at elite college admissions if they were the stars in their local public.</p>
<p>However, Harvard rejects 50% of students with perfect SATs, and the vast majority of the 27,000 valedictorians in the US are also rejected. So getting in to HYPSM is kind of a game of chance for the best students everywhere.</p>
<p>Suggest going to an elite boarding school for the education and experience you will find there</p>
<p>NOT to get an advantage to an HYPSM admission.</p>
<p>I’ve developed a really nuanced view of the situation. It isn’t yes or no. </p>
<p>If you are a superstar who will dominate your grade at public school, you might have a better chance of acceptance to IVY + Stanford + MIT from your public school. Factors to consider: have any students been accepted to any of those colleges from your school in the past five years? Have those accepted students been primarily scholars, rather than athletic recruits? </p>
<p>More importantly, how deep is the curriculum at your current school? Will you run out of math or other interesting courses to take before graduation? Does the school actually offer the courses listed in the handbook, or are advanced courses dropped due to budgetary concerns? How flexible is your public school about arranging independent study? If cross-registration with neighboring colleges is permitted, are there limits? (Community colleges are becoming more popular, which can leave high school students with little pull to enroll in a class.)</p>
<p>Aside from the top 1 - 5 students at your current school, how does everyone else fare in college admissions? Many colleges seem to take the top two students at a district, but there’s a drop off for students ranked below #2. (This varies by district.)</p>
<p>If you attend boarding school, you will write much more. You will have smaller classes, full of motivated and smart peers, which will mean a heavier workload. It will also mean more interesting discussions. You are more likely to meet peers at boarding school who will challenge your preconceptions. You are much more likely to run a sleep deficit. You are much more likely to know your teachers outside of class.</p>
<p>You will arguably improve your chances of admission at colleges which understand boarding schools. Check matriculation lists at boarding schools. (note: not acceptance lists, as one smart kid can be accepted to many colleges.) Keep in mind that the college advising at private schools is much better than the college advising at public schools. Students have lived away from home, so they are “calmer” about leaving home. They are making more informed choices, in part because many schools do not allow them to apply to lots and lots of colleges. (On the positive side, colleges know prep school students can only apply to a certain number of colleges, so the application is more likely to be seen as a kid who is seriously interested in attending, rather than a late night Common Application panic binge.)</p>
<p>Students are more willing to travel longer distances to attend the college of their choice. Some choose Oxford or the University of St. Andrews, for example. So, you might not be as likely to get into HYPSM, but you are much more likely (in my opinion) to get into a better college, and to be prepared to do college level work off the bat. Oh, and you’ll already own everything you need to outfit a dorm room.</p>
<p>A comment since I’m in the throes of interview season and talking to local kids with good stats and good grades who think they’ve got an advantage being top dog or gifted compared to their classmates. They don’t. Last year we vetted almost a hundred candidates in my region alone, some (but not all) with amazing credentials. MIT admitted only one student. Some years higher but not always. Students need to understand that getting into a good college is more complex than just showing up with a solid resume and strong courses. There is TOO MUCH competition for that to be the sole deciding factor. In fact, passionate students with outside interests and imperfect stats trump those who spent their entire time focusing on being top of the class. Colleges are looking to build diversity in terms of region, student interest, experiences, etc. They look at:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>your overall package and what makes you distinctive</p></li>
<li><p>the mix of students in the admissions pile that year. (for instance, you play Tuba and a lot of Tuba players apply that year, you’re from Idaho but they get 500 applicants that year, etc.)</p></li>
<li><p>The success rate with previous applicants from your school or area (for instance you are Valedictorian from a school or area whose previous students struggled when admitted to the college.)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>College admissions works the same as Boarding School with a few more hoops to jump through. And the Common App has made it much easier for students to apply to a lot more schools than they would have in the days of a unique paper application. So competition is up and bright kids from public or local private schools are no more distinctive than BS kids. Honestly.</p>
<p>So go to the school that challenges you most, and take advantage of whatever opportunities appear that you are passionate about. Be that boarding school or local. Because being the “top” of your class at a local school isn’t really going to be that much more significant in the long run. But if you are a student who voluntarily left a less than stellar situation where you were guaranteed A’s and put yourself in a tougher climate where you struggled, that stands out.</p>
<p>College acceptance isn’t about the school you attended. It’s about you and your value to the campus if admitted. Smart students with depth and breadth - no matter where they go to school, manage to be noticed by good schools. So don’t go to BS if the only intention is to get into a good school. That’s a lot of money to spend on a maybe. Go to BS because it gives you opportunities (social, academic, cultural) that you lack in your current environment. If it doesn’t - then take a pass and save the money for college.</p>
<p>Wonderful and thoughtful posts here. Thank you! Wish this could reach as wide an audience as possible</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the amazing advice! It was very deep and extremely helpful, giving me multiple views on the situation, and helping me see that it does not particularly matter where you are, but what you do there. I hope other prospective BS applicants can use this thread as a reference as well!</p>
<p>Does boarding school lower one’s elite college chances ? Not if you’re at St. Paul’s School or Phillips Academy (Andover).
Groton, Exeter, Deerfield, Milton & Hotchkiss also place well. But, year after year St. Paul’s & Andover seem to be the leaders (confirmed by my study done several years ago among over 40 elite prep boarding school & cited by another survey above).
This is rather remarkable for Phillips Academy because it (Andover) is about twice the size of St. Paul’s School.</p>
<p>It’s because of Andover’s long standing feeder school connection with Ivys, aka old boy’s network, nothing more.</p>
<p>I hope that you’re being sarcastic–otherwise you need to check out the admissions stats for Philips Academy at Andover.</p>
<p>I checked the stats. Andover recruits top students from all places, yet 70% of them don’t go to top colleges. Some have even Matriculated to Stonehill college. Had these students stayed at the top of their local public schools, they would have gone to better colleges. No matter how much connections Andover has with the Ivys, they can’t take all the grads from one school. A lot of people don’t know what they are buying into when they go to BS, but they may be hit with buyer’s remorse in hindsight.</p>
<p>SEWinter: Based on your prior posts, you seem to be a bit obsessed with trashing Andover. Why ?</p>
<p>P.S. I’m not judging, just curious.</p>
<p>Above is true. Friend of mine who went to Harvard from Andover said that when he was at Harvard he saw tons of kids who were much worse than students rejected from Andover , but he said he knew that Harvard could not fill itself just with Andover kids, even if they were better than the run of the mill Harvard kids.</p>
<p>No trashing, no pumping. Just the facts Sir/Madam.</p>
<p>I feel like this is really a common concern for students going into boarding school. There are a lot of great points brought up also. I am currently seeing just how valuable my BS experience is, attending BS is the best decision I’ve made in my life so far- so many opportunities, advantages, etc. One of the main reason that I didn’t look at many of the “big name” boarding schools (Andover, Exeter, SPS, etc.) is exactly because SEWinter and kellybkk’s points. It is so extremely difficult to stand out at schools like those ones. Is attending Andover over a non-HADES school like Milton, NMH, or St. George’s going to heighten your chances of getting into Harvard? Well, it depends. I believe that attending a non-mainstream school allows you to develop you as a person. Colleges look for applicants that are different, original, and true to themselves, students who have passion and focus. If you go to Exeter and just have a run of the mill experience, you aren’t going to stand out against the other applicants from Exeter. But if you go to a smaller school and have a real impact there, then colleges will see and appreciate that. To reiterate exieMITalum, I don’t think that it’s about what school you attend. Yes, Andover might have Ivy connections, but that’s not going to put most students over the edge. Colleges that appreciate and honor the boarding school experience (and most top colleges do), look at what your experience was as a whole, what kind of a student you were and what you will bring to their campus. Just my thoughts.</p>
<p>@SEWinter,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>just the facts:
From PAA’s 2011-12 Student Profile, 30% of 323 PAA’s class of 2011 went on to Ivy+MIT+Stanford:
<a href=“http://www.andover.edu/Academics/CollegeCounseling/Documents/School_Profile_2011-2012.pdf[/url]”>http://www.andover.edu/Academics/CollegeCounseling/Documents/School_Profile_2011-2012.pdf</a></p>
<p>CLASS OF 2011 MATRICULATION STATISTICS for Ivy+MIT+Stanford
6 Brown University
13 Columbia University
11 Cornell University
5 Dartmouth College
15 Harvard University
3 MIT
9 University of Pennsylvania
7 Princeton University
15 Stanford University
14 Yale University
98 Total Ivy+MIT+Stanford</p>
<p>Are you saying that outside this small group of 10 schools, and everything else is chopped liver? I am sure your assessment will come as a surprise to the PAA kids who went to:</p>
<p>University of Chicago
University of Calif.–Berkeley
University of Cambridge
Duke University
University of Edinburgh
Georgetown University
Johns Hopkins University
Northwestern University
University of Oxford
Vanderbilt University
United States Naval Academy</p>
<p>The OPs question is “Does Boarding School lower college chances?” The answer is an enequivocal yes (at least for 70% of them), as evidenced by the stats presented. If you disagree, I say good luck.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This argument just gives me heartburn. Honestly. What about our arguments that those same children may not have fared any better if they had stayed home, didn’t get through to you? Certainly (although MIT is not a global example) my own school’s stats bear that out. Brilliant kids are getting left on the sidelines in droves from non-boarding school environments as well.</p>
<p>There are other variables that are affecting school stats that can’t be determined by looking at the numbers. Schools cater to their student’s career interests. They also look at the process the same way we ask others to look at Boarding School - cast a wide net, then make a comparison in March. Not everyone BS student wants to go to an IVY and certainly there is not enough room at them for every BS even if they all wanted to go. </p>
<p>The truth that people with “stars” in their eyes don’t see is that:</p>
<ol>
<li>Not every well recognized degree program in a specific field is at every school.</li>
<li>Sometimes the money HAS to talk. A student might get into Harvard, Princeton and Yale. But if another school is offering a full-ride with stipend for summer research or travel - guess what - that’s where the kid is going.</li>
<li>Sometimes those “stats” are about connected kids, legacy kids and jocks. Not the specific poster who is dreaming “of” going. $50,000 a year is a lot of money to spend to chase a dream that might not have their name on it. But staying home because you think it gives you a competitive advantage is equally ludicrous given that those kids don’t do any better in today’s competitive market.</li>
</ol>
<p>One need only look at the Redwood forest worth of college catalogs that are flooding our mailbox based on just test scores to understand why some kids might opt for a different path. My oldest daughter got calls, letters from current parents, and rap emails trying to solicit her to some. Along with guaranteed scholarships competing for the same caliber of students.</p>
<p>And certainly if said “student” had stayed home, he or she would be hit with the same dillema. Especially since there are many more public and non BS private school students competing for those limited spaces. </p>
<p>And frankly - being a straight A student at a school known to have an average academics isn’t going to get that student any farther by staying home.</p>
<p>So I think stats are nice - but they’re mostly for marketing. As with boarding schools, students should look for “fit” first and not prestige. Better to be happy in the college that gives you exactly what you need, then be miserable fulfilling everyone else’s expectations about where you should go.</p>
<p>Going somewhere other than an IVY is not a negative reflection on the student, only the small minded people who need a stat to reinforce their pedestals.</p>
<p>
The OP said “top-tier colleges” not “HYPMS”. </p>
<p>The PAA school profile stats show which colleges the students matriculated into, not which colleges they applied. Aren’t you making a big assumption that the other 70% of the PAA kids all applied to HYPMS and didn’t get in?</p>
<p>How do you know that some kids didn’t bother to apply to those schools, and other kids who applied and were accepted didn’t choose to go elsewhere for better FA pkgs?</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I am discouraging my honor roll S from applying to those schools because they do not award merit aid. Why postpone my retirement till I’m 80 if my kid has a decent shot of getting a scholarship elsewhere?</p>
<p>I forgot to add one more important thing. Most of those 30% getting in are not all academic stars, they are the people with connections like the Bushes, athletes, other Hooked candidates. These boarding schools compete with other boarding schools and announce prizes among themselves in a small pool, whereas the public school kids compete nationally such as Intel and Siemens for which BS students have no shot as they are stuck on campus not able to go to local college to do research etc. People here don’t talk about all the problems with BSs such as not able to do meaningful ECs, missing siblings and family. Many kids also waste time playing video games as there is minimal supervision at BS. Only reason BSs survive because the rich want to send their kids to there for water cooler talk, not that they provide any superior academics. Let’s face it, the hardest thing you do in high school is calculus, one can easily study that at home, you don’t need a grand old BS for that.</p>