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<p>Exie, What a statement from Exeter Alum? I’m not sure Exeter will be very happy about this. Please keep your phone turned on. :)</p>
<p>A few initial thoughts on the recent Forbes List:
- Well you have to move to attend (most of the top are day schools).
- Better apply in Kindergarten, because many of them are K-12, with few openings in 9th or above (from the schools websites).
- For many of them your Kindergartener better be VERY well connected, but if admitted they will attend a top college because their fingerpainting was really talented.
- Most have “Associate” faculty members or interns from local Education colleges (oh they DO have a masters degree but no experience). Oh and at their #1 school 100% of the Kindergarten teachers have advanced degrees. That is useful.
- The Student faculty ratios seem to include coaches (amusingly most have master’s degrees), this does help their student:teacher ratios. At the boarding schools most teachers are coaches.
- Scholarships are much more limited and diversity is defined as multiple zip codes (their #2 school).</p>
<p>So maybe first the renowned Stanford researcher should have dropped the day schools and started with schools you CAN actually attend. Then within those boarding schools you can begin an analysis…but I won’t go there. (oh and excuse my cynical mood this morning about the abuse of statistics)</p>
<p>Winter Sweet
Points taken. However the actual Forbes list has not been referenced in this thread. There is only an excerpt on the article which specifically relates to the question “Does Prep School help college admission chances??”
So unless someone has read the list they have no idea what you are referring to.</p>
<p>Winter Set</p>
<p>You can simply google the Forbes “America’s best college prep schools.” It came out 4/30/10</p>
<p>In addition, Forbes put out an article I think Dec 2009, where they wrote about “the most elite” prep schools. They start out the article talking about Choate and how JFK matriculated from there. I think most of the schools in the two articles are the same. elite/best</p>
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<p>Which is why they pre-select a subset of students predisposed to make that benchmark and don’t choose students who will struggle or need extra assistance to get it.</p>
<p>Boarding schools are not so much poised to turn a student into prep material as they are to choose those that already are.</p>
<p>Which is why I tell parents to send their students for the amazing experience, and for the academic challenge because despite the Forbes analysis the majority of students don’t go to those colleges. And because colleges are “hip” to that game too and are more likely to look harder at students who don’t come prepackaged - otherwise BS numbers would be 100% matriculation, not 30%</p>
<p>What makes BS look so attractive is that people miss the point that they amass a concentrated aggregate of students with attractive stats. Show me a student on the lower end of the stat scale who goes to BS and then matriculates to an IVY and that would be a conversation worth having.</p>
<p>I’m just mystified by parents who hover over stats like ranking lists and miss the fact that while they may “wish” their student has a better shot at a specific school, the vast majority of even the best BS do not matriculate there. So the odds - while higher than public school on the surface - are still low and not the reason to spend $180,000 for four years of it.</p>
<p>How about looking at it from a different angle? The big name BS’s are Ivies themselves. One has a crap shoot at gaining admission to these BS’s already. Does attending an ivy garantee one a best graduate school or a high pay job (or does attending a “BS ivy” garantee ivy admittance in the future)? No. Does one gain any advantages by attending them compared with a non-ivy? I don’t have the answer. I just know that many want to attend an ivy for a reason and many others just want to attend an ivy because other people do. I guess a practically useful question to ask is - regardless whether you’d get a leg up in college admission or assuming you wouldn’t, for what reason would you turn down a “BS ivy” after you took the trouble to apply AND they accepted you wholeheartedly, especially for a equally (or more) expensive lower tiered school? Unless the “BS ivy” in question is clearly a “non fit” - but then considering you chose to apply and the school identified you were a fit, how “strong” a non-fit could it be?</p>
<p>I guess the bottom line is really, it depends on which prep school you’re talking about…
based on the matriculation stats, some clearly give the aggregate group of students who attend an advantage over PS and other prep schools. Just attending a prep school doesn’t in and of itself give you a leg up…you have to attend one of the top ones to significantly increase your odds of getting into HYPMS. Is anyone aware of similar matriculation data on public schools? For instance, Boston Latin, an exam public school by reputation has excellent matriculation stats to HYPMS. Is anyone aware of another data source for public schools around the country?</p>
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<p>I know that’s the mystique we sell, but good grief, several of us on the boards who interview actively have told you ad nauseum that you are chasing the wrong dream and reading the stats incorrectly. That’s why that “I must get into a top BS to go to an IVY” mentality has the numbers so out of whack, and Adcoms starting to weed those kids and parents out.</p>
<p>They don’t give those students a leg up in the sense that many parents are hoping. They self-select the strongest students based on stats and what can be thought of as IVY predictable factors. My sense, talking to students I interview is that they would be IVY competitive even if they didn’t go to boarding schools because of personal traits that make them attractive in the first place.</p>
<p>The exception are students stuck in failing schools who have potential - but in most cases they aren’t selected by top schools - too much talent to have to go there and BS’s don’t recruit at those schools.</p>
<p>A “leg up” based on matriculation is a school that takes a variety of students and achieves IVY status where chances would have previously been low. I don’t know Boston Latin so I can’t speak to that. But I do know HADES and many of them are trying to put out information to stop parents from applying for that reason. Exeter even has a whole page devoted to the subject in their viewbook. The neediness and the false hope of a paved pathway gets old and a lot of those kids are now getting turned away. Then they scratch their heads and blame URM’s and Jocks, etc.</p>
<p>But I sense doing this for 30 years will not sway you because I sense you need to hear that it does. So be it. No harm no foul.</p>
<p>Go find your “top school” and let us know how it works out for your student. And if he/she’s in the 75% that don’t get in to HYPM from a “top school” (including my own) will you still feel you made a wise investment? If your child chooses a different school will the pressure be there when he/she returns home?</p>
<p>Go to BS for the right reason, not because you’re looking for an “end result” in terms of college.</p>
<p>I agree completely that BS is for the education not the placement but can anyone describe what is an “ivy predictable factor”?</p>
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<p>Not true. Reverse engineering might help us understand the issue. Exie says the BS are self selecting. Then the question is what kind of students the school is interested in selecting to give it the Darwinian fit. Schools might say what do the parents want in return for their investment. As the Forbes article points out majority of parents (not all) want great matriculation. Now the school will self select the kids that can matriculate to top colleges so that it won’t shoot itself in the foot. Case closed. I love Darwinism. :D</p>
<p>To me, it still seems that what you’re paying at least in part at the top BS’s is their relationship with the IVYS. If you buy Exie’s argument totally, then Andover, Groton and SPS know better than anyone else how to pick the “right” students to get into HYPMS. I just don’t agree. You think after 250 years, the other schools haven’t caught on? Of course, they know how to select top and interesting students also who have a good shot at the IVYS, however there is still a gap between the top two or 3 BS and the rest in re to matriculation stats. So it can’t just be that they’re better at picking students.</p>
<p>How is it that a discussion of college admissions has come to center around the same 8 colleges, out of thousands? How is it that a discussion of prep schools has come to center around a handful of schools, out of hundreds?</p>
<p>Also, the argument evolving here is circular, isn’t it? The elite prep schools are elite because so many of their students are accepted by elite colleges, and the elite prep schools are elite because they accept the students most likely to appeal to elite colleges. What might the prep schools be adding to this equation, if anything?</p>
<p>some would say the prep schools are giving those outstanding students (whether they go to public school and get into an ivy or private school and get into an ivy), optimal nurturance, a feeding ground to continue to grow and explore with lots of opportunities to explore and drill down on passions, and full sunlight, water and earth (the other motivated students), to continue to grow to their full potential.</p>
<p>While I don’t ascribe to the “prep school as a gateway to the Ivies” theory and I think many kids would be better off applying from their local public schools, I do think there are circumstances under which attendance at a top prep school can give a student a boost. </p>
<p>Colleges and universities such as these are on the lookout for kids from diverse backgrounds but predicting who can succeed can be difficult. An A+ student from a predominantly minority inner-city school or a 2400 SAT football player from Appalachia can be a great get but they can also be a gamble.</p>
<p>Kids like these have a higher drop-out rate and often the reason has nothing to do with their natural abilities and everything to do with the psychological and social pressures they face at elite institutions. A kid who has already proven they can weather these pressures as a high schooler is a safer bet for colleges.</p>
<p>Some practical “tips” one can take away from this debate:
- Almost everyone agrees that top BS’s with stella college matriculation records are good at identifying and admitting students who have potential to make their ways to elite colleges (whether this is the ONLY explantion for their year after year significantly better stats is debatable), so if you want to attend an elite college, “test drive” by applying to a highly selective “BS Ivy”. It’s not a garantee for a spot in the top 10 collges, but if you expand your list of colleges a bit more you are in a good position. (check Lvillgrad’s matriculation stats for “top schools” and strong schools")
- If getting into an elite college is your top priority, carefully analyze your situation - your local high school’s records, your relative position and the resource and opportunities available to you, and determine whether attending a BS actually helps.
- Once you decide to apply to BS, then don’t worry too much about colleges. Apply to a wide range of schools that you feel you will fit. Coming March 10, look at your options. Chances are you don’t have the luxury to choose. If you are lucky enough to be accepted by one of these top schools with excellent matriculation records, I don’t see why you’d pass it, unless you are turned off by elite colleges - even thdn you shouldn’t because even in the best BS a good part of the graduates will not end up in elite colleges.</p>
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<p>Who might this “you” be? The parent, or the eighth grader? On a rational basis, even intelligent 14 year olds will have only the foggiest notion of the strengths and weaknesses of any college. The college matriculation calculation, in my opinion, is in the main a factor for ambitious parents.</p>
<p>If your child is miserable at an elite boarding school, would you insist he stay at that school? How much is a (slightly) better chance at admission to an Ivy League college worth to you? What pressures are you willing to place upon your child?</p>
<p>How to raise a child is very personal. Parents’ values inevitably affect their children’s (and part of why they are defined as minors). Maybe this you is “family”.</p>
<p>NO, if your child is miserable, then by all mean pull him/her back. I just wonder if he/she is miserable in PS, where can you pull him/her to?</p>
<p>Periwinkle,</p>
<p>I think you really nailed it. A LOT of students are pressured into boarding school because of parents with aspirations, not students with aspirations. I found the same to be true with some MIT applicants. There are a thousand ways to uncover that fact without asking an overt question.</p>
<p>And often, it’s not the child grieving a “rejection” but the parent.</p>
<p>The best students “choose” to go to boarding school. Many people think that 14 year old’s aren’t emotionally ready to make such a big decision or think about college but the typical boarding school student is ready and is making those decisions themselves.</p>
<p>I marvel at the difference in maturity between the students who are “driving the process, getting their recommendations in order, setting up interviews” versus the students with a high level of parent involvement. I prefer the former and I think schools do too. Which is why there are two interviews - one for the student, and one for the parent(s).</p>