<p>I think folks will take exception with your #1 assumption/assertion,Benley</p>
<p><< 1. Does going to these schools reduce one’s chance in getting into your dream colleges compared with if you were in PS (or a local “no name” school)? By how much?>></p>
<p>Could we agree to say, “does going to these (BS) schools reduce or perchance raise one’s chance…?” I think some would argue again that for some kids, it may raise their kid’s chance (not always lower) if you take into account that a mediocre student is now among the best and brightest who may motivate their child and pull them up to their level so to speak…along with better college counseling services, better teachers who might help motivate the so-so performer etc.</p>
Oh well I was thinking of the overachievers whose dream colleges are “top 10”. For others who just want to attend a good college, Lvillegrad’s stats tell loud and clear that top schools do place their graduates well</p>
<p>I can see a good test for this…as you would have a pool of 100 applicants who are admitted to boarding school. Of them, 50 would be randomly selected so that their applications – at first approved for BS – would not be mailed out. And all boarding schools would agree to not offer admission to these 50. And you would do this over a period of, say, 6 years. And then you’d follow-up with the 50 who were admitted (not all of which attended boarding school and graduated from boarding school…so it would be less than 50, I suppose) and see how well they fared in college admissions. And then you’d send a letter to the control group 50, telling them they were part of an ingenious experiment in which their acceptance letters to boarding school were revoked in order to see whether their college offerings improved or worsened by not going to boarding school even though they were fully capable and qualified to make it at BS in the eyes of BS admission committees.</p>
<p>My hypothesis: the parents of the control group students would be PO’ed upon receiving this letter. In fact, I think everyone here would agree that they’d react that way, proving to a certainty that BS improves your chances of getting in to the best colleges and universities.</p>
<p>Silly hypothesis and conclusion. This only proves parents think BS improves college admissions. Doesn’t really prove BS improves college admissions. Work on your next one. :(</p>
<p>Only about 62 students will matriculate at the Ivies this year according to the school. This will be the lowest ever for the school. About 75 will matriculate at the top ten (Stanford and MIT plus Ivies).</p>
<p>Students applied at about ten schools each this year compared to about nine schools last year.</p>
<p>The numbers may change slightly with movement off wait lists.</p>
<p>What are the numbers at the other HADES schools ? Anecdotal evidence from Exeter seems to be that performance there is worse. Please post numbers if you have them from access to school information.</p>
<p>@ pulsar: For my next social experiment and hypothesis: I would like to see how many BS students failed to understand that my post was tongue-in-cheek. If 10 or fewer BS students admit to having failed to recognize that, then that proves, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that BS does a better job of preparing students for college. My hypothesis is that none possess that deficiency in reading skills.</p>
<p>So let’s see how many – if any – BS students missed that and then settle this question once and for all. Students have all day today to weigh in on this and then we will have the definitive answer.</p>
<p>D’yer Maker,
While you are waiting for the survey results:
I would want to be in the control group—with the money I’d save, my daughter could get amazing SAT prep but of course that would confound the results when she got into MIT with her math 800…</p>
<p>I’m afraid that now your daughter has to go to boarding school. The study will fail all sorts of peer reviews if the control group – the people who weren’t in BS – understood that they were supposed to be trying their hardest to get into the best colleges and universities.</p>
<p>(I know that MIT is not an Ivy League school, so your daughter’s acceptance there wouldn’t actually impact the study’s inevitable outcomes, but what if Harvard mistakenly admits a public school student such as her from our study? The results would be unpublishable!)</p>
<p>Your daughter’s BS acceptance letter(s) will be in the mail shortly. Sorry, but that’s science.</p>
<p>I think that is a perception of only those who live in the NE. I would not say that is the ‘mainstream’ perception by most of America or by most college admission committees.</p>
<p>I don’t know about college admissions committees, but I’d agree that the mainstream outside NE is not aware of “name” schools. With rare exception, people in our hometown are politely horrified that we’d send our son to boarding school. Most who don’t know him well think we’re sending him away to some kind of military school for dleinquents :)</p>
<p>College admissions committees are aware of the “name” prep schools and what they produce and what they offer, and they probably have their own “code” thru recommendations on which students the prep schools are backing for an ivy college admission. It really doesn’t matter what the general public outside NE knows about these schools–so long as the college admissions com’s know.</p>
<p>On another note, quantman: from your data looks like A/E are slipping in their ability to pick kids that the ivies might choose; looks like their track record is slipping…I’m sure they’re holding some ‘behind doors’ meetings right about now; What went wrong? How can we get our numbers back up? Some parents are still deluded that we can mold their kid into someone the ivies want…etc. I’m sure they are “reasonably” panicked,not wanting their applications to slip, at least they have to take some additional calls (more than the usual) from parents this year who are disappointed in the college acceptance results–ouch!</p>
<p>Fair. How about the perceptions of people who have some basic knowledge about private education in America? Who would disagree that in general the top private schools such as A/E, St. Grottlesex (if they are unfamiliar with the boarding schools, ask them about the good day schools in their area) are significantly better than most public schools?</p>
<p>I disagree with that. And I’m 100% serious. Of course if people understood why I disagree with that in all seriousness, this thread would have died at Post #5 or #6, but there are just way too many people who think there’s only one template from which high school students are stamped, meaning that all schools serve one uniform, cookie-cutter constituency. That’s the premise behind the question…and that’s why wheels keep spinning and nobody can agree on anything.</p>
<p>redbluegreen.
You are mistaken about the college admit committees. Except for the IVYs which have a long history with them. If you go to (eg) U C Berkeley, they could not care less if you went to Exeter or Needham high – as long as you took the hardest classes and have good grades, etc.</p>
<p>Benley, Again I think that you are wrong. If you move out of the NE, your perception is wrong. IF you (eg) move to Chicago: Northside College Prep, Payton College Prep, New Trier, Young Magnet, Hindale Central, Stevenson, Glenbrook, Deerfield are public schools with placement equal to any of the NE private schools - and probably harder to get into.</p>
<p>There are good reasons to go to a private school. Some kids may be challenged more than a public, some kids may do better in smaller classes, etc. But not all.</p>
<p>That is equal to the question “do you get a better education at an IVY than the honors program of a State Univ.”? The IVY may have the person who “did” the work, but usually they are poor teachers (mine said “I wrote the book, read it”) but are great to discuss the “why”. State schools usually have great teachers.</p>
<p>By the same token. Most private school teachers could not get jobs in the public sector as they don’t have “teaching credentials”. But they usually have advanced degrees in the subject and are interested in teaching. And just like public schools, you may get a Coach teaching a subject that he is terrible at.</p>
<p>OK. We were arguing which public school(s) you are talking about - the affluent school district for Hollywood stars/millionaires, your average suburban public schools, the magnet schools or inner city schools; what private/boarding schools are you comparing with - the ones tested by time and known for their high quality education, the ones most people have little knowlege about, or the ones for kids with “special needs”, etc. Then we moved on arguing which kid we are talking about - one needs a marching band or not… Now we can argue what is “better” really? No wonder we can’t agree on anything. It seems that for many people on this forum nothing but the absolute truths that can apply anywhere to anyone can satisfy them. Or, we can make meaningless statements such as A is good for people who like A; B is good for people who like B; C is just as good as A and B; A is not better than B but not worse than B either. It all depends… </p>
<p>So let’s see if we can agree on this: there is nothing to discuss really. Anything and everything can be anything. Isn’t this the beauty of this forum? Everyone is just trying to justify and validate their own choices/decisions. The world is perfectly chaotic. ;)</p>
<p>"Or, we can make meaningless statements such as A is good for people who like A; B is good for people who like B; C is just as good as A and B; A is not better than B but not worse than B either. It all depends… "</p>
<p>Meaningless? Those statements are the only ones worth making. And that’s because your child is not a generalization. So using gross generalizations to classify which schools are “best” for a large population of students…now THAT’S meaningless.</p>
<p>There are kids who are far better served by their local public school than a boarding school. For that kid, a boarding school at any tier is not better. For college admissions or any other purpose. Some other kid can discover some greater gift within by attending a boarding school. And maybe not one of the ones people here regard as “first tier.” Maybe that second kid thrives better at McMurphy Friends School. That’s what matters. Discussions about which schools cater to some mythical amalgam of student characteristics that few, if any, individual students actually mirror in real life are, at best, just lots of parental mental masturbation. Maybe it’s interesting to ponder such things, but those discussions are meaningless. And they perpetuate the foolish notion (widely accepted here) that there’s a uniform standard of “best” that applies to all students. </p>
<p>Informed opinions about which types of kids do better at which specific school (or group of schools) is where value is added and that’s the information parents of prospective applicants to BS should be seeking out here.</p>