<p>D’er
I could not agree more. Each child is different and each school - public or private is different. For each their best </p>
<p>What has always “gotten me” on this forum is how a first tier school is so much better than any other and that is the only way to get
your kid in an Ivy (not even discussing the question of whether Harvard is better than Berkeley or U Penn, etc).</p>
<p>
You are making that up. No one said that - you know that. P’Dad, you are - well, I don’t know how to describe you - maybe the word “random”?</p>
<p>Benley
Sorry, but even you do the “its Exeter” and
</p>
<p>But then, you come back with opposite thoughts and that it is best fit.</p>
<p>Reading all of the posts on this forum for past few years give me the correct “random” thought that many (not all, eg D’er) feel that the first tier walks on water.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of historical data, P’Dad that backs you up. I was at the library last night thumbing thru the stacks with the prep school books. I came across a book from 1985 that cites “you have to attend one of 16 schools (starting with Andover and ending with Kent)” if you want to get into an ivy college, and if you don’t, don’t bother.</p>
<p>That “myth” or assertion will die hard becaue it’s been around for a long time. Nothing in the book about “fit” or that a smart kid will do well wherever s/he goes including Public.</p>
<p>Old ways of thinking die hard.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That opinion was absolutely wrong in 1985, too.</p>
<p>P’Dad,
Any post or part of a post one may quote had a context of its own. What you need to identify is the “theme” of a thread or the main point of a poster. There’s hardly anyone in the parents section at least that even implies that a top tier school is the only way to an ivy. As a matter of fact, the theme of this thread and many others is that most posters are questioning whether going to a top tier school really gains any meaningful advantage in college admission (especially to the highly competitive ones). It was then of course distracted by one or two posters who believed consideration of college admission shouldn’t have any place at all in the BS experience, who shouldn’t come to this thread in the first place because well the title just says it all.</p>
<p>While I don’t think it’ll become a reality any time soon, I hope more people can really question their own choices/decisions instead trying to confirming/validating them at all cost. Most anything, no matter how good it is, has its downside and drawbacks. Identifying possible issues/traps that come with our own choice and working to resolve them is more meaningful than just justifying it is a perfect choice. Just my 2c.</p>
<p>I’ll throw this out here, since this thread seems prone to diversions and detours and I happen to think it’s fine that it does:</p>
<p>Has anyone given thought to the idea of “fit” or “match” in terms of college guidance? Just loading up on Ivy Leagues and top LACs doesn’t mean that the college placement/guidance office is doing a good job. Maybe, at schools with remarkably high Ivy admits, there’s undue pressure on top students to apply to the Ivies or other well-known colleges as opposed to schools that may be a good fit for them at the next level. </p>
<p>Is it far-fetched to think a high school (boarding school or non-boarding school) could have an attitude that runs: “It would terrible to see that 2320 SAT ‘wasted’ on Goucher when he’s got a real shot at Yale Early Action!” Stat-hounds, like **icy99ff<a href=“or%20whatever%20his%20handle%20was”>/B</a> would record that Yale admit as a big “+” for the school. And it’s a feather in the guidance counselor’s cap. But, possibly, by steering the kid away from Goucher – or, perhaps, not even deigning to think of Goucher being a great fit – the high school is actually guilty of committing a great disservice to a new graduate.</p>
<p>That’s the thing that strikes me as being most abhorrent about the focus on Ivy and other top-rated school matriculations as a measure of success for a high school. It all seems to place undue pressure on college guidance directed towards “acquiring” admits from a specific list of colleges identified as ideal by anonymous outsiders when it should be about letting the student and his/her record determine which colleges are ideal and would lead to future success.</p>
<p>Though it would never happen without moving mountains, I’d like to see how high schools fare in terms of getting their students in to one of the top 3 ideal “fits” that were specifically identified for each student at the start of senior year.</p>
<p>This would be much like how I’m evaluated. Before the start of the year, I set realistic goals for the year and I get bonus money if I attain those customized goals. There are other ways to measure performance, but one of them is not to have somebody at my dry cleaner decide what my goals should be and then rate my employer based on how well I met the dry cleaner’s goals for me.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The trouble is, such a system leads to “lowballing” a student’s goals. Let’s imagine a student who could get into the most selective colleges, in perhaps 33% of the time. On the other hand, move one notch down, to the extremely selective colleges, and her chances improve to 88% of the time. If your yearly bonus relies upon such statistics, will you advise the students to apply to “reach” colleges, or will you advise them to apply to safeties? </p>
<p>I think it would be very interesting to see how well each school would do, if they couldn’t count the colleges within easy commuting distance. The Boston area schools would give up Harvard, Wellesley, and MIT. Princeton Day would give up Princeton. The New York city schools couldn’t count Columbia and NYU. And so forth.</p>
<p>I thought about the low-balling thing and that assumes that there’s still no residual bias towards loading up on certain select schools. Or maybe you could add in a “level of difficulty” factor,</p>
<p>Still, given a choice between lowball schools that are on a list of colleges that would specifically fit my child AND a group of schools chosen for their low-admission rates and a few other criteria that would only relate to my child by pure chance…I’d rather have my child attend one of the lowball schools.</p>
<p>O.k so when your relatively smart (680’s SAT) child - athlete decides where to go to school what is really important? Does the BS open doors, yes it is a lot easier to get “recruited”. The eldest could have went to an Ivy as many of his friends did. His grades at BS were good, but not outstanding. It is tough to be “outstanding” when the pool you are in is very wide and also very deep. Top BS are just this, for the most part, no one gets into these schools just because of who they are, they have to be intelligent. So when you average student with a 680 is compared to the 500 in average public schools, there is a real difference in the average student. </p>
<p>My take is that there are some Unis that don’t really know how to effectively slot these middle of the road BS students. In public schools, many would have been at the top of their respective classes. So if it is IVY you seek, you child had better be better that most of the best. </p>
<p>BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, my child chose to go to a lesser well known west coast school instead. On a recent visit, I saw something that was worth much more than any IVY name. I saw a young adult that thrived on the BS experience and took the skills and talents developed at BS to make them a success in the school that they now attend. Some of his friends who had to go to Yale or Princeton etc. are missing something, he is not (some a truly miserable). He is truly happy where he is. Real and meaningful happiness is something worth more than just a name. When you see it for yourself you’ll understand it.</p>
<p>So you think that at the BS that has high ivy matriculation numbers, the school actually encourages or even presures their students to apply or matriculate to ivies? I doubt that’s true nowadays with the popularity ivies enjoy. I believe that schools like A/E, SPS, etc. have been trying hard to eudcate their students not to define their success by whether they are accepted by an ivy. Ivies can’t be this ‘attractive’ if it’s just a few BS’s that are pursuing them. Looking around you know it’s driven by a much larger mass. It doesn’t justify that the ivies are more worthy but it does make them some of the most selective colleges. “Fit” is important, but with these colleges a lot more applicants that would be great fit are turned down than with some less selective colleges. I think part of the discussion is about how competitive the boarding school students are in college admission when put in the larger pool of applicants from all background. The difference in ivy matriculation numbers between schools is hardly due to the number of students who turn down ivy offers. And I don’t think many of the top students from these schools wouldn’t even apply to an ivy or two.</p>
<p>
Timmy you make good points, but “had to”? what does that mean? and what are they missing?</p>
<p>Kids tend to happier/more content at schools choices on the West Coast for lots of reasons. Just listen to the tone of the parents on CC generally (assuming most are not on the West Coast) about the importance of reaching only certain colleges and you can see where it might lead to less content students regionally. Maybe it’s the sunshine, or the great outdoors, or the California chill attitude, but it’s just not the same focus and drive for most students out here.</p>
<p>Has anyone watched the Utah Valley College’s performance in Dancing with the Stars? Wow, the performance was fantastic! And more amazingly, the kids just looked so happy and relaxed, and felt younger than their age. It could be just that group of dancers who happened to give me that impression, and may not be an accurate representation of the student body of the whole school. I guess my point is that you can find the “chill attitude” almost anywhere, if not so frequently in prep schools, which thank god only take such a small portion of our innocent kids! :)</p>
<p>
I know of one child who attended school off Mass highway 27 who got accepted to Juilliard and was “encourage” to apply and go to Yale for at least one year instead “for the good of the school” (and her).</p>
<p>D’er
My wife and I have this argument all the time re: IVY and State school. I graduated Stanford, she honors college UCSD.
I had nobel laureates teach who stated “I wrote the book read it and come back and discuss” who admitted they were terrible teachers but were outstanding in teaching the why behind the what. For me it was a great fit as I learn more from the book and asking questions later.<br>
She had great teachers who did not “do the stuff” but taught it well. For her it was the best as she like to learn in class.</p>
<p>This is probably a little late, but re: Andover’s matriculation numbers at the Ivies + SM: the class of 2010 was at least 25 students smaller than the recent years and was only “average” after an exceptional class of 2009. Several students of the sort who would normally attend HY will attend music schools instead, as well. I believe after taking this into account, the numbers are still down, and I wish to see the Cum Laude lists to do some research first, but I don’t think this is quite as big of a deal as it seems to be. Yale matriculations are staying constant and Brown increased. Princeton had 2 years where matriculations were double their normal rates, so a decrease back to the norm would not be too surprising. Cornell went way down, apparently, and the question is whether fewer were admitted, or just fewer are attending (or both). I don’t think we can look at one year and then yell “Abandon ship!” If, on the other hand, these numbers hold for the class of '11, then it might be worth looking at. Are these the hooked, middle of the class students who are not attending Ivies? Or is it students at the top? For Yale especially, they tend to take half of their students from the top 10%, almost none from the next 10%, and then half from below, so it appears there is some sort of a gap here. Where are the changes coming from? Were the students in '10 less hooked? Is this a problem? If you’re sending your child to a prep school to improve chances at an Ivy, the number of hooked, academically average students who matriculate shouldn’t matter if your child would be unhooked as well. On the other hand, if your child is a world class musician, the question would then be “Did Andover just have fewer of these students this year? Did these students choose other schools over the Ivies? Or did the Ivies decide they didn’t want these students any more?”</p>
<p>@Princess’Dad: I respect that you are relating a comparison of your wife’s and your experiences in college, but want to make sure that your personal reflection doesn’t give anyone the wrong impression of UCSD. It’s always been very research-intensive, and today has 6 Nobel laureates (a couple are emeritus, I believe). That’s not too shabby even compared to Stanford’s 16 Nobel laureates, of whom 9 are emeritus. UCSD also has a boatload of National Academy members, ensuring that unlike your wife, plenty of UCSD students are learning things from people who did “do the stuff.”</p>
<p>@Uroogla: Very interesting observations about Andover. I looked at the matriculation list in the Phillipian and thought it looked overall, pretty great. There are stories behind every college on the list—for example, a student who chose North Carolina State over UCSD because he wanted to be closer to home.</p>
<p>It’s funny how discussions of schools and colleges on this forum seem to collapse into discussions of the same handful of institutions. </p>
<p>I think the state of the overall economy is changing everything. If a PA student from a middle-class family were facing the choice between a full ride at Vanderbilt, and mortgaging the family home to attend Princeton as a full-pay student, I’d hope she’d have the sense to choose Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>Hey Periwinkle,
I mixed it up—my post talked about UCSD and North Carolina State! :)</p>