<p>Let’s see
D1 public HS.; top 10 marching bands in US with paid trips with band to Europe (twice) and all over US; Model UN; Model Legislature; 8 APs and the rest of courses all 4 years honors; admitted Stanford</p>
<p>D2 freshman BS now soph public HS, 2APs and the rest honors. Debate club with contests DC and NY. This summer in France with French Club. HS Dance Team with National competition Orlando</p>
<p>D3 to be freshman BS.</p>
<p>Each type of school offers unique experiances that the other does not. A GOOD student will get = education at either.</p>
<p>Many of the Seniors at Exeter were turned down by all their top college choices. In their eyes, a top prep school didn’t help with getting accepted to a top college. Many are in shock.</p>
<p>hastalavista - i find your comment interesting since I have a S who is an exeter senior and he reports just the opposite. Most everyone he knows had an extremely positive outcome with their admissions this year and several were admitted to colleges they thought were real reaches for them.
I guess that each year, there are some disappointments but college counselling was VERY clear that with high reach schools there are no guarantees. Not every kid gets what he/she wants. Even if they attend Exeter.
Still, I would certainly not say that “most” of the seniors were rejected at their top choice - that is not our experience at all.</p>
<p>If hastalavista was talking about “expectation management”, he has a point there. Every year, there must be seniors in every high school who are disppointed. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more seniors disppointed with their college outcome in Exeter than in other high schools. Why? Well, it’s Exeter, not just a random high school that sends one or two kids to Harvard in 3 years. You have all the reasons to have high expectations! However, the truth of the matter is that for the past 3 years, 75%+ Exeter graduates attended a top 50 university or a top 30 LAC. It may not be that impressive considering - well, it’s Exeter, but it is certainly significantly better than many other schools including many peer BS’s.</p>
<p>Benley
Sorry but I would disagree. If you look at the "total’ student body of Exeter vs xyz PHS, you are correct - but that is apples to oranges. If you look at equivalent student body of similar SATs, the data would disagree with you. However, what the Exeters have and most PHSs do not is excellent college counselors which help the kids.</p>
<p>My nephews went to Exeter and they tell of a bright kid who appled - and was accepted early decision to Juliard and the school “encouraged” her to apply (and attend) to an IVY to keep their IVY % up; that does bother me.</p>
<p>How many athlete and legacy kids from BS to top colleges? As I know, BS has lots PG athletes and lots students has “connections” with colleges. </p>
<p>Two years, I was almost decided to attend a BS they sent 8 kids to MIT that year, but I found out 6 of them are basketball and football players (PG).</p>
<p>If you final goal of high school education is going to a top colleges, a highly ranked public school has better chance than BS (if you are not athletes, legacy…). But if your high school is not good, then think about BS.</p>
<p>I’m so glad you posted this, Princessdad. People seem to think that it’s impossible to get a good education in public school. My daughter is going to boarding school in the fall, but she did earn college credit as a rising 9th grader by taking class at a local university at the suggestion of her teacher. She plays a varsity sport, has three years of Latin under her belt, is nationally ranked in debate, etc…</p>
<p>And all that in a district under provisional accreditation. Motivated parents and students who have “top college” potential always finds a way to get what they need no matter where they spend their four years. At public school, those kids are heavily recruited. So we think it might be “easier” for my d to get into a “Harvard” if she just stayed home, took AP classes, and did an IB degree.</p>
<p>But she wants the consistency and more challenge. Not an insurance policy. Her drive and motivation is what will take her far.</p>
<p>Congrats to your children for having such a great parent behind them!</p>
<p>When I first saw this thread i was amazed. We had just made the decision on which bs to attend and people where already talking about college.</p>
<p>If your child is a 1st or 2nd year student, do you already know what their interest are, is it possible they will change over the next 2 to 3 years? </p>
<p>I guess we will look for a school environment that is similar to the bs we selected. But I have to admit, this is not a conversation that I thought I would be having before my d’s first night at bs.</p>
<p>Benley
I have had long talks with several IVY league Dean Admissions (and used to be on a college admit committee) and interview for one school. If you talk to them, they say that an A+ student with SATs of 780 at PS has same chance as BS. </p>
<p>Yes, there is a higher % of kids with high scores at Exeter than at xyz high school. They have been preselected. But same child at a public high school will do well</p>
<p>Now, if you are inner city Chicago, your education will suffer - hence move to burb or private school. Does Exeter challenge. Of course. Are all the teachers there better than all the teachers at xyz. No. Private schools do not require teaching credentials. They require a degree (often advanced) in the material. Some are great teachers, some are not.</p>
<p>I had Linus Pauling as a chemistry teacher in college. He admitted he was a terrible teacher. “read the book” and come to class to discuss. Great for me. Not for everybody.</p>
<p>AlexzMom. Your child is taking the first step of a lifetime education.</p>
<p>And you hit it on the head about Chicago Public School. I had to stay in the city because I work for the city but that is why we applied to bs and she is on her way.</p>
<p>Pauling was your teacher, the envy is running though me—I teach chem—lucky you—lol</p>
<p>Princess’Dad, you are now reaching the conclusion that unless you are in a poor inner city school, it doesn’t make any difference going to a private school, a suburban public high school or an elite boarding school, both in terms of quality of education (teachers, extracurricular oppotunities, etc.) and college prospect. </p>
<p>To me, only a few public schools and some private day schools can rival the the quality of education a top BS can deliver. You may not gain any advantage in admission to the most selective colleges by attending an elite BS but you won’t necessarily suffer from it either, so if an opportunity of an elite BS becomes available and my child is mature enough to handle it, I’d jump on it. That’s my conclusion.</p>
<p>I do think that a good public school is a better choice for a kid who does want to study and explore, but does not want to be extremely competitive/stressed out for 1-4 years in BS.</p>
<p>My older daughter graduated from a good public school (good, but probably not the best one) in Bay area. Her high school life was interesting, very easy going and I would say “smooth”. She never did her HW after 8pm, she attended grad. courses and seminars in UC Berkeley (just for fun, no transcripts or letters of recommendations) This year she is graduating from Princeton having a job offer from Goldman’s research division, and being accepted into PhD program in Columbia.</p>
<p>My second daughter is graduating from Andover this year. She decided to attend a boarding school after we moved from Bay Area to Phoenix, and she just did not like her school here. Now she is accepted to every Ivy school, and finally choosing between Harvard, Stanford and Princeton. She said that she does not want to go to Harvard exactly because her BS experience. She thinks that she will have better life in Stanford. Maybe she is wrong, but we are going to let her made her own decision again. Would she be accepted into good colleges if she attends a public school? I believe so (she was a USAMO qualifier before entering a BS). Would she be happier if she attends a good public school? I believe so.</p>
<p>All kids (and parents) are different, but I think that a good local public school (and you, parents, nearby) might be at least as good as a prestigious, competitive and structured boarding school.</p>
<p>that story is very helpful and insightful (sorry for posting in a parents section) but I have been going back and forth about attending a BS and I have to admit that one factor I have been considering is how much/ if at all it a BS could help a college’s opinion on me…but then again, like mentioned above, I have a pretty good public school that has been known to send a nice amount of its students to really great colleges…anyway, this thread is very helpful…sorry for rambling = /</p>
<p>I also think that BS prepares a student for college in many intangible ways that college admissions officers take into account. For example, a BS student has already lived away from home, learned time management, can handle an exhaustive course schedule, does his/her own laundry (ok, well, maybe not), and had passed the “I am leaving mom and dad” stage. This all tends to help ensure a successful college career. In many ways, the BS kids are known quantities. These are all intangibles that most PS or homeschooled kids just don’t have.</p>
<p>mashaa, I am sorry that your second daughter couldn’t find a good public school. It happens to many boarding school families. I am sorry that you didn’t find any added value of an Andover education compared with a good public school. It must be tough to see her fly from coast to coast and suffer through the 4 years stressed and unhappy knowing that she could get the same quality of education and the same college if there was a decent public school around. I don’t know if your daughter feels the same - if so that’s just very sad. While I appreciate your point of view, when reading your post I can’t help thinking what a waste of the school’s resources for Andover to invest in a family that doesn’t appreciate its value. I am sure this happens a lot in a lot of schools, when boarding school is something a family had to settle with because there was no other viable options.</p>
<p>As you said, all kids and parents are different. My son was a top student in our good public school. He was top by just being smart not by working hard. I could see him get into a decent college if he stayed although I don’t think he would “coast” to a Princeton like you older daughter did, but he decided that it was not good enough for him. Now that he is in a top BS, he has to work hard sometimes really hard to get the credits he would still get by being smart had he stayed in his good public school. Was he stressed? Yes often times. Unhappy? Yes sometimes. However, he knows and we know that he needs to go through it sooner or later. If not now, he would in a Princeton or a Harvard if he was lucky enough to get in one. A good public school in general doesn’t prepare kids well enough for them to handle a rigorous college education. And I don’t believe in shortcuts. Unless one is a rare prodigy, he will be challenged/stretched at some point. Was boarding school a last resort to us as it was to you? No. We were hesitating between a great day school and the BS as we were not sure if BS was too drastic a change for him, but never looked back at his good public school. If we were presented options of a good public school and an Andover again, we would choose the Andover in a heartbeat.</p>
<p>The best way for parents to think of this is that boarding school is like going to college a bit early. The right schools will have a wider compliment of choices for a student who is already “primed” and attractive to a college. It will enhance skills they already have. It will NOT make a stellar college bound student out of someone who is not already on track. It will not teach time management to someone who doesn’t already have it. Or make them mature if they aren’t already. </p>
<p>And that’s the fallacy. </p>
<p>As a college interviewer I can tell you that I’ve seen some amazing students come out of public school - both rural and urban - and some amazingly horrible candidates come out of boarding school. And vice versa. More often than not - the latter are people who were expecting BS to give them an edge, or a guarantee. They don’t come at their education in the right way and it shows in the interview.</p>
<p>My favorite story was interviewing at Exeter years ago - which was one of my assigned territories for MIT. Several students didn’t have any clues about why they wanted to go to MIT and provided little for me to work with on my report. It was as if they were saying “Duh - I go to Exeter. It should be automatic.” My last student was an hour late but since I love the library, I pulled a book out and read while waiting for my husband to finish his self-guided tour of the town. Just as I was about to leave, the student ran up, out of breath and said “Sorry to be so late. I forgot I had a squash match.” Intrigued I asked about whether it was Varsity and what school he played against. Turned out he doesn’t play on a team, it was just a “for fun” game with his roommate. He asked if he could still interview and I said “yes.” But I did write up the incident on the report and you can pretty much guess the outcome.</p>
<p>So what we are all trying to say is a good candidate will be a good candidate no matter where they go. BS is ONLY an edge if the candidate already had all the other assets going for them (personality, drive, passion, maturity, curiosity, self management, ability to work with others, etc.) That is born out by the fact that colleges turn down a lot of BS applicants who know how to do the academic work, manage a dorm experience, etc. Those assets don’t trump other intangibles like fit, ability to overcome an obstacle (which is easier to do if it isn’t all handed to you in a neat package), etc. We also recognize that certification requirements are stronger for PS teachers than BS teachers. and a lot of AP courses aren’t impressive if that’s all the student has. We look at “whole” person, not just scores, courses and grades. And frankly, I don’t care where they went - I care what they did while they were there. Which is why a significant portion of MIT’s incoming Freshman are from public school or day private schools. They do just as well as their BS counterparts - sometimes better.</p>
<p>Go to BS because it offers a challenge or a level of academic and EC enhancement that fits your child’s needs. Don’t go if you’re looking for college guarantees. Because you may be disappointed.</p>
<p>The kids I see that get into MIT - would have gotten there from anywhere.</p>