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<p>Are you talking about yourself as an exception or the rule? For each one like you that succeed, how many do you know that didn’t with similar background to yours? Are you suggesting that Affirmative Action is wrong? 
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<p>Looks like wcmom1958 beat me to the post, lol.</p>
<p>That’s a single example. That’s why I worry that you’ve labeled the system. Legacies don’t have the pull they had in the past (Exeter turned down a lot of them this year), and a friend of mine, a 9x legacy at a different HADES school still had no pull for a student (with good stats) she recommended despite having a family with a long history of donations.</p>
<p>What I fear is that you only see the surface issue. Yes - I went to Exeter and tried to tell the poor tour guide that I was an alum and my daughter had done a summer there and she still couldn’t shut off the “Stepford” student script. That concerned me a lot - it was so robotic and linear. But that’s one example - other parents on this thread had completely different experiences - including several whose children fit my “original” profile or are in circumstances even more difficult. Many of whom got IN with FA.</p>
<p>Is the system stacked against urban youth? A little, but no more than a rural kid, or a midwestern kid. </p>
<p>For every “legacy, rich, spoiled” tour guide you met, there are ten - perhaps one hundred - kids admitted that aren’t like that at all. I know - I’ve met them. My daughter was aghast when I hid my Exeter pedigree and quizzed kids (of all colors) at every interview visit about why the chose such and such school and what their backgrounds were. I think you would be pleasantly surprised.</p>
<p>And at one HADES school the Adcom admitted they can spot the kids that were coached, prepped, and “tested to perfection” which is why you can read these threads and see so many kids with those stats still getting turned down or waitlisted. it’s why you can still see schools that claim stats in the 90’s taking someone in the 60’s and 70’s. Because Adcoms look past that.</p>
<p>So yes - if you’re never aware of boarding school, obviously you aren’t going to apply. And if you’re stuck in a bad educational system and you or an adult did nothing to get supplemental material - you won’t get in.</p>
<p>But I sense you feel defeated before you started. I did the tours too and it can be a culture shock even though I’m a BS alum.</p>
<p>Still - give Adcom’s some credit. A greater percentage of the kids you describe (FA, inner city) get in relative to the ones who are privilege. Trust me - a lot of difficult phone calls are made in the days before the official letters are mailed.</p>
<p>As a single parent, I think that BS is a huge advantage for college (and life!) for my D. It offers my daughter opportunites and resources that are very difficult for me to provide (due to time constraints - i.e volleyball practice is a 40 min drive from voice lessons which is another 30 min away from her drawing class). There is no way that her PS teachers would ever spend the extra amount of time interacting with my D that she will experience at BS. There is a lot of extra informal learning that takes place at sit-down dinnners, chapel talks and feeds at BS that enrich the experience way beyond the public school norm. </p>
<p>Additionally, the support and guidance boarding schools will provide as she goes through the college application process is top notch compared to what Public School (or I) could ever do - even though her local HS is rated #53 in the country, there are alomst 4,000 kids there. No way could she get the individualized attention bs can provide. I know that BS will advocate for her in a way that Public HS never would. Also, BS often identifies universities for children that aren’t even on public school counselors radar (how often do SPS students attend Deep Springs compared to your local HS?)</p>
<p>Mind you, certain children are fine with public school - and if the school thinks you are a golden child, then certainly you will get lots of attention and advocacy. However, it’s totally obvious to me that our local HS would never spend a minute on her. As a single mom, I think BS will definitely provide a huge leg up for my D’s college experience.</p>
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<p>No - I’m saying there are a lot more kids like that at BS than a simple tour would reveal. A LOT more. So saying the system is stacked - at a time when those kids are desired - might be a bit off.</p>
<p>Still - it feels that way to people who are in the middle of it. You just have to remember - 10 kids for every spot means a lot of people get turned away.</p>
<p>And sometimes saying FA is the reason for someone being turned down is a polite excuse to save wear and tear on an Adcom.</p>
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<p>Yes - because your child already has all the raw material in place. BS will enhance her, not completely remake her.</p>
<p>Well that does make me (and I’m sure others :)) feel better, Exie. And I also hope that, as endowments struggle, this trend doesn’t change. As I said, I went into it optimistic, and still feel like we came out on the winning end, but it was alarming how quickly my old stereotype was re-visited.</p>
<p>I’d like to circle around to the OP. Should one keep a child at a boarding school, although he’s miserable, in the hopes of a better college outcome? For me, no. If there’s an acceptable local option, there isn’t a guaranteed payoff from boarding school. Admissions Officers admit the student, not the school. As ExieMIT pointed out, it is easier for a public school student, or a student at a local day school, to demonstrate passion for an outside interest. </p>
<p>Having said that, I do believe that my child’s boarding school experience will lead to a better college experience. As a family, we aren’t obsessed with big name colleges. We do value education. We also have the annoying habit of liking challenging academic work. It is worth a great deal to me to hear my child declare, “I love school,” and to hear how interesting today’s class discussion was.</p>
<p>I also value prep schools’ academic focus. (Prep school = a school offering a college prep curriculum.) Our local schools believe that stress is bad, and try to encourage students to take courses under their abilities. For my kids, more challenging academic courses are less stressful because they’re more interesting.</p>
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<p>Me too - and I lived it. :-)</p>
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I do believe that my child’s boarding school experience will lead to a better college experience. As a family, we aren’t obsessed with big name colleges. We do value education.[/quote}</p>
<p>Us too. So now we tell people that our child is not running away from something - she’s running TO something. I tell that to people who apply to BS and college - you go for the education and the enriching experience, not because you want a job guarantee.</p>
<p>Exie
with similar experiance in college and now medical adcoms, I agree with you
One trend I pick up here is “reasons why sending my child to boarding school is ok”. </p>
<p>There are other reasons why a public education may be best:
how many PHS have marching bands, let alone those that travel the US to compete? How many have cheerleader or dance teams that compete nationally?
How many have quarterbacks that are recruited nationally?</p>
<p>Some kids will do best at either. But there I’d no data either written nor from “word of mouth” that they have higher chance of getting into top schools if apples are compared to apples. One of the few things that I have seen documented favoring PS is the counselors and their knowledge of which college a child may best fit at and the time to work with that child to get him/ her there</p>
<p>Exie and Pricess’Dad, you are the “insiders”. Could you feed me one piece of information? What percentage of the students in the Ivies you are familiar with are accepted from private high schools? It could be vary from year to year, but I would imagine it shouldn’t vary hugely. I think I read it somewhere but can’t find it now. Not trying to reach any conclusion by it - way too complicated an “argument” - just looking for that piece of info.</p>
<p>My recollection is 55-60% from public schools and 40-45% from private schools (incl private, parochial, BS). Of course, there are way more public schools than private.</p>
<p>That sounds about right. They don’t publish that data do they? Thanks</p>
<p>Maybe this will help:
Statistics for class of 2013 (admitted last year) from college’s websites:</p>
<p>**MIT **
Public school 70%
Private school 15%
Religious school 7%
Foreign school 6%
Home schooled 1%
High Schools represented 856</p>
<p>Cornell
Public School 66%
Private school 17%
Other (charter, homeschooled, etc.) 17%</p>
<p>Yale
Public school 57%
Private, parochial, independent 43% </p>
<p>Princeton
Public School 59.3%
Independent Day 17.9%
Boarding schools 10.0%
Parochial 12.1%
Homeschooled 0.4%
Military 0.3%</p>
<p>Harvard doesn’t publish its stats by school but only 17% come from NE if that has any significance.</p>
<p>Looking at it another way, thevdean at Stanford said they could fill the freshmen class 4 - 5 times over with 4.0, aced SATs and top of class with hard coursework. They are looking for “more” and it does not matter where that child comes from</p>
<p>PS periwinkle</p>
<p>I agree with you. Unfortunately the same “destress” mentality is happening in colleges and medical schools (and I would bet other grad schools)</p>
<p>At one of the HADES, we were told if a child is tired during the day, they can go to nurses office and take a nap and miss class.</p>
<p>Thanks Exie. MIT doesn’t surprise me but Cornell does a bit. What about UPenn, Columbia, Dartmouth and Brown?</p>
<p>I’m not sure why some forms of “de-stressing” are unfortunate in a boarding school context. I don’t know if it’s the school Princess’Dad was referencing, but Andover does, in fact, have a sleeping room in the infirmary (it’s quite a bit more than a “nurse’s office”). There are limits on its use (e.g. it cannot be used to miss a test), but the idea is that a student that is exhausted can sign in and sleep. One of the reasons that is necessary is that Andover students are driven and not encouraged to take easy course loads, so there will be times when some push themselves excessively. I know my daughter, who has never been known to take an easier course if a more challenging one was available, made use of it a couple of times in her two years. A little stress can be a motivator and a good thing. However, if it reaches the point of threatening a child’s health, then permitting the student to take a short step back and recharge his/her batteries is a good thing. These are 14-18 year old adolescents, not first year medical residents.</p>
<p>Padre,
You are correct. They are 14 18 year olds. Is that stress good for them?
When my oldest at PHS, all APs her last two years and less sleep than me</p>
<p>What Cornell surprises me is that it not only accepted a higher percentage of public school students but also excluding charter schools from the public school category. In general, when not broken down, public schools include magnet and charter while private schools include parochial. According to the data from Dep of Education:
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<p>Speaking of Stanford, three out of five that applied from my local school were admitted. All three were legacies. That may be part of the “more” they are looking for.</p>
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<p>Unlikely - although I know it looks that way.</p>
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<p>I’m not. I think it makes more sense. In my state, Charters operate with less oversight than public schools. The state legislature wanted them to be able to innovate. So far the innovation at one of the best performing schools, is to take all students who apply - as required by law - then kick out the ones they like for bogus reasons after September or October depending on what day the state determines attendance (for purposes of paying the per/student allocation).</p>
<p>So charter’s actually sometimes operate more like private schools (independent board, no oversight on hiring teaching staff, different curriculums) then public schools. Unfortunately, in my city, the charter school performance (the one above excepted) are worse than the schools the parents fled from. Jokes on us, huh (sigh).</p>