<p>That’s why I picked MIT. Hard to get in (back then Exeter discouraged me from applying). Excruciatingly hard to get out :-)</p>
<p>I like a challenge.</p>
<p>Marsha
On the West Coast, they call Harvard “the Stanford of the East”</p>
<p>A recent article in Forbes dressed the question. Here is an excerpt from the article.</p>
<p>Do do prep schools really provide a pipeline to elite higher education? It turns out they do. In the past five years Trinity School sent 41% of its graduates to the Ivies, MIT or Stanford. On average our 20 top schools sent nearly one-third of their graduates to those 10 schools. (In contrast, less than 0.01% of all U.S. high school graduates ended up in those schools in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Education.) Plenty of prep schools that did not make our list–such as Sidwell Friends, a co-educational Quaker day school in Washington, D.C., which President Obama’s daughters attend–also have high matriculation rates, and their exclusion in no way means they are not excellent schools.</p>
<p>“Prep schools are organized to ensure elite college placement–that’s the whole idea,” says Mitchell L. Stevens, associate professor of education at Stanford University and author of Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites. Stevens worked for a year and a half at the admissions office at an elite liberal arts college, traveling to high schools mainly in the Western U.S. and the East Coast to recruit applicants. “A [big] name high school provides assurance to college admissions. It’s about the reliability of applicants.”</p>
<p>Yep,</p>
<p>And I have a bridge and some magic beans to sell.</p>
<p>Believe what you want, but if you can’t extrapolate data better than this, and consider the lack of real research that went into this, then you’ll get what you measure - which is a load of bs.</p>
<p>I believe in my personal experience. The excerpt provided above certainly rings true to what I have experienced having two sons that are currently attending top BS’s . I have spoken to admins people at 6 of the top ten Universities in the US. Nothing stated above runs contrary to what I have been told be most of the admins.</p>
<p>s.martin
The Dean of Admissions of one of those 10 schools is a close friend. You have eliminated the bias that of the total PHS, only 0.01% may well meet the admission requirements of those schools.<br>
So, do a higher % of private HS kids end up at an “elite” college - of course.
Does a similar SAT and GPA kid at PS vs PHS end up at the elites - again, of course.
Do kids with football and baseball scholarships equally come from the privates, nope - more from the publics.</p>
<p>However, few hockey players are recruited from public school. Since Boston College just won the Division 1 Hockey Championship, I thought I would post the roster. (although this may not work as I am a new Mac user and am having difficulty transitioning). Looks like a couple of players may have attended public school. Everyone else, top prep school and/or junior hockey programs.</p>
<p>bceagles.cstv.com/sports/m-hockey/mtt/bc-m-hockey-mtt.html</p>
<p>S.martin up: My experience is totally similar to yours. A bunch my friends are in top BS and their experience is similar to the one in the Forbes Excerpt.</p>
<p>Exie: Stop selling bridges and trinkets. Why do we have to believe you? What are your qualifications compared to Forbes research supported by a Stanford University Professor in the know.</p>
<p>I’m curious where this figure of .01% comes from?</p>
<p>Let’s see, according to a US govenment study, in 2007 there were approximately 2,800,000 first time freshman enrollments. [Projections</a> of Education Statistics to 2018 - Section 2. Enrollment in Degree-Granting Institutions: First-Time Freshmen Enrollment](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/projections2018/sec2d.asp#figf]Projections”>http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/projections2018/sec2d.asp#figf)</p>
<p>I can’t find the source I found on a different occasion which said that number had grown to 2,900,000 by 2009 but that shouldn’t be too hard to believe.</p>
<p>The 10 schools (8 Ivy’s + MIT + Stanford) enroll approximately 16,000-17,000 freshman each year (sorry if this isn’t exact, but it’s not going to affect our result that much).</p>
<p>If I’m doing my math at all close to correctly, doesn’t that come out to about 0.5%? (a half of 1%, not .01% or a hundredth of one percent as claimed in that article). Isn’t that an error of approximately a factor of 50!!!</p>
<p>For all of the statistics, one thing to remember:</p>
<p>correlation ^= causality</p>
<p>Just because a high percentage of students from XYZ school go onto Ivies, does not mean that XYZ school causes that to happen. It could be (and likely is) that the adcoms from the “top preps” are proficient at picking kids who are likely to be admitted to (and want to attend) Ivies.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that these schools don’t do an outstanding job of preparing students for Ivy League schools, but I think I can sum up this argument by resorting to a commercial slogan - “Better ingredients, better pizza”.</p>
<p>And while it may make the insecure feel better about themselves to be selected for these schools, remember these guys aren’t perfect at picking Ivy admissions.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>School is the cook. If the cook burns the pizza, you get a burnt pizza. :D</p>
<p>And being or among the good ingredients is a good thing isn’t it?</p>
<p>When it’s burnt, it’s all Carbon 12, all the same, no better or worse ingredients.</p>
<p>Oh no no - was not questioning your cook theory but responding to goaliedad’s pizza analogy</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Thank you! Some of us have been saying that over and over again only to have the information fall on recalcitrant ears.</p>
<p>Preps are choosing - for the most part - students who are already predisposed to be eligible. One need only look at some of the accomplishments on Andover’s incoming class profile to see they surpass the accomplishments of many adults.</p>
<p>And since, when we look at the reverse, the majority of students do NOT go to an IVY, I’m wondering why some parents and students suddenly assume that going to a boarding school will be some sort of “get into your first choice college” free card.</p>
<p>So well said!</p>
<p>LvilleDad,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Great analysis on the flawed math in the article.</p>
<p>Saw your post on another thread. I was the only M my year too. I know you chose a different path, but we would have been proud to have you.</p>
<hr>
<p>Pulsar,</p>
<p>One of my clients used data from a Cornell professor to change the parameters on a project I completed for them. Never mind I’m “retentive” and my sources included some major experts in the industry. It cost them several hundred thousand dollars to trash and redo the project after they were “outed” by - of all people - a professor at a state college. Every staff member involved in the change no longer works for the firm and my new contracts call for all changes to be approved by me before implementation. Out of curiousity, I called the Cornell professor to ask him where he’d gotten such “outlandish” research and he admitted that he was rushed, used a single source, and wasn’t paid well for the work so didn’t put a lot of time into it.</p>
<p>You don’t have to believe me, this is a debate. But I also don’t tend to make up my facts to fit a pre-determined need. Forbes needs to sell magazines. Journalists sometimes fudge because no one will die if a fact or two is stretched and they work on tight deadlines.</p>
<p>Here on the boards, most people can’t afford to toss $45,000/year at a school unless they have good factual information. Our goal is to get people to stop looking at these matrices as if they are gospel. Or listening to people whose first real life BS experience won’t occur until September.</p>
<p>Goalie and Exie:
Well said.
Thus the purpose of tossing the $45,000 is NOT to get your kid into an IVY, but to give your child something that you don’t think they can get in their local school. Be it a better education, more stimulus, away from sibs legacy…</p>
<p>Exie
Although I do appreciate your comments. My goal here is to offer information based on my first hand experience to those who seek it and let them make up there mind on how they want to use the information. I’m sure not too many folks looks to the matrices as “gospel” but rather a guide or starting point.</p>
<p>S.martin,</p>
<p>I appreciate your point of view. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who have been debating on the boards over the first couple of months (including parents) who do seem to want to take those matrices as gospel in making a choice. One parent even questioned why spend the money if it didn’t make a path towards an IVY given the child could just stay home and do the same thing.</p>
<p>So we’re playing “devils advocate” and asking those parents (and students) to read the stats at their own risk, but question the motives behind the compilation. And especially since the trends in those stats may not apply to that specific student (odds are it doesn’t).</p>
<p>Also - everything is in the eye of the beholder. Some people do feel BS is elitist and filled with “haves”. Others in the same boat see through a different lens. So your point of view is certainly valid.</p>
<p>I like the pizza analogy. It seems most of us agree that schools that have stella colege placement records choose “better ingredients”. What we disagree on is that whether the oven is better and whether the name of the pizza house sells. Some believe that ovens are the same everywhere and they invariably turn “better ingredients” into “better pizza” and it doesn’t mean the pizza house is better, while others think that for sure better pizza needs better ingredients but the pizza house matters too because the name recognition of the pizza house represents historical high quality and reliable delivery.</p>