forbes magazine has new prep school rankings

[catg]

<p>discuss! .</p>

[Burb_Parent]

<p>School rankings sell magazines, and most of the school rankings are taken by other magazines. Time does one for public high schools, and US News and World Report makes a bundle on its college rankings. What’s left? </p>

<p>Forbes does a suspect ranking of colleges with 25% of the ranking based on good reviews from ratemyprofessor. </p>

<p>My favorite ranking remains the Bunkell.</p>

[catg]

<p>I agree with the Bunkell being the best, only problem is it’s for paid subscribers only.</p>

[Periwinkle]

<p>The 2010 rankings: </p>

<p>[America’s</a> Best Prep Schools - Forbes.com](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/29/best-prep-schools-2010-opinions-private-education_land.html]America’s”>America's Best Prep Schools)</p>

<p>Forbes also offers a slideshow of the schools. By my count, only 7 of the 20 are boarding schools. It’s a good list of leading prep schools. </p>

<p>The other articles Forbes chose to publish on prep schools are worth reading, for any parent considering such schools.</p>

<p>[What</a> Parents Need To Know About Boarding Schools - Forbes.com](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/29/boarding-school-parents-advice-opinions-hillman.html]What”>What Parents Need To Know About Boarding Schools)</p>

<p>[Pomp</a> And Circumstance - Forbes.com](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/29/kids-pressure-privilege-opinions-wade-rouse.html]Pomp”>Pomp And Circumstance)</p>

<p>[The</a> Size 4 Mary Janes Are for Me, OK? - Forbes.com](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/29/prep-school-mommy-handler-opinions-wade-rouse.html]The”>The Size 4 Mary Janes Are for Me, OK?)</p>

[pulsar]

<p>Looks like HADES are not the top 5 according to Forbes.</p>

[Gabiiwoz]

<p>schools that are on their that most talk about on CC are Andover, Exeter, St. Pauls, Lawrenceville, Groton, Deerfield, and Milton…
HADES is still pretty accurate except for Hotchkiss…</p>

[Periwinkle]

<p>Andover’s #3. Exeter’s #6. Forbes’ methodology:</p>

<p>

Half of the ranking was weighed equally between student/faculty ratio, percentage of faculty that possess advanced degrees and size of the school’s endowment. The other half was based on percentage of graduates, over the last five years, that matriculated into 10 top colleges: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania and Yale University. This list, while arbitrary, reflects the fact that many parents send their kids to prep school specifically so they can get into the most prestigious universities.

</p>

[nynyparent]

<p>Like most rankings, one can question the methodology, but interesting fodder for discussion. The top NYC private schools really dominated, taking 3 of the top 4 spots, and 7 of the top 13. I think this may in part be a function of the weighting given to the percentage of the graduating class going to Ivy League schools plus Stanford and MIT. That serves (1) to introduce an east coast bias and (2) to give an advantage to schools with smaller enrollment where it’s easier to have a higher percentage. E.g., Collegiate and Brearley have graduating classes of around 50, meaning that if they place 20 students in these 10 schools, they have hit the 40% mark.</p>

[Benley]

<p>

to give an advantage to schools with smaller enrollment where it’s easier to have a higher percentage. E.g., Collegiate and Brearley have graduating classes of around 50, meaning that if they place 20 students in these 10 schools, they have hit the 40% mark.

True and true.</p>

[Benley]

<p>Periwinkle, those are great articles. Thank you</p>

[luckyduckyme]

<p>Gabiiwoz: </p>

<p>I might be slightly biased, but I wouldn’t say that Hotchkiss isn’t a true “HADES” school… (I’m not only talking about the schools represented in the acronym, but also the top tier BSs in general that can usually be described as being part of the HADES group even if their initial is not represented in the acronym.)</p>

<p>It may not have placed in the top 20 according to Forbes this year, but with about 18-25% of its grads matriculating to the Ivys+Stanford+MIT in the last few years, it wasn’t far behind Deerfield which placed 20th and had had 23% of its grads matriculate to the Ivys+Stanford+MIT.</p>

<p>In other words, if Forbes had composed a top 25 prep schools list, or a top 30 prep schools list or a top 50 prep schools list…etc. Hotchkiss would’ve been on it. ;)</p>

[Lvillegrad]

<p>I’ve always had a problem with choosing those 10 colleges (which is what PrepReview does). There are certainly other colleges and universities that are now stronger than the “lower” Ivies. On the other hand, I doubt there would be significant changes to their rankings if they modified the college list somewhat. </p>

<p>We’ve discussed in this forum on several occasions the matriculation differences between the day schools and the boarding schools and never reached a solid conclusion on what causes the differential. I do believe that graduating class size contributes to that effect, but am not sure if that’s the whole story.</p>

<p>The breakdown of the top 20 was:</p>

<p>Boarding schools: 7
NYC day schools: 7
Boston day schools: 3
Miscellaneous day schools: 3 (LA, Oakland, New Haven)</p>

<p>I was somewhat surprised by there not being any DC area day schools. Both National Cathedral School and St. Alban’s have very strong statistics though they don’t explicitly release them (the stats shown on my website involve some inferential work on my part which Forbes might have been unwilling to do).</p>

[boardingschool]

<p>Why did they include MIT Stanford but not Caltech, Duke, JH? These schools are ranked equal to, or sometimes higher than some IVYs. Also, many kids from the west coast would choose Caltech, Berkeley over IVYs. This may cause the unbalance in terms of location of schools included in the list (plus poor Hotchkiss is left out).</p>

[Benley]

<p>Based on selectivity and prep school audience dominant preference more than anything else. Caltech is comparable to MIT but tiny</p>

[Parlabane]

<p>I wonder if the reason that the top 20 schools place so many kids in the Ivies has as much to do with large gifts and donations as actual merit.</p>

[rebelangel]

<p>No question that these schools educate tons of very bright, Ivy-qualified kids. Still, when I read the list, I also noticed that these schools/locations are bastions of wealth and connections. I don’t begrudge anyone the spoils of being in the green and/or being well connected, but I agree with Parlabane that their placement in the top 20 has a strong odor of means and privilege.</p>

[pulsar]

<p>I previously said on these forums that feeder schools do exist. Some on these boards said no. Now Forbes says yes!</p>

<p>Looks like Hotchkiss and Choate should be on this Top 20 list instead of Horace Mann and Nobles.</p>

<p>Here is a quote from one of the Forbes readers:</p>

<p>

Posted by morganhil | 05/01/10 05:57 PM EDT
This list is sheer nonsense, a classic example of the dying gasps of eastern establishment elitism. Other private schools which have higher SAT average scores and higher AP scores (such as Harker School in San Jose, CA) are not even mentioned. In addition, choosing Ivy plus MIT/Stanford as the top ten colleges/universities in the US ignores actual rankings of college selectivity, omitting non-Eastern schools such as CalTech, Ponoma, Claremont McKenna, and Washington and Lee, which have lower admit rates than some of the Ivies listed. In addition, highly selective eastern liberal arts colleges which are just as selective as the Ivies–Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Middlebury, and Bowdoin, were also excluded. This is sloppy, misleading, lazy jorunalism, folks. Don’t fall for it!

</p>

[FBItomboy007]

<p>These rankings always frustrate me, as they seem to give preference to certain types of schools as well as specific geographic areas. There are a plethora of high-caliber private schools near me, and I am surprised that not one was good enough to make the cut. For example, my school sent at least one person to every Ivy League School last year and is definitely above 25% for top 10 matriculations, but fails to make the list. This is not to take anything away from the schools that were ranked, but instead to show that there are similar-quality schools which were not.</p>

[Gabiiwoz]

<p>lucky, i thought hotchkiss should of been in that list actually! as well as middlesex, st georges, concord, blair, peddie, and others i cant think of off the top of my head. I havent even heard of half of these schools…</p>

[limabeans]

<p>Another article about the rankings:

[americas-best-prep-schools:</a> Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/109427/americas-best-prep-schools]americas-best-prep-schools:”>http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/109427/americas-best-prep-schools)

I thought the article very interesting, aside from the ranking, about how much these schools are totally geared to get kids into ivy/MIT/Stanford.</p>

<p>

In order to rank the 20 best prep schools, we started by creating a candidate list of 55 top private educational institutions. We then collected a series of statistics about each school and used them to create the ranking. Half of the ranking was weighed equally between student/faculty ratio, percentage of faculty that possess advanced degrees and size of the school’s endowment. The other half was based on percentage of graduates, over the last five years, that matriculated into 10 top colleges

</p>