<p>keylyme, what are the top LACs your other son got into?</p>
<p>Mdmom-except for prepschool12 I don’t think anyone is criticizing any BS, just the factors affecting college admissions today (volume of apps, development admissions, parents influence etc). These type of factors may explain much of prepschool12’s frustration and help her/him better understand the situation.</p>
<p>Something off-topic: I have respect for the parents whose kids have graduated from BS and who come back and talk about their kids’ school and/or BS in general to the incoming and current students/families. Not many would bother. As students/families new or relatively new to BS, I would appreciate their input and listen very carefully to what they have to say, especially when they present “lessons learned” or try to point out potential problems, instead of jumping right into defensive mode. Nowhere is perfect, and what’s good cannot turn bad simply because someone said it’s bad. Just my 2c.</p>
<p>My nearly perfect-SAT, multiple 5 score-AP, straight A, honors, team captain, newspaper editing, etc, full pay, legacy nephew from a public school in an under-represented rural area did not get into any of the several Ivy schools he applied to. </p>
<p>I really don’t think it’s useful to think that by staying in the public school and ace-ing things you are going to be better off. The competition is brutal. </p>
<p>Luckily he is in a state university that absolutely holds its own with the schools that turned him down.</p>
<p>What I care about for my boarding school daughter is that she is learning to write and think critically, articulate her ideas, listen hard, and is excited about what she’s learning. (And colleges will know that when they see her applications.)</p>
<p>^^ agreed. It is all about turning lemon into lemonade. :D</p>
<p>The elite colleges are aware that boarding schools have different grading scales. The applications are read by officers who are in charge of different regions of the country. If you’re in Massachusetts, or Texas, or Oregon, your application will be read by officers who travel in that area, who know the schools. Those officers will know the leading prep schools well. Thus, I don’t think that grade deflation harms applicants from prep schools. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if you aren’t a genius, nationally ranked athlete, or billionaire’s child, attending a prep school will not give you those hooks. It might work against you, in that the officers will know that you have had a better education than 95% of the other applicants. </p>
<p>Phillips Academy Andover has an average SAT score of 2079, according to boarding school review, and Exeter has an average of 2074. Consider this paragraph, from a Princeton University press release: </p>
<p>
[Princeton</a> University - Princeton makes offers to 8.39 percent of applicants in record admission cycle](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S30/15/00I77/index.xml?section=topstories]Princeton”>http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S30/15/00I77/index.xml?section=topstories)</p>
<p>For many boarding school applicants, I’d venture to say that the grade point average isn’t the problem. Colleges know the established schools, and they know that it’s harder to get a B at some schools than an A at others. I’d say the SAT is a larger stumbling block. PEA and Andover have very high average SAT scores. The application pool to many leading colleges is a very select group, with even higher SAT averages.</p>
<p>^^Agree…and I have noted that while most of my son’s bs peers have lower GPA’s they have high SAT scores; it is the opposite for my son’s public school friends. Many 3.7+ GPA’s with 17-1800 SAT scores. This is just a small sample of people (my son’s friends and acquaintances with whom he shared information), however there is not a class bias. They are all kids from middle income families who took the tests more than once and without special preparation beyond the prep course offered by the school.</p>
<p>Can we put this argument to bed. Most top colleges know there is a big difference between a B at a boarding school and an A at a public school. They look at rigor, coursework, etc.</p>
<p>My daughter is taking advanced math at boarding school where the grading is very tough. Her friends are taking the same subject at the college prep school she left and getting straight A’s. At Christmas my daughter was well ahead of her friends in terms of content. </p>
<p>We used to joke that a “D” at Exeter was like an “A” anywhere else in the country.</p>
<p>(don’t recommend a “D” but the argument that B’s knock a student out of the running drives me crazy. Even after the people who do the interviews come on and say it doesn’t.</p>
<p>People will believe what they want. But we’ve said the same thing about stats for getting into BS - it’s not the only thing an Adcom looks at. If you spend all your time chasing a grade - rather than exploring the vast variety of opportunities offered at a BS - THAT will kill your IVY dreams faster. </p>
<p>Give Adcoms some credit, please.</p>
<p>A kid with B’s was well as a passion re: diverse interests will trump a boring kid with straight A’s and perfect ACT/SAT’s every time.</p>
<p>I think the challenge is that there are of course kids with straight A’s and perfect SATs who are not boring!</p>
<p>I also get really tired of the statement that being the valedictorian of your public school is better for college admissions than being a good student at a great prep school. From my observation, that simply is not true. If you care about Ivies, our local public school has never, in the history of the school system, had a kid admitted to Yale. My kids’ boarding school sends between 5 and 8 every year.</p>
<p>As Old1 has pointed out in other threads, if those 5 to 8 Yale admits from a BS are all or almost all hooked (most likely development admits and then an athlete or two who may in addition be development admits), that 5-8 number has little relevance for the unhooked applicant applying from that BS.</p>
<p>^^^ Agree with much that has been written. My D is a senior in boarding school (non-HADES), not in the top 10% of her class, and heading to an Ivy in September. She has strong SATs, good grades, very strong ECs, and is an elected leader, but she will not be the student sweeping the awards ceremonies at graduation. Yes, if she was at home in our public school system, she would be in the very top percentile and be a star. A very big help for students applying from prep schools to colleges is that, unlike most public schools, many prep schools do NOT rank students - that really does make a difference, I believe, and help compensate for what would most likely be a big GPA disparity.</p>
<p>ExitMITAlum said it perfectly, that a passion is more appealing than bland perfection. For a student applying to a less-than-9%-admit-rate college, it is important to remember that at that point, perfect SAT scores and straight A+ grades are going to be a dime a dozen - they are not what is going to be the deciding factor on whether or not you are accepted - unless you stand out in one way or another, it is essentially a lottery system, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Honestly, some of those 5-8 kids may have those hooks, but the ones I know are just…super smart. (Is that politically incorrect?)</p>
<p>Honestly, I’m usually the first to complain about certain hooks, but I have to also say that the most talented academic students- the ones who win national awards for example- all seem to get into the “less than 8%” universities and the rest do pretty well too.</p>
<p>More famous prep schools do add a lot of prestige when applying to colleges.</p>
<p>Not in the eyes of admissions officers. They know the difference between rigor and prestige.</p>