My experience is with Milton, I don’t know anything about Groton!
As one aspect to consider, Groton certainly offers one of the finer college matriculation lists in the nation:
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Am I correct in thinking they send almost 25% of their class to the Ivy League, let alone “very selective colleges”?
Based on the figures, it can be inferred that Groton has sent 19 graduates, on average, to the Ivies annually over the previous five years.
That is correct. I saw somewhere that 30% of Groton graduates went to Ivies+Stanford+MIT these 10 schools
Gahhhh. I am killing myself over school choices. I wish I knew for sure Groton wasn’t going to bury him.
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Groton did a better job with covid than Milton. Hands down and by miles. The Groton administration is top notch and the Milton administration is not. Complaints about the Milton administration abound the academic groups I’m familiar with.
I wouldn’t worry about getting covid at school - even with a roommate.
The workload is high at both. If you are super worried about too much work neither school is appropriate for you. But. If you aren’t doing outside of school activities it is manageable. I have come to see, after two kids at top schools, that outside activities are what sink you. I don’t think my kids would be stressed beyond the “normal” for highschool without that extra time commitment.
You will get an excellent education at both schools.
Groton’s 3/4 walls are special and make it more family style almost. I don’t know any kids at the school that really dislike it and it’s only for 9th grade.
Ask to speak to students at each - and take your time. You have until April. Use it.
Groton is hard (harder than college, indeed), but you don’t have to be stressed out. Wherever you go to school, you choose how well you manage your time and whether to get worked up over disappointing grades and difficult assignments. I would choose Groton again ten times over. It’s 85% boarding, and most day students stay until evening (or until nighttime check-in), so it feels very residential (and it’s in cow country, which adds to the feel). I’m happy to answer any other questions here or over private message.
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How are you getting 30% to Ivies, that would mean about 30 kids per year. That’s highly doubtful. Groton is amazing. But I think sometimes people lump in a whole handful of schools into the Ivy league equivalent group and that expands the pool ( and invalidates the %).
Groton will send its top-tier to top schools. So will most BS’s. No one in particular has a lock on Ivy acceptances. It’s NOT a pipeline and hasn’t been for many decades. And things are changing FAST. More holistic admissions and more kids applying from everywhere. More competition and no schools have a pipeline to any other school. Remember many of the kids going off to Ivies have hooks, are URM, first Gen, Athletes and all the rest. So your kids graduation from any school doesn’t mean he/she is going too. Your kid has to excel to get into top colleges.
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What is the source and year? Also, do you see the Harvard, Yale, Princeton? It’s likely a huge number of legacies.
In any case, a swing of just a handful of kids from H to Caltech for example and the % shifts wildly. You also have a recent thing where kids at BS are also attending Oxford and London School of Economics and Cambridge. Another shift.
Bottom line: Groton is an amazing school. And every kid is different. Thinking your kid is going to be in the top 10% at Groton, IMO, is folly. No one ever thinks their kids will be lowest 50%, yet there they are, every year.
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Groton publishes matriculations in their quarterly publication (Fall) available to all on their website. 26% of the 20 class went to the Ivy’s (no Cornell)
That’s not including Stanford. A whole bunch more went to UChicago, but actually no MIT’s in that class.
It definitely changes by year, but if you want to do the digging, it is published.
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That’s great. Not the way I’d weigh a quality education but great.
@Happytimes2001 [quote=“Happytimes2001, post:33, topic:3510007, full:true”]
That’s great. Not the way I’d weigh a quality education but great.
[/quote]
Not sure if you’re be condescending towards me, but I just published the figures bc they were in question and I knew where to look.
I agree with you, though. My DC is getting a quality education, but surely won’t be going to one of those schools!
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Yeah, Cornell and MIT are not listed “5+” colleges where students have matriculated. So the total (Ivies+MIT+Stanford) is truely around 30%.
Not condescending at all. We started out with a similar mindset. We thought, wow, BS will be great for kiddo who can go to an Ivy league. Then we dug deeper and realized that BS’s offered so much more and that kiddo could go anywhere s/he wanted.
My kiddo is now nearing the end of the track and the focus isn’t on the Ivy league. Kid can and may apply to some Ivies, but fit is paramount. Does the college have the things on the list?
I think many parents think they are going to exchange BS tuition and create a path for college acceptances. I have seen it doesn’t work that way. Good fits means kids thrive and make their own paths.
Obsession with the Ivy league is a national pastime. In my household, I get teased a lot for my Ivy degrees. Yep, I have three. Honestly, I could not have gotten into Caltech tech though and that’s NEVER on the list.
Data has to be complete and fully show the result or it’s invalid. When you show a data set of top schools and don’t show other factors, IMO, it has little bearing.
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What is the data source?
I will assume we are done parsing and debating matriculation data on the 8 millionth thread. OP now knows that they can add that as a point to consider.
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Love Groton, and one has to be comfortable that it is quite a small school compared to its peers.
Some will say you meet more people, at least intimately (not that kind of intimate!), at a small school, others say a small cohort is confining after 4-5 years.
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this is all very good information
I just want to say that my goal for boarding school is not to get into the best college afterwards, I don’t obsess over Ivy Leagues and can be happy in even a less known place, so there’s that.
I also wanted to give a bit more about what i am looking for in a boarding school experience. Yes, I want to be academically engaged but that’s not all that I want. It would be sad if I spend more time in books and competing rather than exploring and connecting with new friends and the new environment.
It looks like there is a lot more widespread support for Groton despite its stressful-environment reputation, very interesting to see…