Happiness, growth and enjoyment are all noble but subjective concepts while college matriculation stats and alum achievement are concrete and comparable data. While schools heavily rely on SSAT and grades as criteria to select applicants, it is only reasonable for applicants to assess schools by also looking at how well their graduates do.
Since campus revisit is no longer available due to the shutdown, it is not clear how to feel the “fit” online.
@DeeCho Then your decision is made…just use a rankings chart.
That wasn’t the purpose of the thread, though. Golfgr8 was trying to help with tangible information on the school she knows a lot about.
deleted double post
@deecho, No dog in this hunt. But I have a few thoughts.
You acknowledge the schools you mentioned are equal on “prestige”, whatever that means. Prestige is a fluffy concept that can’t be pinned down. Trying to pinpoint the why of it is folly. If the schools are prestigious in people’s estimation, then they are prestigious. Sounds like you have decided that by your personal metric that Deerfield isn’t as prestigious (better?) as others. You are entitled to that opinion. But you risk insulting people who are trying to help you and love Deerfield for many great reasons by suggesting that your subjective opinion is an objective truth.
Also, history is not future. Plenty of schools have illustrious dead people as alums. It means nothing as to what futures a high school offers current students. (A) there are far more students who don’t do anything “prestigious” that graduate from these schools than students who do. (B) There are far more people who have done something prestigious that did not go to all boarding schools combined than prestigious people who did.
I get why prestige is important to some people (as misguided of a metric for high school I personally think it is), but imo you are looking at prestige all wrong and defining it too narrowly and emphasizing it far too much. Your child is going to accomplish great things more because of what he/she brings to the table than what alums of a particular school did 100 years ago. What will the different schools do to prepare your child for success in a modern world? Reputation only gets you so far.
Congratulations to your child for such a great accomplishment. Which school does your child prefer?
That was an an characteristically unkind comment above and I agree with sunnyschool. You must have had reasons you applied to each one of these schools. We did. I also have reservations about all the schools we applied to. They are all individual, thus the notion of “fit”. FWIW, my kid is probably going to leave a school where the acceptance rate was about 4% for that entry year, for a school that accepts 5X that. Why? It’s no longer a good fit and she probably won’t look back at all. the accomplishments of the alums don’t sway me and definitely do not sway my kid. Some were built on the shoulders of their parents/previous generations and some kids are just creative geniuses on their own. Prestige really isn’t worth the happiness and joy of where your kid might feel a connection, unless the two happen to align. I went to undergrad where I learned the acceptance rate for that individual school was 3% last year…and I’m basically a housewife. Truly thoughtful people don’t care where you went to school, they are just interested in what you can authentically contribute to the conversation and your community.
Sorry that was supposed to say “uncharacteristically”
There are older posts on CC @ matriculation lists from various schools. If one wants to learn about matriculation stats, this information is available on school websites. It is also interesting to read the school profiles on each website.
FYI…to the study mentioned above @ Harvard grads over 8 decades on success, happiness, wellbeing. Scientists began this at Harvard in 1938 - JFK was among the original recruits for the study. Here is the link. Interesting article from The Harvard Gazette.
Thank you for the helpful reply!! I’m super excited about Deerfield. I’m so sad about the canceled revisit day though 
I appreciate your detailed comments here and I don’t doubt your fondness of Deerfield but I am surprised by the unanimous views here against the measurement of a successful secondary school education based (not solely) on factors such as college matriculation and career success down the road. Yet the schools use hard data such as SSAT score and GPA as key criteria to select applicants at the first place.
Of course I consider other factors such as faculties, facilities, curriculum and student bodies, which may vary in size but do not differ much in terms of excellence. In other words, with similar inputs, Choate has produced far more notable alums in a shorter period of history. If you don’t believe this is a fair question, then you can take your moral high ground and we can agree to disagree. But has there ever been any “happiness” survey conducted on campus? Is there any way for anyone to speculate whether the Deerfield graduates are more or less happier than Choate’s?
The question isn’t which school produces happier students. The question is where your student is most happy (aka successful). Happy is as fluffy a concept as prestige, imo, as is success. Define them how you like.
Your child has an equal chance to succeed at either Choate or Deerfield. The only thing I know for sure is that your child’s success has nothing to do with matriculation rates or number of nobel laureates.
This isn’t about moral high ground. This is about knowing great kids with amazing potential crash at the wrong “prestigious” school. In other words, experience. What meaningfully distinguishes the schools are the other things you are looking at, as they will determine which school better maximizes your child’s potential. Current inputs are more important than past outputs.
The fallacy is in thinking that the school produced the results. The school is not the primary factor in any of the achievements of any of the alums listed. Boarding schools admit young, unformed students and educate them well to hit the ground running at any of the colleges they attend. They later make of their lives what they will with what they’ve been given (education and natural ability and drive equally), no credit to any individual institution.
When I was applying to Harvard Business School, the school told me that it was in the business of identifying those who would be successful regardless of the MBA. They explained that the process was like applying to a bank for a loan—the more you could prove to the bank you didn’t need the loan, the more likely you were to get it. They were very good at bringing that talent together, but the school didn’t imbue the talent.
All the boarding schools discussed on this board have distinguished alumni and provide a stellar high school education. Attending any particular BS is not directly correlated with any particular success. You’re barking up the wrong tree. Matriculation and alumni lists have no relevance to any particular student. Find the school where your child best feels at home and will thrive. All else will follow.
Ps: You are splitting hairs. Deerfield and Choate are both in rarified air re: accomplished graduates. If you are looking for meaningful differences, famous graduates or acceptances to Harvard isn’t where you will find them. The two schools are more similar than they are different.
As many famous grads as there are from both of these schools, though, I doubt there is even one famous grad per class. So which school you choose can’t possibly be a predictor of whether any individual student will be accomplished someday.
@DeeCho Choate and Deerfield have very different cultures. Is your child equally comfortable in both? Some kids HATE having formal, seated meals with assigned seats. They’d rather sit with their friends and not have to dress up. Other kids appreciate getting to know kids and faculty they might not otherwise get to meet and value those mealtime conversations. Some kids hate having to dress up for class every day while other kids don’t care. Where is your kid most likely to thrive? That is the only relevant question.
What do you think about Deerfield’s social atmosphere? I have heard stories about “mean girls” and a lot of bullying. I got accepted but I am a little intimated.
Hi @laxgirl88888 and Congrats on your acceptance!!!
Social concerns are questions often asked about many schools and those were considerations for our family, as well. I am guessing by your screen name that you may play lacrosse? If you are a lax gal, then you are well prepared to navigate a variety of situations and you will quickly find a group of girls at Deerfield with similar interests. Girls lax is big at Deerfield - both Varsity and JV Teams have girls from many different regions of the country and different backgrounds. Our experience has been that “being mean” is not tolerated - except for that small group of girls who stick to each other. Believe me, you will find one group at probably every school - even the all girls schools. No matter which school you attend in the Fall, our advice is to try to get involved in a Fall sport (even one you have never tried before), dance group, or some large EC, so you can quickly make connections.
There are a couple of things that make Deerfield more of a “community” and less clique-like:
Feel free to PM us for more info!??
Parent of a Deerfield senior here. I can unequivocally 100% without a doubt tell you that my daughter ended up in the right place…for her. But this is a personal decision and for the student and their family. Past college matriculation should not be your sole factor in determining where you will go. You have no idea what those numbers mean and how you personally will factor into them. Without the ability to revisit this year I understand the concerns for the incoming class and I hope most schools will do they best they can to provide an online or some other revisit experience.
As a matter of background, my daughter went to public school and we are not a legacy family. We toured about 12-13 schools, applied to six and received acceptances to five. Schools we visited but did not apply included Miss Porters, Westminster, NMH, Choate and Williston Northampton. These are all fine school but we didn’t see the fit there. Daughter applied and was admitted to Deerfield, Exeter, Hotchkiss, Loomis Chaffee, Suffield and St. George’s. She was wait listed at Andover. We revisited Exeter, Deerfield and Hotchkiss and for her, Deerfield was where she found her place.
For her (and I guess us her parents) Deerfield is the perfect community:
I won’t engage in trash-talking other schools as that’s just not productive. For my DD, Deerfield was that place.
Firstly, have you read old threads? This has been debated about a million times so I doubt it will be re-hashed here.
Secondly, of course schools use hard data like SSAT and GPA but if you look through the decisions thread of this year and previous year you will see a definite trend: kids with perfect scores and GPAs getting rejected from numerous schools. Schools do not and never will make a choice just based on scores and grades. They are looking for other traits that are far more important to them and I have heard that out of the mouth of the AOs at more than one tippy top school
Thirdly, if what you care about is prestige, that’s your prerogative. Just pick that way then and there’s no need to debate your choice here. You are entitled to choose however you wish. I do find it very odd that your child has no preference. My children both had a preference before revisit days. Those days did not change anything for us.
Once you get to a certain level, prestige doesn’t really matter anymore. Groton, Deerfield, Choate, one or the other isn’t going to make a difference name-wise to your life. Those schools do have very different vibes but not wildly different prestige factors.
My daughter is on waitlist, and she plays golf. Per your name, you also play golf for Deerfield? May I know if Deerfield is still looking for a golf player this year? It seems that Deerfiled golf team is a all-boy team. My daughter is by no means as good as those boys. thanks.
Dear @snowshovel -Congrats and hang in there! So, the Deerfield team is co-ed and it is very strong. My Kiddo does not play golf for school because of participating now in a different Spring sport. But does play golf outside of school. FWIW it’s a wonderful team with really great kids.
The follows up with a previous message, when is the right time to send an email to my AO?
Due to the uncontrollable circumstances, I’m not sure whether now is an appropriate time to send an email. Might it be ignored or forgotten if sent during this busy time period? Or should I send one earlier to show serious interest in the school?