Hey, I am considering attending St. Paul’s, Deerfield, or Hotchkiss. Each of these schools seem good for me. They aren’t too big, have strong academics, and strong school spirit.
However, I know the academic competition at those schools are intense. I also care about getting admitted to an elite college. Does anyone know anyone that graduated in the top 10% of an elite boarding/prep school? How can I strategize so that I graduate near the top of the class in a school like St. Paul’s or Deerfield?
My goal is to be admitted to Stanford or Princeton, and I know that I still need to be a top student at one of those boarding schools in order to be competitive.
There is no magic formula here. You get the grades that put you in the top 10%, then you will graduate in the top 10%. Time management is key, IMO.
Most also don’t weight, so toughest classes won’t factor into GPA, although they will factor into the GCs rating of the schedule for college applications.
Let’s start with semantics. You are considering applying to St. Paul’s, Deerfield, or Hotchkiss. Nobody can say they are planning attending until they actually have acceptances from those three.
So your question is very premature. You need to get accepted first. Even when you get accepted, don’t think about rankings until one is actually registered and on campus.
If that’s your only reason for wanting to attend a boarding school, you are going (potentially) for the wrong reasons. As I’ve stated many times on this site, a boarding school may give a student the tools with which to develop him/herself into a viable candidate, but others schools may as well. Colleges admit students, not boarding schools.
At most of these schools, 95% of the class will graduate with a GPA <4.0. As shocking as it seems, 50% will be in the bottom half of the class. For almost all of them, assuming their expectations are realistic from the beginning, they will gain acceptance to one of their top choices - perhaps not their dream school, but there are few guarantees there.
Being a top student may not be enough for acceptance to any specific college. Just being top 10% does not mean you will get into Stanford/Princeton/etc.
Apply to boarding school because of what you want for your HS experience.
As skieurope mentioned you first have to be accepted by these boarding schools before you can choose to attend one.
Keep in mind that there will be kids with higher GPAs but with a less challenging academic record. Even at very elite boarding schools there are plenty of kids in, for example, lower level math and languages than their peers—there are roughly 30% or more of students at Andover, Exeter, SPS, Hotchkiss etc who have repeated 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th or PG. My child is younger than a good many students in the lower grade and there are kids 1 1/2 to almost 2 years older in the same grade. Take a very personalized and competitive course load, ace your tests and you will be fine.
^Agree. To the OP: Often, you’ll have a choice between higher GPA and challenging course load. What choice is right for you, only you know, but college AOs are well aware that even in the same school not all As are created equal. As @Center said, take classes that challenge you just the right amount and don’t worry how you rank. It’s not the NFL draft.
Also: It isn’t JUST about GPA and tough courses. Many colleges will choose the internationally-ranked athlete, award-winning composer, successful entrepreneur, or published novelist over the kid with the top grades and scores.
@CaliMex Don’t scare the kid! Most students who end up at top colleges are very accomplished indeed, but in teenage terms. Adult-level success is not required.
The OP, who obviously doesn’t know much about colleges yet, at this point is dreaming of Stanford and Princeton. One Mercersburg grad went to Stanford each of the past two years. I never met the 2017 grad and I know nothing about his academic record, although I assume it was stellar. I know he has a unique story and checks a diversity box, so cynics can say that is why he got in. But the other thing I know about him (from my son) is that he has what in the simplest terms might be called a great personality and was absolutely beloved by people who knew him. The 2018 grad was a top student with an impressive resume who did a lot for the school. Obviously, there are plenty of people like that applying to top colleges. This student’s distinguishing characteristic (per my daughter) is an extraordinary gift for communication. The commonality may be that Stanford in these cases might have been selecting for future CEOs.
I have no idea how one gets into Princeton. My kids were top students and the children of a very actively involved alumnus and applied SCEA and didn’t get in. I think the OP will learn about other schools as time goes on and will end up in the right place.
As I’ve said many times on this site, the plural of anecdote is not data. That said, I am not an internationally-ranked athlete, award-winning composer, successful entrepreneur, or published novelist (or legacy or any other hook for that matter), nor did I have the top GPA/SAT score from my BS, and I was accepted to Stanford (I did not apply to Princeton). Why? Not a clue, although I was really proud of my essays. Perhaps it was the result of my stellar moderating on College Confidential. =))
The kids I know who were at the tippy top of their BS class were EXTREMELY bright and all took a rigorous course load, more for personal challenge than anything else. Some worked very hard in addition, some made it look deceptively easy.
Always take the courses that are both most interesting and challenging (but not so hard that you are failing or don’t know what’s happening).
Never worry about your GPA when picking your courses* (or teachers).
You will learn much more, and AO’s look for those who embrace challenge.
At my kids’ school they don’t rank, but they do give an award for the best academic record (and the school profile, and Summa Cum Laude awards help identify which kids are toward the top).
ALL the top academic performers (by GPA) were also taking the most rigorous course loads… nobody in the top 10% was trying to “pad” their record with easy courses.
I can’t emphasize this enough… the “top” students as measured by GPA were also in the most honors and college level (AP-ish) courses.
And the rigor of the course load is closely scrutinized by AO’s.
*[we ruled out a school at the exact moment when our guide (in the “honors track”) shared this paraphrased anecdote :“I took a hard Econ elective. I was almost failing in first quarter. Talked with the teacher and buckled down and pulled out an A for the year. I never learned so much in my life!.. I still REALLY regret taking it. All my friends took easy electives that helped their GPA with much less effort.”]
@seekers many top schools don’t rank anymore and the awards do not take into account course-load rigor. They actually CAN’T in many of the most selective high schools where, quite often, there are no levels. If you have kids in the same grade taking different levels of math, language or science… There is a ton of gamesmanship in course selection and again, younger students competing with repeating/older students. In public schools the AP classes teach to the test so in those cases the students get more points in their GPA and test prep combined. Education in general does not reward challenging oneself with much risk and no advantage.
Yes, I understand there are schools where that culture of “gaming the system” is strong.
It’s clearly detrimental to a healthy, ethical, and authentic learning environment (and a guide talking about it was a massive red-flag for us).
If a family is looking at schools, I would hope they would try to assess if there was a healthy culture (in all areas)… and I was assuming that the top schools actively encourage students to embrace a challenging education.
But for any given kid at any given school my advice would be to embrace a challenging and authentically interesting curriculum and throw yourself into mastering the material.
Every top college we visited emphasized how carefully the AOs scrutinize the choices you made and the passion with which you pursue them in a much deeper way than looking at your class rank or GPA.
Back to OP question: how do you graduate at the top of your class [and get into top colleges]? At our kids’ school the answer was (as it should be) hard work & genuine passion in tackling truly challenging and interesting classes.
yes there are some seniors taking multivariable calculus while others are taking precalc. But when building a schedule at these schools, it’s not like a students is able to load the schedule with automobile technology or culinary arts (not that there’s anything wrong with those for the appropriate student).
There is definitely gaming of the GPA at all schools public or private. That being said, if you want to get into the schools mentioned you should love learning, have passion and be able to demonstrate in some way that you are unique. Perhaps it’s your voice when writing, maybe you are an inventor, or a change maker or a person who loves humanity. Having an application that sings with personality AND high GPA and test scores is the key. Yes, hooks definitely help but if you have none you can still pave a road you want to be on.
Attending boarding school is NOT about going to an Ivy league school. It is about learning the tools you need to succeed in life. Being part of a community, finding your voice, having passion, interacting with teachers and staff, maybe trying or playing a sport or activity and pushing your limits. Like colleges, there are many schools which are not Deerfield etc and they send kids to great schools.
The colleges do have ways to determine “rank” in schools which do not rank. They can figure out from grades and experience with that BS where your grades would likely place you. Plus the recommendation forms have specific categories so while some may believe that they can be in the lowest quartile and still be at the same level as someone at the top, this is just not possible.
Learning in life is important. When students go out into the workforce, they should be the kid who stayed in the tough econ class and learned the material, not the kid who just wanted to check the box. And I won’t even go into red shirting kids so they can be better in sports or repeat a year to do better. That’s more of a thing between parents and kids and fairly common in upper class towns/boarding schools. It’s closely related to parents/kids who focus on GPAs rather than the learning.
@skieurope I am not talking about electives like auto tech or breadbaking. That is an extreme example. At Andover, Exeter and SPS etc-well over 30% of students are repeats or were repeats (in junior boarding school or private day) . MOST of them are coming in 9th grade and 10th grade. Contrary to popular opinion they are not predominantly the athletes at these schools. This is a huge issue because you can have kids in the grade who are say 14 to 16 and the like. The impact on performance given maturity and having previously taken classes is enormous. Tthere are many students who take a quasi native language for easy As. This is commonplace even in college. Of course–the most selective colleges do look at course rigor–but there are many assumptions made and NO ONE is illuminating those assumptions. The OP asked “How do you graduate at the top of your class at boarding school?” (And gaming the system is much more common at elite privates because of the nature of the student body and student body parents) So, OP, you ask how? You come in as a repeat 9th grader to get off to a great start or as a 10th or 11th grader with a 4.0 under your belt. You get a diagnosis of ADD or ADHD or processing disorder so you get accommodations in classes as well as on the SAT and ACT. (incredibly easy to do) You bomb any placement tests for language so you can start at the bottom. You take the mid level math and science classes. Why? Colleges wont ever know you get accommodations; they will never know you repeated 9th, 10th or 11th grade. Do college admissions note that the birthdate of 6/20 and X year makes the kid 19? No, not when top schools are getting 15k to 40k of applications. Beyond the very very small subset of students that are true academic stars-no ifs ands or buts there are so many variables and no --colleges admissions are not treating the 19 year with a 3.7 (who must have repeated) differently than the 3.6 who couldn’t have repeated. Nor are they devaluing a students As in Chinese/Japanese/Korean simply because the student also happens to be XYZ. You also play no sports because, unless you are a star athlete with prospects of recruitment, it just eats up a lot of time. So, for example, you, applicant A, have a 3.7 and played soccer 25 hours a week, traveling to games on weekends and Wednesdays, Applicant B has a 3.9 and was in 5 clubs which took a few hours a week–if that --and best of all —far more positions in clubs for “leadership” roles than the 1 or 2 team captain slots. . Yes a school may give passing nod that your 4 years of soccer took the equivalent of a part time job but still ,you have a 3.7 and they have a 3.9 and that 25 hours a week wont get you back that extra GPA. This is serious business with serious stakes.
So just so we’re clear, your purpose here is to tell the OP how to game the system? @Center . OK, but let’s strive for accuracy.
Of course they will. Each AO whom I have ever met knows how to count to 5. Aside from what is listed on the transcripts, the Common App asks applicants to detail out their HS academic experience. I trust that part of your counsel is not to advise the OP to then lie on the application.
“There is a ton of gamesmanship in course selection and again, younger students competing with repeating/older students.”
“yes there are some seniors taking multivariable calculus while others are taking precalc.”
I didn’t get the sense of this kind of competition at my kids’ school at all. If there was a difference in course level, say math for example, it was due to a) students’ entry level and preparation level from their old school and b) aptitude.
If anything, kids were trying to take the hardest level they could.They weren’t dumbing it down to improve their grades relative to others. I sensed more a culture of and any stress coming from striving to do one’s best not worrying about what others were doing. This might have been helped by not having a class rank or a calculated GPA.
Sure, there were kids much older in the same grade or kids younger or older in your classes but they were on their own path. Don’t worry about what other people are doing. (My kids were among the youngest in their grades - in some cases by 2 years)
I agree it is about hard work and passion - plus good time management and organizational skills. Not everyone has that package in their teens. Good thing is that there are many, many great colleges and Princeton and Stanford (or any top 10, 20 school) aren’t needed to get a great education and be successful and happy.
When I think back on who my kids were impressed with and admired among their peers it was the students that combined strong academic performance with sports involvement, fine or performing arts involvement, an active social life, and being a genuinely nice person - the quadruple threat. Those were the real superstars and they did very well at the next stage even if they weren’t at the very top of the academic heap.
ETA: In all the years my kids were in BS, I can’t think of students gaming the system by taking a foreign language class in their native language. If anything, those kids were often poly-lingual. I was always impressed by how well they did studying in their second language and still being high achieving, even in the non math and science courses.
We’ve personally seen this with “near” native Spanish speakers (2nd or 3rd generation in homes where older generations speak 100% Spanish among themselvesr, kids speak maybe 50% when conversing with older generations).
We’ve seen examples of this, but wonder as to how effective a strategy it is. Kids coming in to 9th grade at the post-calculus level at our kid’s school report that the upper level courses are much easier and are grateful they don’t have to deal with the drill and kill nonsense of the easier levels. Ditto for advanced science kids. AP Physics C at our school is easier than Honors Physics.
Not mentioned in the post above is differential grading. In the age of Snapchat and Google groups, kids are quick to share and it is not particularly hard to examine subjectively graded work within the same classroom. In our experience, at least in subjectively graded essay-type tasks, there are different grading scales being applied within classrooms (same teacher). To some degree, this is an expected consequence of a relatively compressed grading system trying to take account of wildly different abilities. It may also be even desirable in terms of motivating the best and not discouraging the worst. But it does introduce noise into any rank-ordering such as “top of the class.”
Yes.
Most students who end up at top colleges are very accomplished indeed, but in teenage terms. Adult-level success is not required.