<p>There are nearly 23,000 applicants. Most are interviewed by alumni interviewers, many of whom have been doing this work for years and have interviewed hundreds of applicants.</p>
<p>"The Ace is Back, your statement about elite private schools is either outright incorrect or at least scewed. Teachers at such "elite private schools" do not owe anything back to the parents. They are more of professionals who teach because of their passion, and most of them could not care less about pleasing their students' parents. I assure you that there is almost no exaggeration at most "elite private schools.""</p>
<p>Private schools are driven by market forces, so they do owe something back to the parents, i.e. the consumers.</p>
<p>As you may or may not know, the "elite private schools" receive thousands of applicants each year without having to do any significant marketing. It's their tradition, level of education, prestige, and ability to send more than a third of each graduating class to ivy league schools that attract the so-called consumers. During the admissions process, only the top students are offered a place in each entering class, so it actually is the students' motivation, intellectual qualities, and other skills that place the third of a class into elite colleges. I have not seen any teacher at my current school who would exaggerate to wrap their products (a.k.a: students) with the most vibrant and attractive packaging. In fact, most of them are rather harsh in evaluating each student, as their debt to the parents is unparalleled education, not an aid in sending the students to an ivy league institution.</p>
<p>Perhaps my school belongs to an oligopoly with few substitute goods; actually, there is only one. Thus, if you are referring to normal private schools, then your argument may be in effect. However, I am arguing for the "elite private schools" that dominate the market, whose primary consumers are most concerned about top education, prestige, tradition, etc.</p>
<p>'Top education' includes obtaining top grades and getting into top universities, as well as equipping your pupils with the skills necessary to deal with life's challenges. Hence why extracurriculars and rigorous academia are stressed at elite private schools. </p>
<p>I also had a problem with thinking of top private schools as driven by market forces, but in the end I have to concede that it must be true. They may have prestige, but prestige stems from a good record of results. This record of results is now driven by market forces, while in the past it was driven more by ideology than anything else.</p>
<p>And if you think I am in any way attacking these schools, or know little about them, think again - I'm at one right now. I agree that priority is far more on education for education's sake as opposed to education for results' sake, but ultimately their goal is to give you the biggest chance to become successful in life. They owe this to the parents, and that is why they are paid more to do so. If they no longer provided for the parents, they would no longer receive these 'consumers' - their prestige would soon die down. It is not a duopoly, because there is more than one elite school in the United States (and the UK, which is where I am). I am referring to elite private schools as much as I am to 'normal' private schools. Also, teachers at top private schools are more likely to be better educated, and hence in a better position to be able to write decent English and convincing letters. When I say exaggerated, I don't mean that they would say that a crap student was excellent, simply that there is more incentive for them to over-emphasise a student's strengths and not to dwell long, or at all, on their weaknesses.</p>
<p>You're right. Of course teachers at top elite schools want to please parents by getting their kids into top universities. However, this does not mean that they will inflate their recommendations to ensure that this happens. In fact, they would be more likely to provide honest recommendations than most schools. </p>
<p>The reason for this is simple: The reason why top prep schools get so many kids into top colleges is because they have a good reputation with these colleges. That is, colleges can depend on truthful recommendations from the schools. If the schools betray the trust by recommending a poor student, then the colleges would discover that (by looking at grades at the college, or even more simply by looking at grades at the school and SAT scores before admitting the student) and would no longer take the schools recommendations seriously. This loss of trust would hurt the schools acceptance percentage into the college much more than the extremely limited benefit of getting that one student into the college, so schools don't do it.</p>
<p>Its the same reason why financial advisors don't recommend shares that they know are going to fail to investors, even if the purchase of those shares would help the financial advisor personally. The benefit of selling those shares would be heavily outweighed by the cost of losing the investors forever. </p>
<p>Although I personally agree with laxman, that elite private schools can attract applicants without marketing, I will consider your point that they are a market good for sake of argument and look at top prep schools as a business. The thing that parents are looking for in elite secondary schools is their ability to get students into top universities. Therefore, it would be in the schools interest to get as many students into top universities as possible. The way to do this is by being honest with recommendations. The schools will happily sacrifice one student getting in for the good of many other students applying (see above), as this will result in more students getting in, which is what new 'customers' look for when applying to the prep school.</p>
<p>Last but not least, I saw somewhere that someone said that elite school recommendations help more because teachers and GCs would be able to recommend using better grammar (I forgot who said it, not saying it was you :) ). Reading that made me laugh. Admissions officers aren't elementary school English teachers and they care far more about what teachers have to say than if they speak real good english-like.</p>
<p>Fair points you raise, and I completely agree that there is absolutely nothing to gain (and everything to lose) in private schools being dishonest. My point is though that a lot of kids can do well wherever they go, be it Harvard or whatever, but maybe don't try so hard in class, don't show so much interest, whatever. The teachers would be more likely to dwell on their good points and not focus on their lesser points in their recommendations, and there is more incentive here for a private school to do this, particularly a top private school, who know their pupils can handle the work once they get in and won't fail to deliver, despite the fact that they are not as 'keen' as they could be. </p>
<p>The point about their English was my point I think and designed to be vaguely funny, but on a more serious note I think that ability to write good English really does come into it - it's all about the subtleties and how exactly you phrase your recommendation, making the reccomendation sound as good as you can without ever lying. Private schools realise the importance of all aspects of the application, and so are more likely to focus on all aspects equally (including recommendations as part of the whole), while state schools might not treat them with such importance and not spend so much time perfecting them and getting them to sound right (occasionally, perhaps, over-exaggerating) so as to maximise pupils' chances. Of course all this depends on the qualities of the private schools and the state schools in question.</p>
<p>Well put, Madd Stressed. The long term benefit of being honest and most precise in recommending students definitely outweighs "exaggerating" for certain customers' short term gain.</p>
<p>holy crap.</p>
<p>you guys are writing essays here.</p>
<p>Lol, I'm the OP and I lost interest in this thread days ago.</p>
<p>I don't know, Ace, It seems to me that all schools would have an incentive to get their students into top schools (why wouldn't they?). And as far as I can see, your hypothetical 'lazy prodigy' would only exist in a very limited number of circumstances. At an elite school like Andover or somewhere, it would take an exceptionally gifted student to get suitably competitive grades if the student were not willing to work. A student of this caliber would be able to get into elite schools based on intellectual merit alone (someone like that could publish a novel or win a pulitzer or something :) ), and would therefore not really benefit from a less critical recommendation, so it would make no difference whether or not the teacher exaggerated the student's report. Also, the student only needs a rec from one teacher. Even hypothetically, it is hard to imagine a student who wants to pursue education at the highest level not being interested in and working hard in at least one class. Realistically speaking, a lazy student at such an elite school would get fairly bad grades. These schools would then not recommend such a student on the grounds of him being hard-working for risk of losing credibility (as the colleges could see the student was not diligent from his transcript. The college may still accept him based on his natural talent, e.g. high test scores).</p>
<p>Another (absolutely critical) point we are forgetting is that a student is more likely to impress teachers at a regular public school than an elite private school due to lowered expectations. This would mean that teachers at the less prestigious schools would actually be more likely to give the student a glowing recommendation than teachers at the elite prep school, although competent admissions officers should be able to regulate these differences to some degree by looking at the profile of the schools.</p>
<p>As far as the grammar thing, it is definately not 'all about the subtleties and how exactly you phrase your recommendation'. In fact, it is completely the opposite. Admissions officers read through teacher and GC recs in literally 2 minutes, only noting major points. However you present a student, it will be very hard to change an admissions commitee's opinion on him based on subtle grammatical differences. As for private schools looking at 'all' of the students recommendation, it doesn't really matter as the only part of the recommendation that either school has to really focus on is the recommendation (the rest is on the student).</p>
<p>Madd Stressed, do you go to an "elite private school?" I absolutely agree with all of your arguments.</p>
<p>No, I go to a vaguely selective public school in England.</p>