According to people on the non-prep school side of CC, AOs evaluate students in the context of their own school. Whatever that means, I think it would take care of the grade inflation issue. Esch college has a single AO looking at Deerfield, and probably other schools in the state. The AO would know the athletic influences, academic rigor, etc of Deerfield. Easy for me to say from the outside, but I would think armed with the school profile and a student’s transcript, plus essays and LOR, the Deerfield students will hold their own very well.
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Thanks @cinnamon1212 - you are correct. Recruiting dance was starting Sophomore year (unofficially) and even before a bit at tournaments. COVID came and threw a wrench in the entire process. At least in our case, there are 20’s and 21’s who are deferring or repeating via PG years with eligibility expanded in college. So the normal course and timing for recruiting was upended this year. It is having an impact on 2022’s in our sport. Hey - the worst case scenario for us actually is not the worse case scenario for anyone 
Sorry but I want to touch on this as I am very familiar and almost positive it is the other way around as well… Particularly for engineering and pre-med flagship attrition rates are insane when compared to T20s. The weed out process is handled through academic challenges rarely if ever seen in T20s where everyone is expected to succeed. You can coast with Bs and Cs in communications or some other department but that is another story altogether.
I wonder if what you see with Deerfield and college acceptances isn’t also true with its peer schools. Once you get past the athletes, legacies, children of celebrities, URMs, children of university faculty (for example, Lawrenceville and Princeton, I imagine, or even Choate and Yale) and globally recognized academic stars, how many students actually gain entrance into the so-called top-20 colleges? I bet it’s not all that many in any of the so-called top-tier of boarding schools.
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No, actually I believe it is “that many” in top tier boarding schools. Where you find the recruited athletes inflating the college placement records is at heavily sports oriented schools. At *those schools if you are not a recruited athlete you have little hope of cracking the T20s.
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I don’t know how we got so focused on Choate in this thread - was there a grade distribution for Choate like the Deerfield one that @Golfgr8 posted?
I grew up near Choate and had several friends attend. I would say generally that trying to compare Choate to Deerfield or other top BS is somewhat pointless as each school has its own way of dealing with grades. 100% it is easier to get a 95 GPA at some schools vs others. And yes, of course those GPAs play a roll in college admission. We would like to hope that schools are paying close attention to the school profile.
I think the main focus should be that even going to a safety school, as @cinnamon1212 says, these kids are going to be fine and successful. Mine is considering med school in which case I might recommend he goes to a “safety school.”
I do think recruiting changes things a lot. Especially since a lot of recruiting is luck. Who sees you when. What first impression is formed. All those things matter for all but the superstar athletes. I have seen enough recruiting where I see the kid more than the college coaches and wonder what the heck those colleges are thinking recruiting that kid who just isn’t up to that level of play. That is the luck part.
We live in a top LPS school district and I know a lot of kids in the school. I have also seen a lot of their work because of what I did (pre pandemic). The work that gets an A is often painfully bad - and this is a TOP in the state LPS for kids in honors classes. It is so bad. So so bad. Compare that to the work my busting their butt BS kids are doing and the outcomes are insane. The thing is this isn’t a system that can be fixed. It just isn’t going to change. If a high GPA is your main priority, a top BS is probably not your best bet. Or maybe you want to look at grade distributions before you pick your “one” because they are for sure different. I don’t care if you want to call it grade inflation or deflation but the quality of work needed to get an A in two top BS is worlds above the quality of work needed to get an A at a top in state LPS in MA. And of course that’s an anecdote, most of what we share here is anecdotal information, that doesn’t mean it needs to be discounted - I am sure there are LPS out there where getting an A is just as hard as it is at Andover or Groton, I just don’t have any experience with them.
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Fair enough. Let’s assume I overstated the fraction. It doesn’t change the message at all.
I don’t think you over stated the fraction. I’d say at least 1/3 of incoming students are repeats at our school. I have heard that from AO’s.
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And that’s for 8/9. Incoming 10th probably all repeats unless they are coming from a junior BS. Kids coming from local boys school into 9th all repeats as they did 9th at the local school.
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I have a senior at a top BS this year. The process with CC started years ago, but Covid has definitely thrown a monkey wrench in the process. He was only able to take ACT once (luckily successfully) and ended up applying to 16 schools instead of the 10 he had planned on after deferral in the ED round. The top schools are seeing increases in apps of 30-40% and because schools are test optional, more kids are applying to top schools to “take their shot.” My son was accepted to a top state school in EA, so he has a solid school from the middle of his list now, but it seems that the communication is that acceptances will be more unpredictable this year. Schools that were solid targets are up in the air. I think course rigor, essays, and solid, deep ECs will matter more than ever now. I wouldn’t worry about the school to school comparison of GPA, as it seems colleges are familiar with grading and rigor of boarding schools. It does seem that the more exceptional students there are, those not at the tippy top might end up at schools that would have been considered safety schools not too long ago despite being really smart kids. I think colleges will only take so many kids per school, and recruited athletes could eat up those spots.With no judgment of these schools whatsoever, it seems schools like SMU and Sewanee are growing in popularity as boarding school safeties. I’ll know more in a few months I guess, but it has been a very stressful process even with a kid with great grades, scores and ECs.
recruited athletes definitely “take spots” but is that unique to deerfield? or is it just that there are more per class at deerfield?
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Regarding repeats
@one1ofeach I think our kids go to the same school. That info is just not the case.
@mommysmalls Do you mean the fraction of repeats? An AO gave that info to a friend applying last week.
Yes and every top college AO has records on these top BSs and obviously also has access to Naviance etc… They know exactly which top BSs tend to inflate (or deflate) and have many, many ways of knowing how much an individual student was inflated (or deflated) even if their BS does not rank. They are neither blind nor stupid, particularly so when it comes to top BSs which have been on their radar FOREVER…
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I don’t know about fractions. But I do know about incoming 10th since we did virtual orientation with all.
I assume that the fractions are a conglomeration of all the classes and not just one. All I know is what the AO said and I see no reason for them to lie about the number of repeats. 
I also assume that pandemic numbers are not the same as normal since kids might be changing schools because of covid rather than the normal reasons for entering a school in 10th grade.
Yes, the fact that it all works out in the end doesn’t mean it’s not stressful as you are going through it!
And yup, SMU is making a concerted effort to admit boarding school kids. Every few years a Hotchkiss student would go to SMU, but my son’s year (2013) five kids went there. Although it was one of my son’s safeties, he flourished there and ended up getting his dream job on graduation. It all works out!!
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Does anyone know if being a repeat helps or hurts in college apps? Or does it even matter?
I would think being older helps in athletics and therefore recruitment, but other than that?
@one1ofeach I didn’t think the discussion was about post-Covid admissions since the focus was on existing gpa ranges and college prospects.
Anyway, I just think it is damaging to BS prospects that read these boards to present hearsay as fact.
Last year our decision was almost affected by the rabbit hole I went down here. In the end, we found out a lot of the info wasn’t even fact, but a sole experience or opinion.
If we had thought that my DC would have been one of the only non-repeats as a 10th grader, that would have been one more reason read here swaying her decision. She would have thought it impossible to keep up and not have gone.
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Truth to that @cinnamon1212 - yes SMU and also Elon, Denison, Kenyon getting more boarding school kids over the past few years. A friend of kiddos did get good merit aid at SMU. Shout out to the great SMU golf team!