Interesting Admission Statistics from One Top Private School

We seemed to have moved away your original claim. Originally you were comparing unhooked HW students to similarly qualified unhooked applicants across the “full domestic applicant pool.” Now you find such a comparison to be inappropriate and want to limit the comparison to top students in selective honors programs or in highly selective high schools. That’s an interesting point of comparison, but it not what you originally claimed nor what I was addressing.

As for your suggestion that we simply compare the gpa’s, a 3.9 GPA can mean drastically different things at different schools.

As for the Brown statistics, I’d have to see the data before drawing any conclusions. And, as I already explained, I don’t think we have enough information to make assumptions about the test scores of the top gpa at HW, beyond the assumption that they are generally good.

I neither said nor implied "that Brown must really like HW kids or HW has a special feeder relationship,” nor do I believe this. Same goes for every other college. Beyond legacies and other hooks, I don’t give much credence to claims about special feeder relationships.

What the . . .?

I haven’t moved from the original claim. Instead I’ve made nearly the same claim several times, with very little modification. In these claims, I have always compared HW admits to similarly qualified high stat applicants across the full pool, never high stat and well qualified applicants at HW to average (much lower) stat and less qualified applicants across the full pool… Mentioning honors students was an arbitrary example to show how a selective pool with a high concentration of stellar students (like HW or honors students at non-selective HS) is expected to have different results from a non-selective pool (like overall average at a non-selective HS), and why it is important to control for some measure of student quality.

A quote from the original claim in post #69 is below. Note that the quote says “with similar stats.” I wasn’t comparing admit rates at HW to the admit rate across all students within the full domestic pool. Instead I was comparing admit rate for applicants with similar stats.

Original Claim in Post #69

Yet the admit rate was only 7%… probably a bit lower than the overall average Harvard admit rate for applicants with similar stats. The stats above do not suggest that attending HW provides any advantage at all for getting in to Harvard, like it may for Chicago.

I’m guessing you are instead referring to the more recent Post #205, which is quoted below. Note that I wrote, “if you compare similarly well qualified, unhooked kids.” I was referring to similarly well qualified, unhooked kids among the full applicant pool to similarly well qualified kids at HW. The rest of the post that is not quoted more explicitly states that I was comparing kids with similar stats from HW to similar stats in full domestic pool, in the same way as described in the original post #69 above, as well as several other posts.

More Recent Post #205

If you compare similarly well qualified, unhooked kids who apply to Harvard, I expect the average admit rate for HW kids would be significantly lower than the overall average across the full domestic applicant pool.

It would be nice if we had more information about the applicants than just stats, but we do not. The HW document linked in the first post lists admit rate by GPA. We can also make some rough estimations about having high scores based on HW profile information, but know little about ED/REA vs RD, ECs/awards, LORs, prospective major and how it fits with application, and countless other relevant factors that explain why particular students were accepted or rejected. Comparing similar stat applicants is nothing approaching ideal, but it is certainly better than comparing admit rate for top x% rank at a highly selective HS that averages 98th percentile test scores and is full of stellar students like HW to top x% rank at typical non-selective HSs that often average near 50th percentile scores and usually has only a small portion of stellar students, as was done in your earlier post.

As a point of reference/comparison my kiddos attend a public HS in MA. It’s a good school in an upper middle class community, but not a Brookline/Lexington type school. Each year there are about 60 kids who have a weighted gpa of 4.4+. Of that group about 15-20 will attend a top 20 school - for the most part these students are unhooked, although there is the occasional recruited athlete in that pool. While that is a decent result (25-30% of top kids getting into top 20 schools) it is nowhere near the numbers you find at HW (and by and large this top group has outstanding SAT scores to go with the grades). You also don’t see multiple kids getting into any single school with a few exceptions (2-4 go to Cornell and Columbia almost every year) – for the most part it’s one kid per top school.

I don’t know about HW specifically but many of the most selective BS have admission rates in the teens. Kids who aren’t interested in academics don’t apply. These schools end up with a different pool of kids than a typical high school. It is difficult to compare to a public school, not just because of the depth of the strength, but because they don’t have to make their toughest classes accessible to most students. So I think it’s difficult to compare…

Exactly. I mean, there are very smart kids everywhere (and there are definitely kids at our LPS that would fit in easily at any elite BS) but the concentration is different so it isn’t apples to apples. That’s why many posts ago I pointed out that it shouldn’t be surprising that HW (and for that matter any high level BS or prep school) is highly successful in getting their kids admitted to top schools. Not sure why the desire to downplay it or say results aren’t really any better than the pool of applicants, generally speaking. To me that doesn’t pass the smell test (point out the public school where 50%+ of applicants are being admitted to a wide array of uber competitive colleges).

This issue of whether elite high schools give an advantage (aka are “feeder schools “) gets discussed a ton. There are lots of people who just assume that they are, and that a bunch of wealthy, undeserving privileged kids are getting into the elite schools who don’t “deserve” it. People who have experienced admissions from inside the schools mostly believe that assumption is very wrong, and that the reality is flipped for the unhooked student (the advice is don’t go to bs if the only reason you are applying is to get a college admissions boost). But you just can’t tell because the data is mucked up by legacies, athletes, urms, etc. it is a constant issue of debate on the prep school forum.

Having data even from one school that breaks down admissions by hooked v unhooked and by gpa is very novel, and it doesn’t surprise me that people (myself included) can talk about it for days. It is like Christmas!

Fwiw, I have always taken the minority position that attending these schools is helpful for college admissions for the unhooked - because the resources available, if taken advantage of, can fill a resume with amazing an interesting extracurriculars and coursework, and the letters of rec and college counseling are unparalleled. So I totally get where you are coming from.

It is impossible to know the answer without knowing the qualitative info in the students’ apps. But the overall “how do we compare apples to oranges” problem is addressed a little bit by the HW data. Not surprisingly, the answer seems to be “it depends“.

My takeaway is that the highly qualified unhooked elite high school student has an increased statistical chance at some colleges more than others. Good to know. But the data don’t explain why or what their chances are compared to their doppelgänger in a public school. That is the Holy Grail question, because another way of putting it is “is it worth it to pay the exorbitant tuition and give up 4 years with my kid to send them to bs?” “It depends “ is not a very satisfying answer.

My kid is an unhooked public-school-turned-bs student who has done an amazing job taking advantage of everything at bs. He has tops grades in the most rigorous courses, and strong scores and ECs. Our LPS Sounds similar to yours. Assuming he would have done well there, I still think he has better chances getting into his school of choice from his bs than his LPS. But that is not because of the school name. He is a different kid now than when he left, in ways that will be reflected in his applications. But I am under no illusions that his chances are good for the most selective colleges, and I doubt they are so much better that it changes his application approach. It might shift a lottery-reach to a high reach or a low reach to a high match. He might apply to a school he wouldn’t have otherwise, but that’s more because if his college counselor.

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Since you weren’t using the latest stats from the current handbook (which are unweighted, by the way) you might not be aware of the criteria. Page 27 includes the following statement:
THIS LIST EXCLUDES STUDENTS WITH DISTINCTIONS (LEGACY, RECRUITED ATHLETES, ETC). Be careful not to draw faulty conclusions from such incomplete information. College admission decisions are not based solely on GPAs. Nor should you make decisions on where to apply based on a single chart or informational item.

It’s not clear from the wording whether URM’s are included or excluded in the stats. For G-Town specifically, the descendants from the enslaved people of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus receive preferential admission, so if URM’s are included then some of those stats for G-Town might reflect this bump: Descendants | Office of Undergraduate Admissions | Georgetown University

Less advertised is their preferential admissions treatment for those with secondary legacy status. HW might define legacy as “primary legacy” but at G-Town that extended family list is considered as well.

Agree. Any favorable admit rate for the top preps (including BS) has to be conditioned on the fact that the kid got into it first. Nevertheless, there really isn’t much of a bump at the very top, as @Hebegebe and @Data10 have pointed out.

This. At UChicago and other top places people would be surprised at how low the bar actually is for getting past the auto-reject w/r/t things like test scores. Even GPA is imperfect because it doesn’t provide your course load or level of difficulty (even at the top schools, there are “non-top” course selections). A top GPA and test score do tend to be correlated with other things that are attractive to the admissions office, so what could be happening is that they signal a likelier admit, but there will still be a lot of noise or seemingly puzzling outcomes. Colleges are typically looking for unique characteristics as much as they are evidence of academic ability or high test scores. With respect to the latter, if colleges and universities continue in their experiment to disregard the test score, then one has to wonder how much they were relying on it to begin with.

There is an identification problem here, however. Is that 50+% due to the school or the kids themselves? HW may have a “value-added” characteristic to it - all else equal you have a higher likelihood of attending a T20 if you matriculate at HW - or it might just be admitting bright and accomplished kids who would have gotten into those schools anyway; that latter characteristic is known as “signalling.”

You would really have to look at a set of comparables: for instance, the outcomes of kids who applied and were admitted to HW but who opted for their local public instead. This sort of analysis is probably out there somewhere.

Blockquote"Any favorable admit rate for the top preps (including BS) has to be conditioned on the fact that the kid got into it first. Nevertheless, there really isn’t much of a bump at the very top, as @Hebegebe and @Data10 have pointed out."

100% agree. As @CateCAParent noted, this is often discussed with prospective BS parents and applicants in the prep school forum. As a side note, while most applicants accept that they may not be THE top student at BS, almost none imagine that they will be in the bottom half. Which of course, half will be! So, to the point of this discussion, the experienced posters on the board tell them that if they are interested in college placement, they should look at what happens to the bottom half of the class. HW is doing that pretty transparently.

I don’t think BS students are undeserving by any stretch of the imagination nor do I believe that BS (or any other elite, private HS) is an automatic boost for unhooked applicants. In some cases, kids would do “better” if they stayed at their LPS since they might stand out more. Of course, I think an outstanding HS education is worth something in and of itself regardless of college outcome.

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I have a case study of one in my house (kiddo accepted to top BS but decided against) - now a freshman at the LPS so we’ll see how it turns out in 3 years.

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Totally agree.

Kiddo and I have mused about his cohort of home friends. Some he thinks would have really benefited from bs, some not, some are clearly living their best lives at lps. Our intention was lps all the way for kiddo, but it became apparent in middle school that it wasn’t going to work for him. We all make the best decisions we can. Now that he is a rising senior, no regrets, but I am glad we made the decision on the basis of what he needed in high school, not what college he will go to.

Not to be underestimated, the college counselors in these schools spend a lot of effort managing expectations of parents. Most come in with Ivy expectations, but by Junior year the mindset changes. That probably has a lot to do with where students apply as much as anything.

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I think the kids are often more realistic than their parents. I know someone who is a CC at an outstanding BS and she has way more trouble with parents (what do you mean junior isn’t a strong candidate for Yale) than students - who she has nothing but fond words for. Best of luck with your son as he navigates the process - I’m in the same boat with my oldest and I’m dreading it (fortunately he is chill and realistic about schools given his stats).

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It sounds like you are comparing the rate of matriculating students among the 60 highest rank kids at a public school to the rate of matriculating students at HW. There are numerous problems with this comparison.

As a general rule, kids who apply to highly selective private high schools are also far more likely to apply to highly selective private colleges than the kids who attend public HSs, including high ranked kids from public HSs. For example, at the upstate NY public HS I attended, the most frequently applied to colleges among high rank kids were SUNYs. Cornell was the only Ivy Plus college with an especially large number of applicants. Even if the majority of kids applying to Ivy Plus colleges were accepted, my HS wouldn’t have matched HW for number of matriculating students to most Ivy Plus colleges because far fewer kids applied. This relates to why it is more meaningful to look at acceptance rate than rate of matriculating students.

Matriculating students also depends on yield. HW has a $43k tuition and typical families can expect to spend >$50k/year. HW families typically choose the far more expensive HW over their local public. This group is also probably more likely to choose the more expensive Ivy Plus college over an excellent non-Ivy college that is far lower cost after merit scholarships. This type of lesser focus on saving money with scholarship discounts can result in very different yield decisions. Again it makes it more meaningful to look at acceptance rate than rate of matriculating students.

One also needs to consider by what criteria the students at a highly selective HS like HW are selected and review if the top 60 students at your HS are similar by that criteria. HW admission is based on a number of criteria including secondary school record, ISEE scores, LORs, writing test (essay), personal/character/fit qualities, and hooks. In short, kids are pre-selected to do well on criteria that is roughly similar to the criteria used in college admission. The top 60 students at your HS do not have this pre-selection. For example, they probably do well in secondary school record, but they are not pre-selected based on top ISEE scores or similar standardized test, so they may not have as high average SAT/ACT scores as the HW kids. Do they average 33 ACT like the full HW student body? Or average notably higher, like is expected for the higher rank kids in HW that are generally getting in to Ivy Plus colleges? This relates to why it is also meaningful to at least attempt to control for similar scores (or other criteria) besides just HS rank.

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I have no idea what the average test score is among the top 60 students per class (SAT not ACT is the default in this area). Anecdotally I’ve heard of many kids scoring 1500+. My son, a junior, has a friend who isn’t even near the top 60 but still got a 1510. High test scores are not unusual. As for the rest, you can’t tell. I wouldn’t expect kids from a public HS to be competitive with kids from HW (which is a self selected group of high achieving, often wealthy, kids who receive an outstanding HS education which prepares them well for elite colleges) which is the whole point.

Your earlier posts implied HW was the driving force in getting kids to highly selective college, not pre-selection of a particular group of kids/parents. For example, suppose you take the pool of kids who apply to and are admitted to HW based on having excellent trasncript, scores, LORs, writing sample, character/personal qualities, hooks, … and randomly put half in HW and put the other half in their local public HS. How would the acceptance rate to Ivy Plus colleges compare between the 2 groups?

The HW accepted kids who attended their local public would no doubt have a far higher rate of applications and acceptances to Ivy Plus colleges than the average kid at their local public. However, it’s not as clear as which of the HW accepted groups would have the higher rate of Ivy Plus acceptances. Some kids function best within a group of highly motivated and high achieving pursuing a rigorous curriculum, as would occur at HW. Others perform best when among the top performers in a less selective group, as would be more likely to occur at a non-selective HS. Being more likely to stand out as a top student can also have implications on things like teacher/GC LORs. However, having the opportunity to take higher level classes and greater expenditure per student on things like GCs can also be a notable advantage. It also depends on how successful particular students are in the varied curriculum.

The wide variety of contributing factors makes the conclusion less obvious. I believe that it would vary by student. Some individual students would have better odds if they attended HW and some would have better odds if they attended their local public HS. I’d expect the overall average acceptance rate to be similar, but certain individual colleges may show different patterns, such as Chicago and Duke.

Fair enough. It’s a hard comparison because not all excellent students apply to private high schools/boarding schools for a variety of reasons - access, knowledge, cost etc. Kids who attend prestigious private high schools are somewhat of a self selecting group so it is hard to compare them to other kids. When considering private school for my youngest they were blunt in telling parents that if the main reason to attend X school was Ivy League admission, that was faulty thinking. At the same time they do tout the fact that almost 1/3 of the class goes Ivy . . . of course, there are tons of athletes and legacies in the mix so it his hard to tell.

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At this point I’m not sure what you think you are comparing. Kids with similar statistics from the general pool, but also figuring in highly selective high schools and honors programs provide quality control? Your “data” on whatever the group is seems to be largely supposition.

If you want to compare unhooked kids with similar stats in the general pool vs. unhooked HW kids, then the best starting points are the admission rates. Admission rates are far from a perfect sample, but applications are a self-selecting sample of students who view themselves as worthy of admission to these schools, their grades and test scores skew much high. Even with the flaws, this seems a better starting point than just making assumptions with no available data. Further, while attempting to compare unhooked HW students to hypothetical doppelgänger students may have some value, I guess, but it was not the subject of your initial supposition.

As I have tried to explain (repeatedly) I don’t think that unhooked HW kids are favored when compared to hypothetical doppelgänger kids with the exact same “qualifications.” But a problem with that sort of analysis is it is impossible to separate the “qualifications” from the place, and if we include all the possible variables that make up the basket of “qualifications” we end up comparing real kids to their doppelgängers and, low and behold, we get comparable results for both.