Yeah, read that article. Its bias is showing. Lots of old tropes and old data, taken out of context and cherry-picked to argue a point. It doesn’t reflect the reality I know.
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I don’t disagree, yet the disproportionate class composition of private vs. public schools at many selective schools is accurate…and with today’s focus on greater equity and access in college admissions this fact will continue to be under the microscope.
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Fine by me! If people examine the reality of who attends the schools, why, and the outcomes, in the context of the crumbling public schools most kids go to in this country, I just hope the conclusion is to invest in public schools, not just demonize the privates.
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I completely agree…I also hope for greater investment in public K-12 schools and have said so on quite a few other threads. Many issues in higher ed and college admissions are consequences of our chronic under investment and mismanagement of public K-12 schools.
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Merely well off (e.g., corporate VPs, law firm/accounting partners, average doctors, solid double income) who don’t send their kids to private high schools seem a lot more likely to send their kids to flagship public universities. If they send their kids to a selective private HS, they seem a lot more likely to send their kids to a selective private university. They value education and want their kid to have an edge.
The super wealthy’s kids seem to do no worse than going to top 100-150 fun school (private or state flagship). Meanwhile, the super poor’s kids’ worst outcomes are dropping out. The best outcomes if they are in an urban area are to go to a need blind top university. If they’re in a rural area, it’s to go to a state flagship with loans to cover living expenses.
^ Yes, and the research in Priveleged Poor shows that the low income kids who had attended private prep schools did far better than those who did not. Academic prep, social capital, and understanding how to navigate the system.
I don’t think demonizing private schools is the answer to the problem.
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There are several factors to break down. One is selective admissions. If you look at HSs with highly selective admissions, like HW, the kids who attend are not the average kid you’d find in a non-selective public. Kids who pass the selective admissions bar for the HS tend to have the criteria that selective colleges are looking for. In contrast, most kids at non-selective publics do not have the criteria typically required for admission to selective colleges. Kids who are qualified for selective HS admissions tend to have much better college admission outcomes than typical, even if they do not attend a private prep school.
For example, the 2nd Chetty study at https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/coll_mrc_qje_paper.pdf provides some details on where high achieving kids at different income levels end up. " Among kids with a 1500+ SAT score, the portion attending what Chetty calls “Ivy-Plus” colleges are below by income level. Relatively few lower income kids attend highly selective colleges overall, but if you control for stats, lower income kids with a particular set of stats seem as likely to attend Ivy+ colleges as kids at all income levels except for top 10%.
Portion of 1500+ SAT Kids attending Ivy+ Colleges
Bottom 20% Income – 31%
Lower P20P-P40 Income – 28%
Middle P40-P60 Income – 24%
Higher P60-P80 Income – 24%
Top 20% Income – 40%
HW has selective admissions that consider scores, so HW has an extremely disproportionate portion of 1500+ SAT type kids. Such kids are extremely rare among lower income kids attending non-selective public HS, but are quite common among lower income kids attending HW or similar selective private. This no doubt influences why lower income kids who attend private prep HSs seem to fair better in college admissions than those who do not.
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A 2nd factor is influence and pressure from community to apply to selective colleges. If you are surrounded by friends who are applying to selective privates colleges, GCs who recommend applying to selective privates colleges, teachers who talk about selective privates, … ; you are more likely to apply to selective privates. This is more likely to occur at a selective private HS than non-selective public.
The study at https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18586/w18586.pdf provides some related stats. The report divides high-achieving lower-income kids in to 2 groups. The high-achieving lower-income “Achievement typical” kids have college application behavior similar to high achieving kids from other income groups – they apply to selective colleges… often x reaches, y matches, and z safeties; and generally attend a selective college. The high-achieving lower-income “Income typical” kids have college application similar to lower income kids who are not high achieving like they are. The high achieving “income typical” kids generally don’t apply to any selective colleges. Many only apply to colleges with open admissions, such as community colleges. Applying to colleges <10 miles from home is especially common.
The % of high achieving lower income kids in each group for different types of HS is below. Public magnets seem to excel by this metric. Nearly all high-achieving lower-income kids at magnets applied to selective colleges in this sample. Private HSs did better than non-selective publics, but well short of magnets. This suggests that having a critical mass of high achieving colleagues may be more important than attending a public vs attending a private prep HS for applying to a highly selective college
.
High Achieving Lower Income “Income Typical” (Does not apply to selective colleges)
86% Attended non-selective public HS
11% Attended private religious school HS
3% Attended private non-religious HS
0% Attended public magnet HS
High Achieving Lower Income “Achievement Typical” (Applies to selective colleges)
73% Attended non-selective public HS
11% Attended public magnet HS
9% Attended private religious school HS
7% Attended private non-religious HS
.
The above study only looked at applying to selective colleges in general, not selective public vs selective private. For selective private in particular a related factor is self-selection based on who chooses to apply to a selective private HS. Parents/kids who apply to selective private HSs are often interested in selective private colleges, so they are far more likely than the average kid to apply to selective private colleges than similarly qualified kids attending non-selective publics. You often see this difference in application behavior between kids at selective private HSs vs selective public magnets. I don’t consider this a necessary better outcome – applying to and attending selective private colleges vs applying to and attending selective publics, such as a good flagship. However, there is no doubt an influence.
I could continue, but the point is there are many compounding factors that influence the high rate of admissions to selective private colleges among kids attending selective private HSs. This makes drawing a simple conclusion that private prep schools are helpful because they help low income kids understand how to navigate the system unclear, especially when you consider how small a portion of kids at an expensive private like HW are true low income (getting FA HW does not indicate true low income)
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^^ This is interesting. But my point was different . It was that highly selective schools seem to like the low income prep school kids and have found that they tend to do well. This isn’t to say there aren’t other good d low income students out there who also will do well.
But it means that the high-achieving low income kid applying from Andover is an appealing candidate and if admitted will contribute to that “40% from private schools” statistic. We are being encouraged to believe that this group represents a bunch of wealthy students. What I am saying is “not so fast!”
The data is interesting. I realized that I could think of only one low income classmate of DS who was from somewhere that had magnet schools (and he had been part of a program to get low income kids playing lax , in part because it helped with private school and college admissions.) I don’t doubt for a minute that those kids have good college outcomes, but most of the ones I know ended up at BS because the needed a better option. And yes, this does create a major tangle in the data.
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I agree that low income kids attending selective prep HSs have a greater chance of attending selective colleges than the average low income kid. My point was there are typically many differences between low income kids attending a selective prep HS and the average lower income kid besides just the HS name. So how do you know that highly selective schools colleges like the lower income kids attending a selective prep more than lower income kids with similar characteristics who attended other HSs?
For example, Stuy is a selective public magnet where 45% of students have low enough income to qualify for free lunch, which is typically less than $48k. The average spending per student at Stuy is $18k, which is below average for NYS publics and far short of the average spending at privates like HW. Nevertheless, in the PolarisList sample, it was 2nd only to TJ (another public magnet) in terms of number of HPM matriculations.
Would a particular high stat lower income student be more likely to be accepted to an Ivy Plus, if he attended HS at the selective public HS Stuy or the selective private HS HW? What about if he attended a non-selective public with a good honors program that has a high concentration of high achieving students targeting Ivy Plus colleges within the honors program? I don’t think the answer is obviously a private prep like HW.
You can find information about the income distribution at Andover in the students survey at http://pdf.phillipian.net/2020/06012020.pdf . Among those reporting income, the income distribution was as follows. The majority of kids reported >$250k Income and less than 10% reported under $60k income. It’s not all wealthy kids, but the vast majority are what I’d consider wealthy and few are what I’d consider truly lower income. I think it’s fair to assume that Andover Ivy Plus admits are generally wealthy, although I’m sure there are a few lower income kids as well.
Self Reported Income Distribution at Andover
$500+k Income – 31%
$250k to $500k Income – 22%
$150 to $250k Income – 18%
$100 to $150k Income – 13%
$60 to $100k Income – 7%
$30 to $60k Income – 5%
<$30k Income – 5%
Also relevant is the survey question about whether Andover students believe attending Andover improves chances of attending a highly selective college. Note that the wording is helping with “attending” – not helping with being admitted. In the earlier year survey at https://sota.phillipian.net/ , they group responses by income and class year. A summary is below.
By Class
Freshmen – 76% think Andover improves chance of attending selective college
Sophomores – 62% think Andover improves chance of attending selective college
Juniors – 58% think Andover improves chance of attending selective college
Seniors – 52% think Andover improves chance of attending selective collegeAll 4 Years by Income
Wealthy ($250k+) – 62% think Andover improves chance of attending selective college
Lower Income (<$60k) – 68% think Andover improves chance of attending selective college
It seems the vast majority of students start out as freshman thinking attending Andover helps with college admissions, but as students spend more time at Andover, a notable portion of change their mind and think Andover hurts with chance of attending a selective college, such that by senior year it drops to ~half of students think attending Andover helps . There was relatively little difference between wealthy Andover kids and lower income Andover kids. I expect both wealthy and lower income groups are admitted. However, higher income Andover kids are more likely to be hooked than lower income, so I’d expect higher income Andover kids are also more likely to be admitted to highly selective colleges than lower income kids.
I would expect the Stuyvesant students to do very well with college admissions, given that it is a highly selective, high performing school where only around the top 3% SHSAT test takers are admitted. I’m not sure the comparison tells us much about most high achieving lower income students would fair, because these kids aren’t even applying! From the abstract of your second source. . .
We show that the vast majority of very high-achieving students who are low-income do not apply to any selective college or university. This is despite the fact that selective institutions would often cost them less, owing to generous financial aid, than the resource-poor two-year and non-selective four-year institutions to which they actually apply. Moreover, high-achieving, low-income students who do apply to selective institutions are admitted and graduate at high rates.
The 2nd source divides lower income high achieving kids in to two categories – “achievement typical” who apply to selective colleges and “income typical” who do not apply to selective colleges. It mentions that ~100% of lower income high achievers in the sample who attended public magnets (like Stuy) were in the “achievement typical” group who applied to selective colleges. So the study suggests that nearly all lower income high achievers at Stuy would apply to selective colleges. Some specific numbers are below:
High Achieving Lower Income “Income Typical” (Does not apply to selective colleges)
86% Attended non-selective public HS
11% Attended private religious school HS
3% Attended private non-religious HS
0% Attended public magnet HS
High Achieving Lower Income “Achievement Typical” (Applies to selective colleges)
73% Attended non-selective public HS
11% Attended public magnet HS
9% Attended private religious school HS
7% Attended private non-religious HS
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More accurately, IME, Andover students realize over time that selective colleges admit students, not high schools, and that simply attending Andover is not the golden ticket that, perhaps, their parents told them it was when they first apply to these selective prep schools. Once on campus, the reality sets in and they realize that Andover will give them the tools to market themselves as an attractive candidate, but so would Exeter, Choate, BB&N, Boston Latin, etc. Additionally, they come to realize that many applicants from Andover are legacies, fac brats, or otherwise hooked.
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I understand that. What I don’t get is why you are focusing your comparison on high achieving LI achievement typical kids as opposed to high achieving LI income typical kids. I’m not sure that comparing Stuy to HW tells us much of anything we don’t already know.
One major point is the lower income high achievers at HW, Andover, Stuy, or similar selective HS are generally “achievement typical” kids who apply to selective colleges, rather than the “income typical” group that do not . This contributes to why lower income kids who attend selective privates like HW have a higher rate of Ivy+ type matriculations than lower income kids who do not. If high achieving kids from a particular HS don’t apply, they won’t be accepted.
The paper discusses various theories and correlations about why particular lower income students are likely to become “achievement typical” vs “income typical.” Certain underlying criteria that contributes to being an “achievement typical” student can be found at selective privates like HW, selective publics like Stuy, or various non-selective publics rather than just private prep type HSs. As mentioned in the table above, only 7% of “achievement typical” students came from private non-religious HSs, which was a smaller portion than any other type of HS. The abstract states:
However, in contrast to the achievement-typical students, the income-typical students come from districts too small to support selective public high schools, are not in a critical mass of fellow high achievers, and are unlikely to encounter a teacher or schoolmate from an older cohort who attended a selective college.
They mention a “critical mass” of high achievers. And they also mention encountering at teacher or schoolmate who attended to a selective college. One can find that both at HW, Stuy, a non-selective public with an honors program that has a high concentration of high achievers, or a variety of other situations. I’d expect lower income kids in all of these situations to generally have better college outcomes than typical.
However, it may be more difficult to find in a small rural HS. Earlier in the thread, I mentioned my relative who was the first person in the history of her small rural HS to ever apply to a highly selective college There was certainly not a critical mass of high achieving kids and few knew anyone who applied to or attended selective colleges. This continued year after year, with no applications. After classmates saw her apply and attend, others applied the following year.
In theory, maybe attending a selective private might help certain high achieving lower income students in this situation, although I expect few of the rural lower income kids could afford it, and extremely few would be accepted. However, more realistically I expect there are no private HSs that are a short drive from the small rural town, so it would not be an option, regardless of affordability or acceptance. A magnet or good honors program might be more financially viable, but again I expect none are near the small rural HS.
The BS my son attended-- with 50% of kids getting FA – has set up its schedule so that a kid coming in behind peers in math, for example (common for LI kids coming from poor districts) can get “caught up” to be able to complete calculus in high school. I think it is more tuned into this than many, but the LI kids do well in college admissions. Based on the kids I knew, these were pretty amazing individuals.
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I’ve seen similar at rural schools, where one or a few kids went to a top college and the aspirations of the entire school changed. But I think having a “critical mass of similar high achievers” is a slightly different and potentially more difficult issue. It is tough for a small school to offer a full range of advanced courses unless there is a critical mass of students at that level. Also, IMO, kids tend to be more interested and engaged when they are surrounded by academic peers. Some (but not all) rural schools can be pretty boring and lonely places for a high achieving kids.
I don’t think private schools or magnet schools are a viable option for rural areas. There are rural public schools that offer kids a tremendous education, but they tend to be in wealthy rural areas and have tremendous community support, both of which are atypical.
Kids from rural areas do enroll at boarding schools and typically get FA. They are generally able to make convincing arguments for “why BS?”
Indeed, many kids at BS are there because there are NOT good local options.
It may be good to name specific HSs rather than generalize, as I expect a lot of variation from HS to HS. For example, in both years of the previously linked Andover survey, only 6% of students said they came from a rural area, so rural kids do not seem common at Andover. I imagine it’s far less common for Andover kids to be rural + lower income, perhaps to the point of being a negligible portion of the student body. However, I’m sure various other HSs show different percentages.
It’s a similar idea for FA. I’d expect boarding schools with the best FA tend to either be need aware and favor higher income kids, or be highly selective ones that emphasize criteria for which lower income kids tend to do poorly. Either way they aren’t an assessable option for most lower income high achieving kids, which contributes to how they can offer great FA to the relatively few truly lower income kids who attend.
Note that giving a non-zero amount of FA to a large portion of the student body is not the same as having a lot of low income kids. Continuing with the Andover example, approximately half of Andover students in the survey said they received FA, yet the majority of students who reported income said their families made >$250k income, and fewer than 10% said they were from truly lower income families with less than $60k income. This isn’t a contradiction. Andover regularly gives significant FA to wealthy families with >$200k income, so receiving FA does not mean the family is lower income.
Theoretically a low income student from a rural community where nobody applies to highly selective colleges could be aware of Andover, apply, be admitted to Andover under an admission system that emphasizes things like ISEE/SSAT score (prior to COVID), and receive a full scholarship + a large enough chunk of travel/supplementary expenses to make it financially practical, but I expect this is quite rare and not a viable option for typical low income high achievers.
While you are right that giving $10,000 to half the students would create 50% FA, the reality is that most BS are unhappily quite bi-modal. In fact most would love to have more middle class families and promote FA programs for them but the challenge is that most middle class families have access to decent schools and are saving for college and hence (understandably!) find it harder to rationalize paying for boarding school. I’ll also add that in the general population, there is very much of a “how could you send your kid away?” mentality around BS so families with no tradition of that aren’t necessarily drawn to it. A decent student from a rural area could almost certainly get enough FA to attend BS. There is a bigger universe of schools out there than most people know. Andover and Exeter aren’t the only game in town!
Overall, you will find it harder (or impossible) to get the data about family income and where the students come from for BS than you will for colleges. Even data that can be purchased lacks this level of detail.
My kid went to George School in PA. It’s a Quaker school that has had a longtime commitment to SES diversity. Having been mostly involved on the prep school forum here on CC, there are kids every year who are applying with significant FA requirements and often from flyover and/or rural states. I would be shocked if we see 100% of that pool here on CC, but we see quite a few. But these schools have, relative to their size, substantial FA budgets and for kids willing to cast a net beyond the few names everyone knows, there are great opportunities. This is, again, why I say that when a college reports that it accepts x% from private schools, it is quite unlikely that that group is comprised of only rich students.
I have spent a lot of time in this corner of the independent school world, and it is not what it was 40 years ago. But it’s also not highly visible to those outside it, even those who live in the communities where they are.
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Kids from “flyover states” may be applying, but none of them appear to be attending George School. According to Admission - Issuu , new students for the 2020-21 admissions cycle came from 10 states – Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. None of these 10 states are what I’d consider “flyover” states.
Rather than “flyover states”, they report 26% of new students at George School are international. The majority of kids are day students, so this implies that the majority of new boarding students are international. A similar pattern occurs in earlier years. I doubt that it is a coincidence that a group for which FA is far more limited appears to compose the majority of boarding kids.
Their website mentions giving FA to families with incomes of >$200k, which is understandable since many $200k+ per year families could not afford the $67k/year boarding cost without assistance. However, this also means percent receiving FA has little bearing on portion of students that are truly lower income (families making significantly less than US median income). The latter does not appear to be publicly reported.
If anyone has said private schools are “only rich students”, I have not seen the post. However, I expect wealthy kids are dramatically overrpresented among kids matriculating from highly selective private HSs to highly selective private colleges.
You can find some specific numbers in college freshman surveys. For example, in an earlier Harvard freshman survey, the split was 80% attended public HS vs 20% attended private HS among the lowest income group. And the split was 32% attended public HS vs 66% attended private HS among the highest income group. There are indeed some lower income Harvard matriculating kids who attended private HSs, but they were in the small minority. Instead private HS school kids who attend Harvard were generally wealthy, much more likely to be wealthy than the average Harvard kid… a similar type of distribution to the one occurring in the Andover survey.
In the most recent freshman survey, the full distribution of Harvard matriculants by HS type was as follows.
63% attended public non-charter HS
24% attended private non-religious HS
9% attended parochial HS
3% attended charter HS
1% attended other HS
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