<p>Students who do well and take a challenging courseload as offered by their school are the ones whom colleges are going to go after. Students who attend small country public schools that cannot offer the number of AP courses or the variety of courses as larger schools are not usually at a disadvantage in terms of admission as long as they have challenged themselves and have taken advantage of everything their school can offer: honors, independent study, etc. They can still do very well in terms of admissions and the college coursework.<br>
Boarding school students do learn skills that other students do not - dorm living, living away from home, how to juggle many responsibilities and hopefully learn how to manage their time. Students in private schools, esp. boarding schools, usually have required after school commitments such as mandatory participation in sports, and they frequently travel much further for games, etc. This may include overnight stays but that paper is still due on the same day, etc. Students who take on leadership positions such as being a dorm proctor (like an RA) learn leadership and responsibility that you can’t learn in public school simply b/c the venue is totally different. There aren’t bed checks and mandatory study hall hours in public schools. So, while I don’t know that it gives them a true advantage, adcoms do know what the schools are like, and they still look at whether or not that student challenged him/herself. Its just as possible to skim through private school as public. At the same time they also know that boarding school/private school students learn some different skills.
And as for money, and having lots of it - not true at all. I worked at a boarding school for several years. Scholarships and financial aid abound. There are also foundations that provide huge amounts of money for worthy students who cannot afford it. Uou’d be surprised.</p>
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<p>If you’re valedictorian at Exeter, Groton, or Eton, you may not HAVE a life.</p>
<p>I go to a really mediocre public school, and I believe I’ve grown more as a person here than I ever would at a BS or private school. Our counselors and funding and all that may not be as good as at a BS, but there is diversity here. I get to see people from all backgrounds and all walks of life. I can actually talk to someone who lives in a trailer park with his single mom and has to work to support him, his mom, and his three sisters. </p>
<p>It’s these things that show you the truth about life. You don’t see this in a private boarding school where nearly everyone is well off and living the same life.</p>
<p>I agree with An0maly to a certain extent. </p>
<p>Molly411- Oh it didn’t matter, my parents really considered me going there because my father got a promotion, so I was not going to dorm anyway as we were going to move.</p>
<p>I agree with An0maly</p>
<p>I too go to a mediocre high school. Even though i sometimes wish i went to a prestigious private school, the experience at my public is priceless: there are kids there who come from the trailer park, the nice upper class neighborhood, or are somewhere in between. I don’t know if there is a healthy representation of that in private schools but I may be wrong. Private schools however do offer a priceless education…well I guess I spelled out a pro and a con for public and private schools.</p>
<p>I don’t think going to BS will get you into a top college if you don’t have what it takes to begin with. You have to do well in bs and there will a lot of competition. You should read prep. It’s about a middle class girl who becomes obsessed with her boarding school and fails miserably in the end.</p>
<p>I agree also with anomaly. Going to a low public school can give you a better experience than any private prestigious school. At my school we had to fight for everything and had to deal with a lot of budget cuts this year. You also have to work hard for what you want. My counselor literally sucked so all the kids who wanted help asked friends or did there own research (CC for me). It is a great experience to meet different people from all types of races. I know many kids whose parents never even finished hs and they have to help out their parents. In fact, I feel fortunate that our govt has the resources to provide anyone with a decent education.</p>
<p>All the kids at bs schools have parental support. Most kids parents decide for them that they will go to boarding school and even if they are not rich, they do want their kids to succeed and go on to college. This year, kids in my class had parents that wanted them to move back to colombia.
Most kids I know would never go to boarding school. Who wants to be away from their family for such a long time? I developed my deepest bonds with my family during my teenage years. You should go to bs for the experience, not with the sole purpose for getting into an elite college.</p>
<p>If you didn’t already get a legs up on public school kids in terms of test scores, extracurriculars, counseling and etc, then obviously you don’t deserve an advantage at all.</p>
<p>“If you’re valedictorian at Exeter, Groton, or Eton, you may not HAVE a life.”</p>
<p>I don’t see why not. All 4 valedictorians in all 4 schools in my area are very popular kids ( I go to a private, international school. Im an international.) So yeah, it depends entirely on you, you can be at the top of your class and still lead a “happy” life.</p>
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<p>Unless the schools near you are filled with as many competitive, high-achieving and motivated students as those schools, then your experiences is not an accurate reflection reality at those schools.</p>
<p>A Korean foreign exchange student transferrred from a PA boarding school to my private Catholic school midway through our junior year, and he got into Johns Hopkins EA and Notre Dame EA, despite having no ECs that I knew of. Technically he was ranked 3rd in our graduation class, but his GPA was inflated because his school offered more AP/Honors classes frosh/soph years.</p>
<p>I got into Cornell and I had no ECs to speak of, and I didn’t have any AP classes during my freshman/sophomore year, and I was a suburban public school, so don’t credit his success to his boarding school.</p>
<p>Not completely, at least. I know he is a very smart guy, he speaks pretty much perfect English, but in the 2 years he was at my school, he literally did NOTHING, so unless he was super involved at his old school, the only reasons I can see are the rigor of his old school or he had amazing essays (possible, but not probable).</p>
<p>I did nothing. My EC section was something like 3 lines of crap. </p>
<p>If he had good grades, good test scores, good recs and good essay, I don’t see why that would be a surprise.</p>
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<p>That’s why I said:
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<p>Even around here, we have valedictorians from all walks of life - those that do everything and those that even study during lunch.</p>
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<p>oh if it were that easy…</p>
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<p>That also creates some conflicts of interest that are peculiar to elite private schools. Improving the admission results of the whole graduating class can restrict the options of some applicants. The school might limit the number of recommendations sent out per student to reduce overlap in the choice of targets. Or not “push” as hard for an applicant at colleges to which others are also applying. There might also be politics about helping the children of donors (to the high school!); not all students are equal. </p>
<p>Somebody in another thread mentioned a top feeder school where nonbinding early action acceptances are treated as binding by the high school: they will not support applications to other schools in the event of acceptance. In effect, the high school created their own early decision program. Communication of this to the colleges makes an EA applicant more desirable, but it limits the student’s options.</p>
<p>A public school will do less work per applicant but also let the chips fall where they may, instead of trying to game the results for the whole class.</p>
<p>Bottomline: Make the best of your high school experience. If you go to Groton, you are lucky. If you go to UPS (ugly public school. lol), you are unlucky. Yes, adcoms will judge you accordingly but they also want to see how you made use of your available resources. You cant get a Groton transcript without going to Groton. Adcoms know that. Not to worry people, they know what they’re doing.</p>
<p>Another poster wrote</p>
<p><<unless it=“” was=“” a=“” top=“” 25=“” boarding=“” school=“” like=“” exeter,=“” andover,=“” choate,=“” dalton,=“” deerfield,=“” or=“” groton,=“” other=“” schools=“” many=“” people=“” have=“” heard=“” of,=“” then=“” doesn’t=“” matter.=“”>></unless></p>
<p>I agree. My son is a top student at a pretty good boarding school that is not in the top 25. The school’s college acceptance record is not very good, well below the performance and test scores of the top students. One of the reasons, I think, is that schools like the top 25 mentioned above are “feeder schools” for elite colleges and the other boarding schools are only left with a few crumbs.</p>
<p>As you might imagine, this has caused a huge morale problem among the parents and students at my son’s school. Many students are going to graduate and never look back. I started out as a big contributor to the school and at this point will never give them another penny.</p>
<p>Just going to any boarding school is not enough, I can vouch for that.</p>
<p>So if I go to Andover, will that help me?</p>
<p>actually, no. I went to a talk with a former Princeton officer and he stated that someone who went to Lawrenceville (3rd private school in country) has the same chance as any public school. The reason top private schools have such a great college background is because:
1.) They accept kids who will do well elsewhere
2.) They accept kids who are children of top universities (legacies)
3.) They accept low-income families, which has an edge is admissions
4.) They accept top athletes who get recruited into ivy league sports</p>