hey, this question is for those who are attending boarding schools or prep schools. there are so many qualified students from your school who can get into ivy, yet everyone cant get. nevertheless, it seems as if almost everyone matriculates into an ivy or other top school. how does this all work out? do certain students get to get admitted into certain schools? or is it because everyone applies ED/EA to somewhere so there’s no overload of applicants from the same school at one college (and thus having to reject a percentage of those applicants)? thanks.
<p>the students at those schools are there for a reason. the students near the top of the class are academic studs and can go wherever they want. the students near the bottom of the class are usually urms, legacies, or athletes and they get into amazing schools as well. If you're in neither, the great college admissions staff, school reputation, and high sat scores get you into decent colleges.</p>
<p>There are lots of boarding schools and not everyone, even from the "top" ones goes to Ivy or Ivy-level schools. My S's boarding school really stresses the right fit for each student, and that is definitely not always an Ivy etc. There are kids who go that route, but plenty who head to schools of all types, sizes and levels of selectivity.</p>
<p>At the top 7 schools, about 35-45% go to an ivy or SMC. Most others go to a top 20. The reason is mostly that everyone at these schools had to pass ivy-like standards to get in. Also there are many good athletes, many legacies and many rich and famous.</p>
<p>Outside of the group of 7, ivy admits drop off significantly.</p>
<p>My prep/boarding school is ranked relatively low-- I think 50-100 or so. In most years a very high percentage of graduates go on to private colleges of some description, but very few to ivy or top-20 schools. This varies, because it's a very small school, but often a lot of students go to schools in the 30-200 category of liberal arts colleges.</p>
<p>1) excellent college counseling
2) a rigorous prep school experience-much harder than my old top ten public school
3) most importantly... a SELF-SELECTING POOL</p>
<p>jazzpiano,</p>
<p>out of curiousity, what schools do you consider to be in the "group of seven"?</p>
<p>Andover, Exeter, St. Pauls, Choate, Hotchkiss, Groton, Deerfield, from my recollection</p>
<p>I agree, outside of the 7, ivy-admit rates and top 20 rates drop off a lot.</p>
<p>what about Lawrenceville? I thought it counted as a top 7.</p>
<p>About 10% of the kids in those top boarding schools go to HPY each year, About 10% go to nonselective schools. And about a third, including the HPY kids end up in the top 30 colleges (selectivitywise). But you have to remember that those schools are very selective in picking kids. As you go down the selectivity scale of these schools, the numbers of kids going to the top schools diminish. When you have a school with the avg SAT1 score in the high 1300s, of course a lot of the kids are going to end up in selective schools.</p>
<p>but what about kids with lower gpas at the boarding schools? surely there must be kids who are at the lower end of the class, and if the sat avg of the schools is 1300s (which is the case for the group of 7 i believe)... what about a kid with 3.4 and 1250? how do they end up going to a good college still? thats what perplexes me, because the top boarding schools seem to send almost every kid to a good college. </p>
<p>by the way, how does harvard-westlake in california compare against the group of 7? what about whitney high school in california (public)?</p>
<p>Even the students with lower GPAs end up at decent schools- UMich, Hamilton, Macalaster, Bucknell, Temple, Harvey Mudd, etc. The problem is, everyone's aiming for the same ten schools, which is what makes competition tough. 90-something kids applied to Harvard from my school last year. About 21 or so got in - not bad, but still pretty harsh, considering the other qualified students.</p>
<p>Harvard-Westlake is comparable to those top 7, about on the same level. Just isn't classified with them 'cause it's all the way out west and not nearly preppy and old-school enough, haha. Haven't heard of Whitney though.</p>
<p>There are boarding school kids who wind up at the state universities, which is fine. The CU boy who died in the fraternity hazing deal last fall was a Deerfield grad who was at CU-Boulder. He was a smart boy.</p>
<p>About 7% go to state universities from a sample top school in a given year. That is an overlap with the nonselective and highly selective schools, of course. The kids who tend to get into these schools and stay with low grades and scores fall into several categories. There are the athletes who are scooped right up even if they do not do well gradewise, as the colleges well know that a graduate from one of these rigorous schools who juggled a full athletic schedule along with an academic load will be able to handle college and athletics. There are the outreach kids who are on scholarship and from disadvantaged backgrounds, many of them URMs. Again, they will be given somewhat of a pass on the grades. Not that much, however. I have not seen any get into the most selective schools but this group does do very well given their test scores and grades. But I have not seen these disadvantaged URMs get into HPY unless their grades are up there, though they may get leeway on the SAT1s, and getting the grades is no small feat at these schools. Then there are the development kids. Not just legacy, but development. At the school where my boys go, legacies and siblings are often denied entry if they do not come within a certain striking distance of certain academic stats. The exception is development admits, and those kids do not even have to be legacies to get in. And I expect the same goes for when they apply to college. There are also the celebrity kids who get somewhat of a break, depending on what the claim to fame is. Also the colleges where these kids do get in, tend to be schools where there is a relationship with the college counseling dept. These kids have a track record of doing well, so the transcripts are not eyed the same way. If you look at the college lists, you will see a large number of LACs represented. I know our school has some "favorites" where kids can get in with slightly lower grades than usual. If you want to go to such a college, than it can work out well. These are not the top notch colleges in selectivity, but very good schools, nonetheless. The women's colleges are well represented, for example. Also schools like Trinity, Hobert William Smith, St Lawrence are often targeted.</p>
<p>rich parents. donation. development.</p>
<p>If you blieve prepreview.com, last year's top boarding prep, Sr. Paul's (hey, Groton is still better!) got 42% into an ivy or SMC. Then there's a guge number to Williams, Swat, Amherst, Wes, etc. Agree with Jamimom, the under 1300s at the top preps are athletes and the rich and famous who will land at good colleges. </p>
<p>There is no mystery, kids at top preps have gone through the admissions process already. If they had what it took to land at a top prep, they'll land at a top college.</p>
<p>Harvard-W is a top day prep as is Marl in LA, numerous in NY, a couple in Chicago, the Bay Area and other affluent enclaves. These schools do well in college admissions, too. As do top publics like TJ, Bx Sci, and Stuy. Never heard of Whitney though.</p>
<p>Well, there is the Ten School Admissions Organization, a consortium of 10 prep schools that meet to discuss mutual issues (e.g. college admissions).</p>
<p>Those schools are:</p>
<p>Choate Rosemary Hall, Deerfield Academy, The Hill School, The Lawrenceville School, Loomis Chaffee, Phillips Andover Academy, Phillips Exeter Academy, St. Pauls School, The Taft School</p>
<p>I'd say that those (or some combination of those 10) would represent the truly elite prep schools in the US.</p>
<p>The Hotchkiss School is also one of the Ten Schools’ Admissions Organization. (only 9 listed)</p>
<p>" Sr. Paul’s got 42% into an ivy or SMC"</p>
<p>I find it interesting that the metric was IVY: (HYP+CPDCB) plus Stanford/MIT/Chicago… with a disregard for four schools ranked higher than Cornell and Brown: Duke, JHU, WashU, and NU.</p>
<p>Of course these metrics are all arbitrary anyway, but does Duke get the afterthought treatment at these elite preps… to the point it is not relevant to measure the Duke admits as part of a success factor? Same question for JHU, WashU and NU. I can fully understand not including Caltech as it is so tiny and specialized.</p>
<p>When I try to assess the admissions success of our better than average suburban high school, I use:</p>
<p>CHYMPS (includes Caltech)
7-20 of Nat. Univ. USNWR
Top 6 LAC USNWR
21-50 Nat Univ. USNWR</p>
<p>Again, completely arbitrary designations, but it helps put numbers to success in different selectivity bands. I don’t see the point of using “IVY” as a grouping as it is so diverse, and leaves out 8 Unis spread out within its rankings.</p>