<p>I heard one story from a parent whose son attended L'ville (child is now 30).
Bottom line is that they are (were) VERY satisfied. Particularly re: preparation for college.
( I would think this would be similar for all top private high schools)</p>
<p>Only complaint was that they felt an inordinate amount of pressure for the child to attend an IVY LEAGUE college, when other colleges offered him more based on his specific interests.</p>
<p>My question to graduates and parents of graduates is: Does this happen? Clearly matriculation to IVYs is a statistic that applicants use to "grade" the school. So it makes some sense. Some schools probably do this more than others. Any comments?</p>
<p>The message in the college counseling talks and materials at Andover for students and parents is: fit fit fit, not necessarily Ivy League. Of course, a good number of Andover students will find the right fit at an Ivy League school. And, I can’t address the peer pressure to get into the most competitive schools.</p>
<p>In this climate, I don’t think anyone would try hard to sell you an Ivy. If you haven’t noticed, it is a sellers market - in BS or otherwise, as most ivies have reached admit rate of single digit. If however, someone applied to a bunch of Ivies and choose not to go to any, that in a way is taking their peers’ opportunities for these colleges and wasting them, and is probably not encouraged.</p>
<p>@Lemonade & DAndrew: you 2 address the 2 sides of the coin. Yes they preach fit in the application process, to keep kids and parents’ expectations realistic, BUT, if you get into an Ivy, they bring the pressure to have you attend, whether it’s for the reasons DAndrew stated or because they care as much about their matriculation stats going out the door as they do about their yield stats coming in. No kid should feel pressured to attend any college they don’t feel is the best possible fit for themselves personally and their own aspirations, but it certainly DOES happen that adults at the selective BS (not to mention parents) put significant pressure (including guilt) on capable students who might consider a road less travelled for their college experience.</p>
<p>I happen to think CCOs should encourage students to do research on colleges early on and help them find the best fit before they go ahead and apply for a bunch of highly selective colleges they don’t want to attend in the first place. And I am not just talking about ivies - they can be the top LACs or certain programs in not-so-famous colleges that are highly selective too. As the college admission is becoming more and more competitive, it’s only realistic to expect a certain college to accept a maximum of a certain number of students from one school. If a strong student casts a wide net and nets in admissions to several ivies and waits until then to decide they don’t want any of them. That’s a selfish act when the chances of their peers are diminished because of it. I know some schools are taking actions in limiting the number of schools students can apply and requiring a good mix of the schools with different selectivity. I think that’s the right move. As one parent pointed out, it’s called by Exeter CCO “non sibi for peers”.</p>
<p>I have no idea about how matriculation stats are managed by the schools, but the bottom line is that there’s no lack of interest or lack of worthy candidates for ivies in these schools. They don’t really need to sell them.</p>
<p>In my experience I’ve seen more peer-to-peer and parental pressure to attend an Ivy League school than instutitional or college counselor pressure. That was certainly the case when I was in school; the adults preached fit, but other students were always sneering at “lesser” colleges. You see the same thing on these boards–kids narrowly define 5 schools as acceptable, and take shots at the rest for not being as good based on relatively meaningless statistics and what they’ve heard from other kids. Academically motivated kids are always going to face pressure to attend a narrowly defined “best” school, and I think that pressure is worse among high-achieving populations. I admire the numbers who are able to shrung off this pressure and truly find the school that is actually best for them.</p>
<p>Assuming matriculation stats ARE an important part of the decision process when choosing between different prep schools, I would like to give a caution as to how much they should be considered.</p>
<p>Lets choose two schools: school AA and school BB. (both with 100 entering freshman)</p>
<p>School AA is slightly more competitive to enter than school BB and attract some more of the very top students.</p>
<p>With that in mind:</p>
<p>School AA has 30 students with SSAT 95 or above and school BB 15 with scores above 95. (sorry to put so much value on SSAT but this is just for illustration)</p>
<p>So assuming that these subgroup of students are IVY material going into Prep school AND nothing helps or hurts there chances during the 4 HS yrs and no one else “steps up”,
school AA will send 30% to IVY and school BB will send 15%</p>
<p>Which school has better Matriculation? I am saying are the SAME.</p>
<p>Now if school BB sends 20% and school AA 25% then CLEARLY school BB has a better matriculation for it’s students.</p>
<p>My point is that you need to look at the level of student coming in AND the matriculation going out to gauge the effect of a particular school on YOUR CHILD.</p>
<p>If you add that some schools push toward IVY to pad their stats (thread topic) AND an inherent bias of kids going to the most prestigious HS will also want to go to the most prestigious college … it can get complicated.</p>
<p>I guess my point is that one should be careful with matriculation stats when choosing a school and pick a school where you think your child will thrive. College acceptance will take care of itself.</p>
<p>BTW my d is going to Peddie so I may be biased in my evaluation. I like Peddie for her.
sorry for the long post</p>
<p>Schools would stop pushing IVY’s if the parents would lay off rating the schools based on those stats. You can search this board and find lots of parent and student posts about choosing boarding schools to “improve IVY chances” and/or getting a “return on their investment.” - as if paying tuition were some type of guarantee. The same people grouse and obsess over IVY matriculations stats in the media to determine which school is “better” or “top tier” without considering that no amount of IVY stats means their own child will get the same results.</p>
<p>But realistically - if that’s what parents push when choosing (and paying) for schools, the schools try to keep up the stats to impress and attract them - especially full pay families. A local school recently sent a delegation to a “top tier” university in order to campaign and beg them to take at least one student. Needed the stats for fundraising with alumni and prospective student recruitment. Rumor has it they were summarily dismissed - but it does point out how bowing to “consumer” perceptions can skew the process in a college counseling office.</p>
<p>So some of us push “fit” not “status or reputation” for choosing any school - boarding school or college/university. College Counselors are not immune to pressure to keep status up - but it’s up to students and parents to be more objective about their final choices.</p>
<p>If you have just spent down your entire inheritance and home equity loan to pay for 3-4 years of boarding school, then you get accepted into Yale, Brown and Harvard – but XYZ “non-IVY” gives you a full ride-- then not matriculating to an IVY isn’t a sign of poor academic training. It may be a greater sign that the matriculating student had good math training and exercised some common sense in choosing the latter as an option.</p>
<p>tmparent, if you are saying that matriculation stats are more of a reflection of what kind of students a school takes in than an indication of the school’s ability to turn a marble into a diamond, I agree with you. I see matriculation stats as one indicator for peer group and alumni network, more than anything else.</p>
<p>Probably not - families that get FA are usually stretched anyway. What I meant was that some parents obsess over the meaning of numbers not recognizing that there are variable and factors in those numbers not evident.</p>
<p>I recently hosted a reception where a student - whose family was not wealthy but had “means” turned down MIT and several IVY’s to attend Purdue which gave her a full ride. Economically, there was nothing I could say in defense of my school to negate that she was making a smart decision in terms of a cost benefit analysis. If other students from her school made similar decisions - and/or had family ties to large state universities, or division I schools, then the matriculation #'s to “top” schools would be low, but doesn’t imply they got a lesser education. </p>
<p>When parents and student debate the relative value of a school based on percent IVY admission absent of underlying data (i.e. don’t realize many of those admits are hooked, connected, legacies and/or full pays) they miss the boat and diminish students who chose equally good schools for reasons of fit or better financial aid offers. Assuming the child is getting a better “peer” group from a school based on a single set of metrics is a specious argument at best.</p>
<p>Thank you for such messages of sanity. This forum is overrun with parents obsessing with IVY admission as a measure of achievement and I am so glad that there are other parents out there who are not being sucked into the madness, and actually care about the education their children are receiving, rather than the % Ivy+MIT=Stanford admission rate of their DC’s chosen school.</p>
<p>I like this table of University matriculation stats for BS grads. Yes, there is the usual ranking by Ivy League matriculations, but the data also includes rankings by “Top” universities and “Strong” universities. </p>
<p>I would be more interested in a stat that revealed how well the students did their first year in college coming out of various schools, maybe categorized somehow.</p>
<p>For instance all students from a particular school (not necessarily BS) with SATs in a certain range had an avg GPA freshman year in college of ?</p>
<p>That was one of the reasons we investigated boarding school as many of the top students from our local school took a year or two before starting to do well in college although they were very bright. Then it is an uphill battle for them if they want to get into good grad programs or med school, etc.</p>
