<p>I feel that lots of times(especially on these threads) prospective students look at a boarding school as a gateway into an ivy league college, or look at a schools matriculations to Harvard and Yale as a major pivotal factor of their boarding school choice. I hope that when you apply or attend boarding school you do not focus too much on colleges. The reason you should be attending a prep school is to get the best education experience(sports, arts, and friends too) possible for your high school career. Many might argue that ivies are the best, but college along with boarding school is what you make of it.</p>
<p>Who says that you can’t make the best of your boarding school experience while still having long term goals?</p>
<p>I’m going to a boarding school next year, and I am determined to make the most of every opportunity that my school offers, but I still want to go to Harvard…</p>
<p>The problem is when people attend a boarding school just so they can get into such a school, because that’s hardly guaranteed to work, and if the BS is not the best fit, then blindly going there because x% of students from there get into HYPSM probably won’t end well and may be a waste of 4 years’ tuition. It’s fine to say “I want to go to college y and I will work as hard as I can to get in,” but it’s not a good idea to say “I will go to this boarding school so I can get into college y.”</p>
<p>I agree with Uroogla. It may be harder to get into the ivy league coming from boarding school than it would coming from a public school. In the boarding school instance you are competing with other kids from boarding schools who are highly accomplished and very competitive, only the top, top students will get into the top schools.</p>
<p>I think its acutally easier to get into Ivy League from boarding school because coming from there the college admission officer see that its nearly impossible to do everything at a boarding school and get good grades in everything versus coming from a public school where they might curve the grades and not that many people maltriculate to Ivy League. Though you should not go to boarding school just because of where you want to go for college but because of what the boarding school offers versus your private/public school and the experience off going.</p>
<p>My point is less that it may be harder or it may be easier than that if the BS is not a good fit, you won’t do as well as you could and thus harm your chances of getting into your dream school. Somewhere on these forums (last couple of weeks in particular), there is a thread containing discussion on the topic. In the end, it makes it easier for the top students to get into an Ivy League school and harder for the middle and bottom. But you have no way of knowing where you’ll be until after you start attending. Consider that schools like St. Paul’s, Exeter, and Andover send between 25 and 35% of students, on average, to Ivies (plus Stanford and MIT). That’s a lot more than most public schools, but what about the other 65-75%? Some of them would have been number 1 at their public school and gotten accepted to Harvard, but instead they’re in the middle of their class and thus overlooked by these schools. The numbers say they still go to excellent schools, but if your goal is an Ivy, you can’t tell if BS will hurt or help. For this reason (and not only this reason), I agree with OP that a BS shouldn’t be used only to get into an Ivy, but rather for the great education.</p>
<p>Beyond a very small number of superstar applicants there are no sure admits for top universities - and even “probables” may be hard to identify. Top 1 or 2 high school students may go to SPS, Exeter, et al and do well enough to go to the college of their dreams. However, they may also end up in the middle of the class and thus not attain that mystical (and mystique does seem to be a critical property for many) Ivy League status. </p>
<p>On the other hand being a top student in most public or private schools provides no guarantees either. There are more than 20,000 diploma granting secondary schools in the U.S. That’s 40,000 valedictorians and salutatorians. They won’t all fit into the approx. 16,000 slots at Ivy+SM, much less Harvard’s 1600. After subtracting the number of internationals, athletes, URMS and multiple matriculations from top tier public and private schools (Andover sent 113 kids to Ivy+SM this year) there aren’t many slots even for the creme de la creme from an average high school.</p>
<p>So if there is no magical route to the Ivy League what should you do? I think the advice in this thread and others has been sound. Look for the best secondary school education you can get within the bounds of your skills, finances, geography, interests, etc. If that’s the public high school then make the most of it. If it’s Choate, that’s great too. Supplement both with whatever challenges you can find after school, during the summer, etc. Then apply the same approach to college. It may lead to Yale, or it may lead to Texas Tech (just pulled that one out of the air). In either case, if you do the best you can you should be able to look back with pride and realize that you are well positioned for future success.</p>
<p>Life is a series of choices, and if you are one of the infinitessimally small group that can accurately anticipate the future and plot your life’s path then count your blessings. For the rest of us if we make each choice in a well thought out manner we will generally end up in a good place - even if it doesn’t match our dreams.</p>