<p>ok...which would you pick?</p>
<p>No one can make this decision for you but I'll give my insight.</p>
<p>SPS and Groton are probably the better schools academically.
Lawrenceville would be best if you are more interested in athletics/ arts than academics, although their academics are of course excellent as well.
SGS is known as a bit of a party school. However, it certainly isn't a bad school.</p>
<p>I appreciate your insight. D is a field hockey player, and all four schools seem to want her on their teams. I am more concerned about getting into an ivy college. which school has better placement? which school has a strong alumni connection? i hear: sps is very liberal? lville very large? groton very small? sgs poor placement? any thoughts or just sterotypes?</p>
<p>I know for a fact that Groton IS in fact very small, but many love that "family" environment.</p>
<p>Groton is very small... They do however have WONDERFUL placement</p>
<p>SG is not a party school. Extremely strict all the way down to lighters. Almost zero tolerance. In the past few years they have raised the academic bar to the point that some faculty left. It's no walk in the park. Very few students make the honor roll each semester being nothing less than an A-. They don't hand out A's. The college placement is one of the best in the country. Having one of the best college placement departments does not always mean getting the majority of students into Ivy but getting the student in the right college for him or her. The students that are there want to be there and truly appreciate the opportunity to attend SG and all that it offers. All four of the schools you mention are great and the revisits are a must in order to decide. I feel that what I've said can undoubtedly be said for all four.</p>
<p>St. Paul's field hockey team is extremely bonded, and all the girls love it and their coaches. Did you meet the coach or any of the girls on the team?</p>
<p>St. Paul's, like Groton, has very good placement for colleges, but it's not as though it guarantees you an accept anywhere. But, honestly, I hope you do not make your choice based on which school has the best placement. Four years is a long time to just be a stop on the way to college. If your daughter is that good at field hockey and continues to improve, I would think she would be able to be recruited to an Ivy.</p>
<p>Over 20% of the bottom half of a recent graduating class at St. Paul's School was accepted to at least one Ivy.(18% of the bottom half of the class decided to attend an Ivy.) For Ivy League college placement, SPS ranked #1, while Groton was #4 among boarding schools. In what respect were you referring to SPS as "liberal"? It is an accepting environment but any type of rules violation can get students a quick trip home. An interesting sidebar: two years ago, over 10% of the graduating class at Groton matriculated at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.</p>
<p>Where did you find ranking of college placement for prep schools?</p>
<p>icy, where did you get those numbers? The college office definitely did not release info like that.</p>
<p>I did the rankings. Two of the twenty five prep schools (3 day schools & 22 boarding schools) told me that I was the sole recipient of this info.( other than trustees & administration officers). I created the system which was reviewed and commented ( by many) upon by all participants. The Taft School refused to participate, but was unlikely to finish in the top 12 based on unofficial info. that I received. To rate & rank several of the schools, multiple sources of info. were needed. SPS, for example, does not "rank" their students, but the top 45% or so graduated with at least a "cum laude" designation. There were some surprises, but the top 4 are/were in a class by themselves regarding college placement success. Then the next two boarding schools estabished a second tier which, along with the top four schools, comprised the truly elite schools for college & university placement from the top to the bottom of the class. My primary concern in the study, which took several months due to the difficulty of obtaining & verifying the info. and then alloting for a comment & verification period for the schools involved, was to examine where the bottom 25% of each graduating class for the past five years matriculated at college or university.</p>
<p>"Cum laude" can not be used as a marker for the top 45%. You know that if a students gets 1 HP, and all HHs, they will not graduate with honors even though they are a significantly better student than the one who gets by with all Hs.</p>
<p>Yes, I am aware of that distinction, but it is the best method available to objectively & verifiably rank the graduating classes at SPS. ( And the class ranking was not relevant for the study as every student's U.S. based college or university placement at a four year degree granting institution was included in the rating before the schools were ranked.) (The study has not yet been published.) wyvern: Still curious as to what you mean by your use of "liberal" in reference to SPS. wyvern: You and your daughter have a very difficult choice as all four schools are outstanding in many respects. NOTE: I made a typo in post #8. The study rated & ranked overall college placements--not just Ivy League. SPS was the number one boarding school for overall elite college & university placement; although it certainly could have been, and probably was for that five or six year period, number one with respect to Ivy placement as well.</p>
<p>While I don't doubt your stats, icy9ff8, what they don't tell is how many of those ivy acceptances went to kids who are legacy, URM, recruited atheletes, etc.<br>
Wyvern, SPS is a great school. It could be deemed liberal but most BS are. You will find kids of all backgrounds and interests, however. Being steeped in the Episcopal tradition, SPS is very tolerant of differences but kids are respectful, neatly dressed, etc. The school does live by its credo - Freedom with Responsibility - but there are safety nets in place if a student is deemed to need help getting back on track.</p>
<p>Be very wary of posters who say they have done their own studies. Most of them are jokes and fakes. They are a way of telling people that numbers can not be used to determine where YOU will fit best. For example, there is no such thing as a Bunkel index (search this forum for more details).....And who is Icy, that these schools would give him/her exclusive access to their data? Hmmmm....I think something is a bit fishy here.....</p>
<p>icy, post you top 20 list! is it the same as the one at prepreview.com, the one that costs $60!</p>
<p>about the "liberal" part of sps....just "stuff" i've read and heard...someone made a posting saying it was full of bonghitting artsy types. i am a bit concerned about the racial climate.</p>
<p>All BS ride a roller coaster with respect to sports. One year can be no wins followed by a very good winning season to being undefeated. As I say and I'm sure all these schools will agree, that in the end it's what's between the ears that counts and not the stick in the hand. You'll learn a lot more at revisits.</p>
<p>wyvern: I am deciding as whether or not to publish the study, or at least a brief portion. A few months ago it was furnished to the NYT, but they prefer more egalitarian studies, so I am left with the WSJ. As you may be aware the NYT ran a series of articles a couple of years ago concerning the then rector at SPS. My hesitation in doing it as an Op-Ed piece for the WSJ is that my identity would be revealed and I have concerns about a few of the posters. Much of the data is available from each school, often on its website as well as in brag sheet packets furnished to prospective students. wyvern: Search my earlier posts as a couple of months ago I released partial rankings & partial methodology. There is a small group of three posters who like to attack my posts. They tend to be very emotional and are quite sensitive about rankings of any sort whether verifiable or not. I understand, but do not agree with or condone, their excessively emotional & "backyard gossip" type posts, when I examine their prior posts & see the types of schools to which their children applied. BrooklynGuy's child was rejected by SPS, so he may be sensitive about that. His child applied to a panoply of schools (9) which at first impression seem wildly arbitrary, but may not be. Of the three posters who make unfounded emotionally based attacks, they do so on the basis of proclaiming "school fit" but never explain what that is for their child while refusing to respect school fit based on college placement, Ivy type culture or academic standards.wyvern: Also I am not familiar with Prep Review .com rankings or with their methodology. Finally, all of the 25 schools know me & have received much of my study. I will, however, share that Roxbury Latin School was number one overall ( Roxbury Latin is an all boys day school in the Boston area which graduates approx. 48 students a year and, therefore, was too small for the annual WSJ rankings which require 50 graduaTING students minimum.)</p>
<p>I will just say: take an anonymous source with a grain of salt. If this "study" gets published somewhere reputable, then I will take a look at it.</p>
<p>As for the situation with my child: I have nothing against St. Paul's even though we got a rejection from them. It is a fine institution. As to why we applied to so many schools, there are extenuating personal circumstances that require a boarding school, and you will note that each one of them to which we applied has a swim team, except for SPS (which we had heard may be starting one. Also, a family friend of our child is an SPS alum, recommended it, and wrote a personal recommendation for her). Other than that, I need say no more in a public forum.</p>
<p>No swim team at SPS! :) but a gorgeous pool.</p>