<p>Another vote here for the How To Be a High School Superstar book by Cal Newport.</p>
<p>With harder grading at the private school, will your child #2 try harder? Or become discouraged and opt out? I would look at the big picture (academics + electives + ECs + social) at both schools. Will transport to social activities be a strain on the family as well as having three kids at three different schools?</p>
<p>I didn’t read any books or hire any counselors. Actually, I think my daughter violated most of the rules I imagine are in these books or suggested by these counselors. There are so many sad kids on here who’ve spent their high school years stressing and obsessing about getting into a top school. Let your kids enjoy high school and don’t turn their lives into how will this look to colleges. I personally wouldn’t want a stranger telling my kid what activities she should spend her time in or what subject she should take on the theory that this will please some hypothetical admissions officer.</p>
<p>I would encourage your kids to pursue what interests them and if they have some type of interest or accomplishment, see if there’s a way to showcase that. Make a 4 year plan for high school coursework to make sure they’re on track for whatever their interests are and to get them thinking about their goals. You don’t want to discover senior year that they should have signed up as a sophomore for some prerequisite. Make sure they prepare for the PSAT/SAT and be aware that the best time to take an SAT2 test is usually at the completion of the relevant coursework. Sophomore year is not too early to start visiting colleges, especially if opportunities arise. Try to make sure they don’t miss important deadlines. </p>
<p>You should be aware that there are well over 100,000 kids scoring in the range you mentioned. It’s not a guarantee of admission to an elite school.</p>
<p>There are going to be a ton of nuances for everything college admissions, which have long discussions on these boards, so I’ll try to be brief:
Q1. There are lots of pros and cons between public and private which has been discussed ad nauseum. But if you are purely talking about which HS choice will help with matriculation to the highest USNWR college, then my answer is to get the “school’s profile” for each school that you are considering, get a list of the # of kids matriculating at each particular college over the last 5 years, figure out the average per graduating class and compare them between the HSs. You can also do the same number of NMSFs etc. The GPA and grade deflation won’t matter as much because GCs make it their business to disseminate this info, and colleges basically know most of the HSs who send to them. Also, class rank is generally more valuable info for colleges. However, most privates will purposely not rank students to make this more difficult for colleges. Yes, the level of USNWR that you get into if you are in top 10% at less rigorous than if you are in bottom 10% at the very rigorous. But it too difficult to guess where your kid might actually fall in class rank given a myriad of factors that is more than academic and includes motivation, social, etc. By comparing matriculations, you are getting a sense of the maximum upside from each HS. </p>
<p>Q2. You can get a indie GC who can chart the course from middle school to admission. They will advise your kids on what ECs to try etc in order to shape the kid’s tagline. Or you can get a GC in 12th grade who will help craft a list of colleges (reach, target, safety), supervise essay writing, and polish up the package that the kid brings to them already, and which reduces kid/parent battles. Might take 8 hours or so. I don’t know anybody who has used indie GC type 1. I know a few people who used indie GC type 2 and were happy with them (attending Swarthmore, Northwestern, Indiana U Kelley). I don’t know how they found GC type 2.</p>
<p>Q3. Acceptance rates are lower because the common application allows more students to apply for admission by just clicking a button in some cases.</p>
<p>Q4. Agree with “How to be a HS superstar.” The book that you were thinking about was “the Gatekeepers” which is a fun read and makes you realize how so many kids are special and will get rejected.</p>
<p>And yes, these elite colleges run around $65K per year or $260K total for 4 years. No merit aid is given. </p>
<p>I’d be more concerned with which school will provide the best experience and education for your child. If your child can be successful at either school, I doubt it’s going to make a big difference. At a stronger all-around school, your child might do a little better in an absolute sense on testing and such things, but the bar may also be higher for kids coming out of a school like that. I’m assuming the private school will be expensive. Is that going to limit college options or other opportunities for any of your kids? </p>
<p>Regarding the grade deflation, there are pros and cons. Deflation makes it possible for exceptional students to gain recognition. In our grade-inflated school, there were classes where I know my daughter had an average a full 15% or so higher than kids who received the same grade and so looked the same on paper. But, for a kid who tends toward perfectionism, deflation could create a lot of stress and anxiety that really isn’t necessary during the high school years. It could also adversely affect EC’s, if kids feel they have to study so hard to maintain a reasonable GPA, and it could be especially bad for a kid who has any issues during those years. And, like you, I wonder whether colleges compensate sufficiently for deflation in their evaluations. </p>
<p>Personally, I think there would have to be a pretty compelling reason to take a kid away from their friends, out of a pretty good local school, and be paying money and dealing with transportation issues in order to attend a different school. If a reasonable fraction of the kids in the AP classes at the public school are doing well on the AP exams, then I expect the program is good enough to support a kid getting in to and succeeding at a top college.</p>
<p>I don’t like the idea of shooting for a specific caliber of school in 9th grade. Encourage your children to challenge themselves, step out of their comfort zones, and pursue what THEY are interested in. They will find the college that they fit best with if they’re authentic throughout high school. That might not be the “best” school but it’ll be the best FOR THEM and that’s what is most important. </p>
<p>IMO the best thing you can do is figure out how you’ll pay and step back from all other details that are directed towards getting into some hypothetical category of colleges. Focus more on encouraging the development of academic, social, etc skills for the sake of their development rather than for college. If the private school is a right fit, go for it. Not for the potential admissions help but because it’s best for your individual child. </p>
<p>I don’t think 8th or 9th grade is too early to about the children’s future although it may be early to target a specific university or even a tier.</p>
<p>Starting in 9th grade, I tried to find summer programs in D’s fields of interest. I wanted to make sure that she could put something substantive in her college application but it couldn’t be some random program. So for D, I looked for environmental studies programs. I was surprised how many kids just did nothing during the summer: no summer job, no camps, no programs, no volunteering, not even watching over younger siblings. Nothing but staying at home and playing video games. Avoid that scenario.</p>
<p>I looked at college costs when D was a sophomore and felt that was too late. It may feel weird but run the Net Price Calculators on random college sites. Pick a wide range of schools: in state, out of state flagships, public, private, big, small LACs, wealthy schools, not so wealthy schools (say, a Forbes score of B). It was an eye opening experience. I knew in general that college costs were rising but this told me what that meant for my family.</p>
<p>Support your child in his or her interests. Help them develop a focus, instead of picking new things every year. If your child needs help, either academically, socially or emotionally, get it. I hired a biology tutor for D. When I mentioned it to friends, quite a few with older kids said they wished they had done so instead of just pushing and scolding the kids to study more.</p>
<p>We started looking at colleges winter of sophomore year, visiting local colleges - just to get a general feeling of school type. What does 2500 students look like? 10,000? 25,000? Urban campus? Rural campus? D took the SAT and ACT on the early side, spring of sophomore year. </p>
<p>Make sure your child takes the SAT II subject test as they complete the relevant class. This doesn’t affect D because she’s not applying to the top schools. But we’re seeing now (senior year) kids are getting closed out of these schools simply because they haven’t taken ANY subject tests. They’ve run out of time because they want to retake the SAT and/or try the ACT. Many parents assumed that taking the AP exam was sufficient. It isn’t. While obvious to CC parents and students, it may not occur to others to take these exams on the early side.</p>
<p>As for the lower acceptance rates there are several things going on. Kids now apply to 7, 10, 12, 15 colleges instead of 3-5. The Common Application makes that pretty simple to do. Also what I suspected and it was confirmed last and this year is that many of those schools with low acceptance rates have wonderful marketing schemes. They will send colorful enticing brochures to students who can never be accepted. My daughter received mailings from Chicago, Vanderbilt, WUSTL, even Penn and Columbia. But her test scores don’t even make the 25th percentile. Lucky for her, we had already researched schools based on her lowest scores and knew the range of schools that best suited her. When these mailings showed up, it was immediately obvious what was going on.</p>
<p>I have no personal experience with independent college counselors. I thought about hiring one but CC really helped in the college search - even for my “ordinary” student. Right now, I’d rather hire someone to help D with her Common App essays, finding her voice and such than a general college counselor (but actually her high school has such a person; D just needs to sign up for a session).</p>
<p>I like The Gatekeepers, it’s a good peek at the way Admissions Officers think. I have no idea whether your kid would be better off at the private school or not, but you should at least be able to find out what the range of schools is that kids get into from both schools. I’d say the best private schools around here provide better writing instruction, mostly because small classes allow them to assign more of it, but our public school has better music, a much bigger variety of activities, a more diverse student population, and some amazingly talent teachers with not too many duds.</p>
<p>In my experience making sure your kids are on the appropriate math and science tracks is important and also that they take SAT subject tests at the appropriate points. </p>
<p>I also agree making sure your kids does worthwhile things in the summer is important. Jobs, camps, academic programs are all possibilities. </p>
<p>On the grade deflation issue - there are several automatic scholarships out there that are based solely on standardized test scores and GPA, so the grade deflation could knock your child out of one of these. There’s a complete list on another thread. But if the kids are not interested in any of these schools, it won’t be a concern for you. </p>
<p>A lot of good advice so far. Regarding the question about the private school: I don’t think I would let grade deflation be the deciding factor if all other indicators look positive for your child. I was a bit worried about that, too, with my son, who is a second-born. He followed his academic super-star sister through public school and always managed to pull As, but I knew that if he went to the private we sent his sister to in high school, he’d have to work a lot harder, especially in writing and English, and he’d definitely have a lower GPA.<br>
We let him decide, as we really weren’t sure what the best option was in his case. He went for it with the stipulation that if he didn’t like it he could go back to public school. It helped that each school was close to home and the district had opened a new public HS, so many of his friends were splitting up anyway. </p>
<p>It turned out to be wonderful for him in so many ways that I never would have guessed. He did have to work harder, but he excelled in his strengths (math and science) which did set him apart as his competition was stiff. He struggled in 9th and 10th with his writing, as he’d been slacking off in public school and still getting As. Writing was used in almost every subject at the private, the instruction was excellent. He had to write often, it was critiqued critically, and he became an excellent writer. I’d say that writing is now a strength of his, and we have his HS to thank.
Another big difference for him was the personal aspect of being in a small school where students and teachers share mutual respect and friendship. For both of my children, the small private gave them a kind of confidence and ability to be comfortable in the world of adults. This extended through college and their adult life; neither had any trouble approaching professors, making use of the opportunities around them and generally functioning without holding back in college and beyond.
In a smaller environment, your reputation stays with you. Your school friends become sort of a second family because you share most classes, as well as your ECs with them. For someone like my son, this was a positive because he is both a people person but also a fairly low-key personality. I think small privates can be great for kids who may not be the most gregarious, but whose personal qualities shine when you get to know them at a deeper level.</p>
<p>So back to the GPA- he did get a few Bs in his Freshman year but it made no discernible difference in his college choices or acceptances, as that is just one piece of the puzzle. He went to an elite LAC that shared a lot of characteristics as his HS, and thrived. I’m so glad that I didn’t discourage him from tackling the more challenging private high school for fear of a lower GPA as I truly think it was the challenge that helped him grow. </p>
<p>Even uwGPA in 4.0 scale has no standard that one cannot compare different students from different schools (not even within the same school). So the school profile and counselor report would be considered at the same time. A 3.2 GPA at certain school may be valued the same as 4.0 for other schools. The adcom will notice that form the school report and the scores/GPA submitted by other students from the same school.
Independent counselor would be a waste of money if you are taking an active role already. If you read a few more books about college admission, you may become an adviser too. My neighbor hired someone to submit and follow-up college application and charged her $200 per school. It is plain useless.
The admission rate of elite schools are mostly going down as there are more students applying. One reason is the number of schools each student applied increased a lot in the past 5-10 years. Particularly for those aiming high and want to increase their chances by applying to more elite schools. There is little room for increase in test scores or GPA for those very top elite schools though. For other top 50 schools, the admission stat did go up slightly.</p>
<p>In my school district, the school register students for PSAT in 11th grade but encourage students in the 10th grade to sign-up as a practice if they want to. The one for 11th grade is on Wednesday while those 9th & 10th grader would take the Saturday exam.</p>
<p>Any book purporting to clue you in to admissions will be imperfect. Especially when they author hasn’t been engaged in actual application reviews/decision making at all or for some time. So, be open to all sorts of input. Things change- and I promise the picture for your 9th grader will be different in 3 years.</p>
<p>It’s true that harder grading does not necessarily translate to better education. But nor does an easier 4.0 necessarily amount to much benefit- in admissions or in life. Go for the school decision that will stretch the kid in the right ways, academically, while allowing lots of social growth, various experiences, and his/her development of a solid sense of self. Imo, plus core skills like solid thinking, analysis and writing skills.</p>
<p>We were already thinking about colleges when D1 graduated from middle school. It does help to talk to them, thought they can’t fathom much for a few years. Mine liked ms and hs sports and theatre, one was deep into music and orchestra. We waited to see how those interests/talents developed.</p>
<p>But, I got them into community service early, for many good reasons. </p>
<p>Plan to let your kids to enjoy their 9th, 8th, 4th grades,</p>
<p>It is not too early to be thinking about colleges.</p>
<p>I second other posters who encourage you to look at finances. Price your in state publics, a few out of state publics and some private schools. Seriously. I know several people who were shocked when they looked at college costs. Run some net price calculators while you are at it.</p>
<p>If your local public is a good school, I would be inclined to keep your kids there. If your child can get a good education there he/she is not restricted to the state flagship (unless that’s where your child wants to go which is all good). However there are situations where a private might be a better environment academically and or socially for a certain child. You need to use your own judgement on that.</p>
<p>Encourage your child to take the most rigorous classes he/she can handle. The more selective schools want to see 3-4 years of foreign language, advanced math etc. If the school offers AP classes , your child should be on track to take AP’s in junior or senior year. </p>
<p>I agree with post 32. And no…hell has not frozen over!</p>
<p>The private school should be happy to show you a list of where its graduates got into college. Then you can decide for yourself whether the lower GPA matters. Selective colleges have regional reps who will know your school. I wouldn’t let that worry you overly. </p>
<p>To the OP - I’m an immigrant, so the college process for my kid was new territory. I think now our HS guidance counselor was too vague.
Things I wish I had known back in 9th grade:
- Leadership in community service / charity is a big deal in selective schools & scholarships
- Kid should have prepped for PSAT</p>
<p>1) Run some school net price calculators NOW for representative instate public, out of state public, and private schools to get a handle (its scary) on what will be affordable and what you will need for financial aid for each type to be realistic - not just for #1, but to ensure #2 and #3 are not beggared. Most of us are not going to be realistically able to send 3 kids through a Georgetown at $250k/per without significant/unrealistic amounts of aid/scholarships/debt. Best to find out now what will be expected for your financial contribution and determine what you think an acceptable max level of borrowing will be so you can manage your and their expectations. </p>
<p>2) Its hard to determine what will be the best setting for your kids. Listen to them. Middle school went from crappy to pretty good when we skipped D2 a grade from the “kids with issues” class into the socially “nice kids” class. S1 started in a small private school but thrived in a large public HS with a robotics team. </p>
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<p>Agree with this, and also make sure that you are not leading the kids to believe that money is infinite. There are enough stories around here of kids whose parents have apparently raised them in a way that shielded them from any knowledge of cost constraints on their wants and activities until college application or decision time, with less than pleasant results.</p>
<p>@MWDadOf3 I’m also a MWDad. My two kids are past college. They both went to great colleges, after attending a public high school in our college town. My “bias” in your kind of situation, with kids in middle school, was mainly to make sure they took the best sequence of courses they could take, completing all the categories (math, science, foreign language, etc.), but beyond that to watch them discover and accomplish things in areas that they were interested in and to provide opportunities and resources toward that end.</p>
<p>For one child, who was interested in art, we sponsored her attendance in summer pre-college art programs. She won awards in the school and community for her artistic achievements. For the other, who was interested in debate, we encouraged attendance in summer debate camps. He propelled himself in other areas such as journalism and math. So it was their evolving interests, not any grand plan, that determined where they put in special effort and what we supported financially.</p>
<p>Neither one did much in the way of “community service” b/c they were busy enough with their core extracurricular interests. By applying themselves in those areas they won awards and honors both in the school and in local and state competitions. Those things make for competitive college applications. They both had very good but not top-of-the-class grades. One of them had truly exceptional test scores. These were good enough without them obsessing about GPA’s, etc. (I knew their GPA’s but I don’t think they paid much attention to them.)</p>
<p>In short, we helped to plan the things that could be planned, in particular course schedule, but our main focus was on letting them discover and accomplish things based on their own talents and then to back them in their efforts.</p>