<p>I don’t see why a school would have to admit the top five kids so they could admit the celebrity’s child. There are a lot of factors they take into consideration.</p>
<p>Daniel Golden, The Price of Admission</p>
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<p>Unless my recollection is not accurate, I think that this “coattail” effect was in operation when Princeton accepted Senator Bill Frist’s son some years back. It refers to the observation that, in order to accept an inferior development candidate, a school will offer admission to all the applicants at the same school and who rank higher than the development candidate, but who otherwise would have been rejected.</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification, Peri. I knew I had read that a high percentage were admits from private schools.</p>
<p>I don’t think that’s always true–otherwise there wouldn’t be holistic grading. Schools will definitely take an athlete if they need one, or someone else who fits with what they need for whatever reason–plays the flute, comes from Alaska, belongs to a rare minority, wrote a brilliant essay, invented the cure for cancer, has a pathetic but interesting story–over someone who might otherwise appear more qualified. In fact, it happens all the time here in CC land. It’s a very interesting anecdote, though!</p>
<p>I’d be interested in OP’s original question about academic experience at NMH. We can all read the college data but how was the academic experience at NMH for your kids? Were the students engaged and challenged? Teachers engaging and dedicated? Are your kids surrounded by other students who are at BS to thrive and succeed in academics. I’m a little concerned about the high accept rate–but please give me your thoughts. Any input would be helpful. My D is a late applicant and seriously considering NMH if accepted now.</p>
<p>My experience at NMH – although in the last, ahem, century – was that Ivies were not at the center of most students’ lives. Instead, most NMH students were interested in Oberlin, Wesleyan, Colorado College and the like. That said, my class had an obscene number admitted to Brown, a school that was all the rage at that time. (Indeed, Brown was then referred to on campus by some as “NMH grad school.”) Others went to Harvard, Princeton and Yale – but only a few did so. Stanford was popular. The student body was impressed when someone was admitted to an Ivy, one of the “Little Three,” or some similarly well known, competitive school, but there was no campus-wide anxiety about these schools. I suspect the NMH ethos remains much the same. I always had the sense in my day that families who experienced palpitations at the thought of the Ivies took their custom elsewhere.</p>
<p>At least in the Math/Science world, NMH has incredibly rich offering and is very careful about being sure to place the student in the correct level so that the student a consistently challenged. The academic challenge is available for each student. For example, although not explicit in the catalog NMH offers six flavors of Chemistry. </p>
<p>Are there kids on the five year plan - yes. But they (competitive, smart, but not rocket scientists) are not in the same classes with the honors track (rocket scientist) kids. NMH is large enough to offer diversity of classes to meet a diversity of needs. But it reaps the richness of that diversity. Nobody gets into NMH unless they have something to offer.</p>
<p>My son is a current NMH freshman. He finds the classes engaging, speaks highly of his teachers and finds the academic challenge to be just that – challenging. It was everything he was looking for and he is really enjoying it.</p>
<p>hey everyone I’m a rising sophmore at NMH this year. If you have any questions about school life, feel free to ask me.</p>