<p>Are admissions committees more likely to consider an applicant favorably if his/her parents are successful and wealthy? Obviously, there is the advantage of being full-pay and not requesting financial aid. But, beyond this, would the advertisement of a parents success help or hurt an applicant. I can see it both ways. Most applications ask for parental education history -- Does the fact that both my wife and I have many degrees from an Ivy League school help my son's chances because they can assume that there may be a legacy advantage for a particular college, thus bolstering their college admission record? On the other hand, many of the achievements earned by my son are the products of opportunities only given to him because of his parents' education and family's wealth. Will that somehow count against him? Or is the admissions committee truly focused on the applicant with little consideration for parents concerned about his education?</p>
<p>Have you heard of a President’s daughter not getting into Stanford?</p>
<p>Yes, they want a certain percentage of families that are FP, willing to give generously to the Annual Fund and understanding of what contributes positively to their particular boarding community. In that mix, the third factor may well come first as the “need blind” and “need aware” schools have a surfeit of FP applicants. In fact, I’d say that there is easily enough wealth out there to fully populate the FP pool considering the number of seats annually available at the top fifty BS, all of which can be “choosy” since their acceptance rates are 50% or less and their endowments are over $50m. These high school seats number about 6000-7000 each year, I suppose; at least 15% will go to (mostly FP) international applicants and another 30% will be admitted with FA. While it doesn’t “hurt you” to have Ivy degrees and to have afforded your child opportunities, it may well hurt you to ostentatiously “advertise” such. </p>
<p>So, the main thing for parents is to be supportive of having the kid there and being able to identify, in writing and in a possible parent “interview”, why you think it is a place you’re confident of being a good fit. Highlight your readiness to let your child grow independently of you. </p>
<p>Poor parental behavior can sabotage the positive presentation of the actual applicant. It is a bad idea to declare that you want BS matriculation for the purpose of securing admission to the parent’s Ivy school, and also to suggest that your child will boost the school’s Ivy admit rate. I have never been an AO (though I have worked for two BS), and the last points are opinion, fwiw. </p>
<p>@heartburner: I guess it depends on the school. Some schools are stacked with well-heeled parents already, and don’t need another bankers-kids (ie Andover, Exeter). However some schools need full-pay students whose parents can also shell out lots of cash for the annual fund. Note that most schools annual operating budgets are only partially covered by tuiition (75%). The remaining 25% of the operating budget must be made up each year through donations.</p>
<p>So don’t be bashful about parental achievements on the application. In my son’s BS I estimate approx 40% of the class is made up of full-pay parents, of which 5-10% are extremely wealthy (ie net worth > $100 MM). </p>
<p>Have to admit I’ve never heard it put that way. Plenty of FP to fill up all boarding schools, Charger78 breaks it down well. </p>
<p>Then again at the other extreme, if the kid is exceptional, Dad is in prison and Mom works Vegas, then that would raise eyebrows, All admissions will have a story to tell about the kid they took a chance on. It has also been known not to work especially when that kid goes home for vacation and ends up in the police blotter. But, I will say it works wonders for college admissions, they eat it up!</p>
<p>I think it really depends on what you mean by “parental success.” There are a lot of parents out there who would be defined by many as “successful” – for purposes of argument, let’s just say that means some Ivy League degrees, a nice zip code, and a profession (or two) that easily permits the student to be a full pay candidate. But admissions officers are not foolish enough to think that just because dad works on Wall Street or mom is a partner at a white shoe law firm that it means that they’re going to be major donors to the annual fund. Instead, what the admissions officers are looking for in determining whether a student’s family might be a development prospect is a demonstrated history of significant and sustained giving. There’s a lot of information publicly available these days on charitable donations, and you can bet that schools take a look at that information to separate out the “comfortable but not particularly generous” from the “seriously wealthy” and/or “relatively wealthy and strongly committed to philanthropy.” I’m not sure what’s enough to potentially move the needle for schools that already have a pretty healthy endowment, but I’d guess that the school would have to think that you might be a candidate for a six figure donation in order for “parental success” to play some role in their decision-making process, beyond just putting your kid in the FP applicant pool as opposed to the FA pool.</p>
<p>On a related note, I’ve been wondering if it’s worth mentioning parental involvement in the current school; for example, if the parent served on the board. Or will they get that through the school report portion of the application?</p>
<p>They might get that in a school report, but another way to make it known is to mention it in the parent portion of the app and simply say that you hope/look forward to being involved (in a helpful way!! ) at your kid’s future school. 
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<p>If a parent has a history of being deeply involved in their child’s education: whether it be on the school board, chair of fundraising committee, etc this should definitely be mentioned. All of the BS parents that I’ve met so far are much more involved in school-related stuff than I ever thought they would.</p>
<p>Bottom line: Parents shouldn’t be shy about listing their accomplishments. If you are a big fundraiser then highlight it. If can’t afford huge donations, make it clear that you will contribute in other ways (dorm parent, volunteer for parent committees, etc).</p>
Interesting article in this week’s Economist relates closely to this topic. Assortative marriage among well educated and well heeled couples is creating imbalanced advantage, on merit, for student of accomplished parents. The interesting question relating to the OP is given the clear acknowledgment of advantage in the article, is it wrong to give it consideration? Seems to me that while here is a greater societal issue related to mobility and opportunity, the causal evidence surrounding parental success and its indication for child success make it a rational decision to include in the evaluatin processs. However, if elite schools embrace this approach, it reinforces the tipping of advantage globally. I have no answer, and am just pointing out the article and issue.
I read the article as well. I think that the danger in our “meritocracy” is that the same traits and values that allow parents to succeed in any given system will be encouraged and nurtured in their children. In fact, there will be many unfair advantages given to the children of those who have succeeded in our system, not because of royal lineage, but because these children’s parents know that hiring a tutor to master the SSAT is helpful and paying for an educational summer camp is better than bagging groceries when it comes to the early factors in becoming successful in our world.
I am very impressed with some of the self-starter 14 year-olds that value education and are motivated to go to boarding school driving the process for them forward. Most kids would not have this idea if 1) there were no boarding school fairs at their private day school located in a major metropolitan city, 2) their parents didn’t go to boarding school and have Ivy league educations, and 3) Were not encouraged to pursue extracurricular activities in and out of their school.
I think that a kid with this privileged background has such a distinct advantage that it completely defeats the spirit of meritocracy and allows for further polarization of social classes. If one adds to this the admissions advantages of being full pay and legacy, then there is almost a new “royalty” ruling class in America whose lineage started with grandparents figuring out the game early on and closing out anyone who figured it out too late. As far as I can tell, they are not building any more schools like Andover or Harvard so those spaces are reserved for the existing ruling class. I’m not a socialist, but I want to believe that there is equality in opportunity and one can make it in this world through hard work and dedication using one’s natural abilities. I really don’t know if this is the case.
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Very interesting article. I went to a BS in UK that was founded before Shakespeare was born, and was something of a rarity in that it accepted bright kids from less advantaged backgrounds. Probably one of the only ‘Public schools’ (in the British sense - think Eton, Harrow etc) - that did not accept rich families. American schools are moving towards the British elitism, and my alma mater has moved towards the US system, regrettably. It was funded by an ancient Royal foundation, and subsequent investments. Perhaps the financial shakiness of the last 5-10 years was the last straw. They now seek out and accept full fee-paying students, (and some day pupils!) and International ones too, and the ancient system of advantage to those who needed it most, and would derive most benefit from it, has faded to some extent. The same disadvantage to those seeking FA now occurs there too, although to a lesser extent perhaps.
@britmom5: I never did understand why british boarding schools are considered ‘public’ when they require application for admission. Could you explain why ‘private’ vs ‘public’ is flipped in the British boarding school system?
Ooh, ooh, teacher, I know this one. Isn’t it that they were the first schools open to anyone who could pay, not just the nobility? Britmom5, am I right?
sgopal2 - thats a really good question, and one I’m not sure I can answer accurately - but here’s my understanding of the terminology. In UK, we call what are ‘public’ schools here in US, ‘state schools’, presumably because they are state -funded and bound by state regulations. We also have ‘private’ schools, or ‘independent’ schools, that usually have their own governing bodies and rules etc, and maybe don’t have the same state regulations (not sure about that). We also have ‘Prep’ schools - but these were usually for kids aged 8-13, sometimes boarding, sometimes not, and were preparatory for Public schools , which usually began at age 13. I think Public schools were called that because they were open to any pupil, regardless of religion, region or occupation, and were answerable to a wider body of governance than the private schools that were more of a for-profit operation. I now have to do some research to determine accuracy. Watch this space…
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/482497/public-school This is what Encyclopedia Brittanica says