<p>17% of new freshman class is from New England. At info session, woman said less than 1/3 of those from private schools. I would think this helps end the argument that HADES helps you get into IVY. She did note that 20 years ago it was almost 50 percent</p>
<p>P’Dad: These are sobering stats. The private school % looks quite low. Do they include all private schools (BS, Day, Catholic,…)? Do you have stats for other Ivey colleges? How did the other regions (west, midwest, southeast, middle atlantic) do in admissions?</p>
<p>I would suggest that HADES/private schools help kids get into Ivies. (Ex: For the past five years, over 25% of PA grads enrolled into Ivy League schools. See matriculationstats.org.) These schools just don’t help as much as they once did…but they still help.</p>
<p>you also have to take into account how many less private schools there are than public…</p>
<p>IMO after you peel everything away that you will find underneath a pronounced undercurrent of liberalism within the Ivy elite that has always been present but a lot more prevalent today then ever before. My Grandmother use to say “go to Harvard and turn left”. Recently I’ve heard every one is getting A’s at Harvard and the hardest part is just getting in. Now just a thought but I believe it’s possible that with that left leaning attitude comes a prejudice towards the private schools.</p>
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<p>Toombs61, PA stats aren’t valid across all BS and other private schools.</p>
<p>OPS, I don’t think liberal undercurrent of faculty is anything to do with admissions as it has probably existed for decades. I just think public schools may have improved over the years and with the internet access public school kids know more of what Ivies expect for admission such as ECs etc. I think it is just pure competition, no sinister school policies.</p>
<p>@Pulsar
I prefer your explanation over my knee jerk thought.</p>
<p>I don’t think P’Dads info proves anything. Of the folks accepted to Harvard or other ivies from New England boarding schools, they are not all going to be from the New England area and the 17% will not capture everyone who graduated from boarding school and attends Harvard. So, if you are a resident of CA, but graduated from SPS will Harvard count you in the New England group or as a resident of CA?</p>
<p>But what I really want to know (just rhetorically, so no long disertations please) is why so much obssession on proving/disproving that boarding school is the best/worst path for getting into an Ivy. Boarding school is a wonderful experience for the right kid, regardless of what college they choose at the end of the experience.</p>
<p>BS may be a wonderful experience, but at a cost. Cost of tuition, cost of leaving home etc. I know a lot of parents that send their kids to BS so that their kids get into good colleges. So this discussion is relevant for these parents who need to know the current realities of college admissions.</p>
<p>It’s important to realize that Harvard is not the first choice - or a choice at all - for many boarding school students. At my kid’s school, it is not among the top 5 schools to apply to. Even among those that do apply and get accepted at Harvard, several choose other schools each year.</p>
<p>I think the statistics that we have heard about on this very forum over and over and over or on matriculationstats.org prove that nearly all of the students from bs “get into good colleges”.</p>
<p>emdee, This used to be the case. P’Dad’s stats show that that’s no longer the case.</p>
<p>I disagree, the stat cited by P’Dad’s lacks depth or context. Only if you define getting into a good college as getting into an ivy would you argue that the boarding schools are not doing a good job at college placement. As far as I am concerned they are doing a phenomenal job at educating kids and ensuring they attend “good colleges”.</p>
<p>The info on matriculationstats.org is fairly current. This data shows that the top BS’s remain strong in placing kids in the top colleges in the country, although these BS’s may not be as dynamic in Ivy League enrollment now as they were a few decades ago. But, as many have noted on CC, some of the Ivies (Cornell, Brown, Penn, etc.) are not as appealing as they once were, at least when compared to other fine schools these days.</p>
<p>emdee,
Will admit that Yale’s private and parochial and “home school” (ie non public) is higher, but hard to differentiate the private from the rest.
Harvard is from area applying from (and adcom stated that that is usually, but not always their school and not home. Someone who has spent 4 years going to school at Exeter is going to be looked at as New England and not the home state of Hawaii…)</p>
<p>Thus at Harvard and others, the percentage of HADES schools admitted has dropped - who knows where they have gone to. It is also true that the HADES have changed from “DEMANDING” grads go to IVYs to go to good schools. You are now seeing the Dickinson and other small liberal art schools as matriculated which you did not in the past.</p>
<p>Thus, while private schools are great if they provide something that your home school does not (which it does in my daughter’s case) – they do NOT increase chance of getting into IVYs which they used to.</p>
<p>So, you asked “why start this topic with above info”</p>
<p>The reason is that as you have seen if you have been here long enough - many parents and kids think that Exeter will give them better chance than “level two” school than public school. That is not the case any more. Whether they will give them a “better” education is also debatable. They will give them a different education and their classmates may be better motivated than those at home - but they will also miss meeting the of the kids that become home builders, mechanics, etc which is a big shame.</p>
<p>Princess Dad makes some good points. Also, diversity aside, the student body at a top tier school is not really representative of the general population. </p>
<p>My daughter wishes to belong to a body of students that are all academically high achieving. This is probably the biggest reason she is applying to (select) boarding schools. Not because she wants to go to Dartmouth ( long story, please dont ask 
) because she can do that from her public school too. </p>
<p>The top colleges and universities (if that is your goal) will consider where you are “coming from” . The idea that one needs to go to an independent school to get a leg up is false, as they are almost all built on the ideal of a meritocracy. Even being a so called “legacy” carries a fraction of the weight it did in an applicant’s grandparent’s day.</p>
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<p>…that’s still a sobering statistic. Having never been in a private school environment, I will have to make a large amount of adjustments this fall.</p>
<p>Princess’Dad why do you insist to come on here and put down HADES? Lets face it, a school that has teachers educated at Ivy’s, Stanford, and elite colleges will probably provide a better education than a public school. Notice I said probably, not for sure. We could look at this like applying to grad school. Will it help more to apply to Harvard Law School from Dartmouth or Oregon University? College Admissions know that the kids in HADES have already gone through a very selective admissions process, and the college counseling offices have contacts at all the Ivy’s.
Am I saying it would be better to go to a HADES than a lesser school in my own opinion? Yes
Am I saying that kids who do not go to a top prep school are at disadvantage when applying to Ivys? No
PD, what have any of the HADES’s schools done to you?</p>
<p>“The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deirde it, but in the end; there it is.”-Winston Churchill</p>
<p>KC
I was one two of those med school adcoms and looked no more favorably at kids who came from Harvard vs U of Tenn who had compatable grades, MCATs etc. I was also on Stanford’s Univ adcom as a student in the 70s and privates (their at least) had no more input than public and knowing the folks there now, I would believe the same holds true now. You need to follow your own Churchill advice - the truth is incontrovertible no matter what you believe.</p>
<p>I came from one of the IVY*s and did I have a better education than wife who came from State School. I had three Nobel Prize winning professors in small classes - all of which were terrible teachers but gave insights on “why they did things”. For me who liked to read the text and not go to classes if I understood the stuff and loved the Socratarian method - it was great. My wife likes a prof who could teach the subject so reading and rereading text was not required and did better in State school.</p>
<p>Teachers at private schools have great degrees in the subjects (you still get the occasional “coach” who teaches too) but they dont have training as teachers as those do in public schools. For the child who does not require a great “teacher” but does well in discussions, then a private school and then IVY will do them better. For the child who does better with a great teacher, the opposite may well hold true.</p>
<p>As an aside, I do not have anything against the HADES, etc. I do have something against those on the board who declare that x school is better than y school and that if a kid goes to z they will never succeed. The HADES of today are better than that of yesterday when parents demanded 100% IVY so school demanded that of their students (ie, don’t go to Juliard as it will hurt our numbers)</p>
<p>Sadie
Off topic. Have you been to Dartmouth. We just visited with oldest and it was not what I thought. Not quite as “independent” as Brown, but close.
eg: required PE - can take speed reading as credit. Required science - can take dinosaurs as credit.</p>