<p>1 is the best and 8 is the worst, so rank these schools! Please!</p>
<p>Phillips Exeter, Phillips Andover, Lawrenceville, Choate, Hotchkiss, Milton Academy, and Taft. Am I missing any other prep schools?</p>
<p>I don't want this to degrade into some type of angry ranking show-down but I'd say generally something like:</p>
<p>Andover, Exeter: 1
Choate:2
Hotchkiss, Milton: 2/3
Lawrenceville: 4
Taft: 5/6</p>
<p>in terms of
-prestige
-resources
-college matriculation
-age
-avg. SAT scores</p>
<p>Prepreview.com is the only place I've ever seen rank. Is anyone a subscriber? They are now blocking the top 15. They're number 1 is SPS, Andover was 3 and Exeter somewhere down the list. Milton was pretty high, Choate not as high as I would have thought but I don't remember the particulars. I believe it's based solely on placement into ivies and Mit and Stanford.</p>
<p>I know a kid who goes to Lawrenceville. He's a chimney. Not that smart either. I know another kid who goes to Choate, who's a really smart, kinda nerdy computer guy.</p>
<p>Assuming that the student body of each school is identical to these randomly picked kids, Choate is better than Lawrenceville. That's about all I can say. Prep schools suck, unless you have no choice other than a really terrible public school system.</p>
<p>Andover/Exeter: T-1
Milton:2
Hotchkiss:3
Choate: 4
Lawrenceville: 5
Taft: 6</p>
<p>and you forgot a lot of other prep schools... (deerfield, groton, millbrook, NMH, etc.)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.auap.com/prepschoolclass.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.auap.com/prepschoolclass.html</a></p>
<p>Everyone of these schools is top notch. The "best" one is the school which provides the optimal fit for you (e.g. size, rural/urban, EC interests, learning style, liberal/traditional. etc.). If your primary interest in attending a prep is to improve your chances of admission to a very selective college, all you have to do is finish in the top 25% of your class (in any of the above named prep's) and participate in a broad range of EC's. The most important part of the prep admission process is the revisit day. These visits will allow students/parents to "try-on" each school to see how it fits. </p>
<p>I think the most important research you can do is to identify the personality of each school. Unfortunately, there is not much published on this subject. Therefore, you will have to network to get as many datapoints as possible on each school. </p>
<p>Think about it. If you are now a 13-year old 8th grader applying for 9th grade, you are in the process of deciding where to spend the next four years of your life. That is almost a third of your current life. If you are an outgoing person who needs large clusters of friends who are prone to frequent impromtu gatherings, and you become part of a student body that allots time solely to classes, sports and study, how happy will you be?</p>
<p>Good luck with your decision. I hope you are admitted everywhere, and that you find the perfect school for yourself.</p>
<p>Phillips Exeter, Phillips Andover 1
Milton Academy 2
Choate 3
Lawrenceville 4
Hotchkiss 5
Taft 6</p>
<p>I agree with Elvenqueen...there a lot of comparable prep schools to the ones already mentioned.</p>
<p>Here is prep reviews top 10
st. paul"s 1
milton 2
groton 3
andover 4
exeter 5
deerfield 6
hotchkiss 7
middlesex 8
lawrenceville 9
choate 10
by the way, taft was #14</p>
<p>Preparent, what do you make of the list? Do you think St. Paul's and Groton are more selective that Andover and Exeter or do they do a better job once the kids get there? Or do they just have the best college counselors? I'm also wondering if their smaller size allows for less diversity in terms of who they accept.</p>
<p>In case you are looking at West Coast prep schools, take a look at Harvard-Westlake, Webb, Harker, St. Ignatius, and Bellarmine.</p>
<p>This list on PrepReview was just based on metriculation. In no way should it be a way to choose one school over another. </p>
<p>Here's my list:</p>
<p>Andover/Exeter:1
choate:2
St. Paul's/Groton:2/3
Milton: 4
Hotchkiss:4
LAwerence: 4
Taft: 5/6</p>
<p>According to boardingschoolreview.com, the acceptance rates are as follows:</p>
<p>Andover: 21%
SPS: 23%
Exeter: 26%
Groton: 28%</p>
<p>ras smooth, in terms of sat scores, taft and choate are just under 1300, hotckiss is at 1300. In terms of matriculation, see my post above. You know, all these schools are so very close. It still comes down to fit. some of you like larger schools, other like myself prefer smaller schools. Schools such as hotchkiss and deerfield,to some, are too isolated. Others like middlesex, loomis, choate, andover are close to bigger cities. You may prefer 100% boarding to 75% boarding numbers. Again, it's all about how see the fit. It's not name, age, sat, etc.</p>
<p>Sure, I understand. Quibbling over rankings is silly... but everyone on this forum seems so dead-set on rankings! You know what, in a year, I think everyone here will be thrilled with where they're going, don't you?</p>
<p>ras smooth, as far as acceptance rates are concerned.... again the top 20 schools are all very close in terms of rates. We all have our biases, my d chose middlesex over the other schools of similar size. No doubt andover and exeter are awsome schools, however, for my d, they were not options, because of their size. Acceptance rate has nothing to do with prepreview matriculation rank. Peddie is a good example, 22% acceptance rate does not correlate with their matric rate. IMHO, these matric ranks mean zip! As for the top 20 lowest acceptance rate schools, if you fit, you can't go wrong with the education these schools offer.</p>
<p>ras smooth, I absolutely agree</p>
<p>kirmum, please check your private messages.</p>
<p>prepparent. i talked to a family that had kids go to Deerfield and Mx. They could not stop raving about mx, even though the dad went to deerfield!</p>
<p>prepparent, what does your d say about the food? It didn't look that good when i was there whereas Deerfield looked great. i know that shouldn't matter but it is another piece of info.</p>