<p>Any thought on this link a fellow prep school parent just forwarded to me? She found it through a reference to the Forbes’ list of top prep schools (which is based largely on matriculation stats). Without naming my son’s school, I was disappointed to see where his school fell on the list. If you click on the home page of the site, you’ll see how they came up with their rankings.
[Boarding</a> School Stats : Matriculation Stats](<a href=“http://matriculationstats.org/boarding-school-stats]Boarding”>http://matriculationstats.org/boarding-school-stats)</p>
<p>This is how we spend our time waiting for that April 1st notification!</p>
<p>A CC Prep school poster put up the “matriculation stats” website. IIRC, he chose to send his son to Stuyvesant. </p>
<p>The thing is, colleges admit students, not high schools. Some high schools have “great college placement,” but they don’t reveal how many candidates were “hooked.” They also don’t reveal how many students applied to each college. For example, let’s say 6 students got into an Ivy. The situation looks very different if 30 students applied, than if 9 students applied. And how would you feel if you found out that that particular high school did not permit certain students to apply to certain colleges? Or, told the families “the school will not support the application?” Relying too much on “stats” is not wise, in my opinion.</p>
<p>I started this thread because I was surprised when a friend told me about the no call rule at his child’s prep school. However, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently read an interview from the Director of the CCO at PA stating that most highly selective colleges enforce the no call rule because they are too swamped with applications to accept calls regarding individual students. </p>
<p>Prior to reading this interview, I, too, would have said that prep schools make advocacy calls in some, not all, circumstances. However, this interview comes from an unimpeachable source who indicates otherwise in the case of “most” highly selective colleges. As “most” does not mean all, there may be some highly selective colleges that accept calls. </p>
<p>There are unanswered questions regarding this policy. For example, what constitutes a highly selective college? Is it restricted to the top 15 universities and top 5 liberal arts colleges? Or does it have a wider application? Then, of course, there is the question of whether and to what extent less selective colleges permit advocacy calls?</p>
<p>I raise these issues because this no call rule appears to create a restriction on advocacy that I, at least, was not aware of until I read this interview. Hence, I thought I should bring it to everyone’s attention. In my view, transparency is a good thing. I hope prep schools provide it.</p>
<p>@jmilton: Transparency IS a good thing, but can schools announce such a no call policy officially when they do occasionally make such a call? Wouldn’t people appeal for another type of transparency, which is - in what cases do those calls occur? </p>
<p>@Periwinkle: I’d be cautious making the conclusion that college matriculation differences between schools are simply “hooks” doing magic. When there’s no solid data supporting either side of the argument, it’s like guessing whether there’s a person behind a closed door - you can’t say there is just as you can’t say there isn’t with certainty. The truth of matter is that nowadays no matter where you are, without any hook - whether it’s a hook born with or a “developed hook” - the shot to the most selective colleges is very long. In the BS world, hooks are everywhere and not just in BS with good matriculation records. A while back, a CC’er did a survey asking parents who were Ivy+ alums on prep school forum to vote whether they wanted their kids to follow their footsteps. Many posters indicated that they had graduated from such a college and few of them were from the acronym schools. Note that I am not denying the effect of hooks but it seems a stretch to try to explain away just with “hooks” the fact that a big school like Andover with 300+ graduates each year year after year consistently sends more students <em>in terms of percentage of the student body</em> to Ivies+ and other top schools. It is also a stretch to imply that somehow these Ivy+ schools are far less popular of a choice to other prep school students especially those in the east coast.</p>
<p>The crux of the problem is that privileged parents of entitled students can’t sway the deck in their kid’s favor in quite the same ways as they could in the past and that they think they should be able to. Too bad ain’t it? The leg up that should accompany going to an elite high school is getting a better education than the kid may have otherwise. That should help the kid establish a list of accomplishments that knock the socks off of admissions officers-thereby earning the kid a slot on the college’s roster. When it doesn’t, that student is less deserving than others not more! How is it that little Suzy who attended Privilege-Be-Us Prep and had to focus only on academics for 4 years still can’t submit an amazing AMC score, submit his/her Intel prize winning paper, straight 800s on all SATs, etc when Johnny Without was capable of submitting those things which were accomplished between shifts at McDs and while watching 3 siblings for a parent working another shift at that same company. Do you really think a call from an advocate will make Little Suzy seem more entitled than the other kids on the waiting list. The leg up that comes with hotsy totsy schools should end with the kid. It is up to Suzy. If she thought that the fact that her family already has all the goodies will somehow open college doors without her having to do at least as much as everyone else who beats out the competition, she deserves to be disappointed because she is still not educated. And to the parents complaining, if you are smart enough to earn that kind of money, you are smart enough to know that even the most prestigious high school diploma can’t guarantee entry into college because those schools don’t own the colleges and because there are too many kids deserving of slots in top notch colleges to justify giving slots to kids who had access to the very best prep school education but could still not muster up the same credentials as those that did not. Or maybe these parents aren’t smart enough because they inherited the money and were legacies at the schools they attended also. Games changed!</p>
<p>Ha ha. This one really gets me: "For better or worse, my friend feels that the $200,000 he has paid for his daughter’s education merits this advocacy, especially because the school touts its college matriculation rates. By contrast, I don’t think a paying student should be given preferential treatment over a financial aid student in this or any regard. "</p>
<p>And how about if the tuition is “180,000”? ha ha. How much do you need to spend to feel entitled to even more privilege then you already have? The money spent was to buy a better education not to buy clout (in the form of advocates). Sorry. If your kid can’t muster up the kind of credentials others from public school submit, your kid should choose a college that is more consistent with his/her aptitude. What is the advocate saying? Does the advocate call up and say “Little Spoiled Suzy is having a fit because she really really wants to go to Harvard and her mommy is really really really ****ed? So please give her a spot.” Go look at the complaints by students at Ivy League schools who are unhappy. What do they complain about? The students that surround them that got into the schools because they are legacies or used someone else’s clout to get them in. The spoiled entitled rich kids who do not deserve to get in, don’t have the level of achievements that suggest they will make the most use of their Ivy education, don’t contribute to the college atmosphere in a positive way and detract from the college experience for serious scholarly students who earned their slot the way they should have.</p>
<p>ahh. tigermotherroar is disappointed to see her school was not high on the list. Poor thing. This thread just reeks? Good god what makes you people think your child is better than all the others that are waiting to hear about the same colleges?</p>
<p>pwalsh, thank you but no. I’m not a college counselor. I just have an aversion to those that think their money should buy their children entry into colleges that they can’t get into on their own even after having every privilege possible. Those entitled kids take slots from other kids who have earned the right to attend a competitive college. They should not be denied in favor of money bags with no brains. There is probably a 50 point spread in IQ between the mean for those that get into Ivy Plus colleges by earning their slots vs those that are legacies and/or get in by pulling some sort of leverage. If you have paid 200K to send your child to a school with a reputation of excellence and he or she can’t get into a competitive school that should tell you a lot about the type of school your kid should be going to and it ain’t Yale!</p>
<p>And no, I wouldn’t be working for a boarding school. I think it best to raise ones own children rather than shipping them off. Just personal preference but I wouldn’t and don’t work for a boarding school.</p>
<p>More importantly, why are you (@stateissue) on an online bulletin board for PREP SCHOOL ADMISSIONS? If you are so anti-prep school why you would torture yourself reading about it… am confused…</p>
<p>I respect your choice to educate your child in the manner you choose. The path that works for your family. So why not give me the same respect?</p>
<p>The other factor that you have to keep in mind is that there is a strong bias by most college AOs to chose the student from the less advantaged background, whenever possible. All things being equal, or even less than equal, HPY would rather admit the kid from a lower-middle class family who had to overcome adversity than a superior candidate from an elite boarding school who hails from a more economically successful family. This urge to social engineer and remove “class bias” is very strong. There is simply no way that my DS, who is in the top 10% of his class at a HADES school and a captain of a varsity team, is less qualified for HPY than most anyone HPY will accept from the public schools, yet my view is that the odds will be against him when he applies next year. Reverse “class bias” is very real and a major impediment. It’s crazy how the world has been turned upside down since I went to boarding school. Back then 2/3 of my class went to four schools – HPY and Dartmouth.</p>
<p>^If your son is a recruitable athlete, he will have a big advantage. Being a varsity captain - not so much, unless he has the athletic talent behind it. His grades WILL help him, his status as a male WILL give him a slight advantage over an equally qualified female. I know plenty of full-pay white males getting into Ivies. Most have a hook of some sort, however, most commonly sports or another highly developed talent that makes them desirable. There are so many kids looking to attend Ivies that some hook is needed in addition to stellar grades.</p>
<p>100% agree with both Devolution and creative1. Great grades, test scores, and President of a club alone won’t do it anymore. Have to have some hook (whether it be recruitable athlete, or demonstrated high accomplishment in some academic or other EC). And regarding applying from a BS, I would go even further and say that student must somehow address the issue of perceived advantage in the application. Even though there are a number of students at BSs that attend on scholarship, or come from typical middle income families, the silver spoon perception nonetheless exists, and is definitely not looked upon favorably in college admissions.</p>
<p>skibum4 - I actually think the applicant from BS has an advantage. If you are that applicant with the hook - recruited athlete, URM, highly developed talent - having graduated from a top-notch, rigorous BS can be a plus. The college knows you are very likely to have the skills to be successful at their institution, academically and in terms of managing the independence that comes with college. The colleges want kids who will be successful and not flunk out. BS kids have already proven they can handle life without mom and dad.</p>
<p>To add to the last few posts – in terms of recruited athletes – since there is such a small number of recruitable slots allowed to each Ivy coach in non-helmet sports, all else being equal, the coach would rather give that slot to a non-BS kid. Primarily because the coach knows that the BS kid will most likely quit at the end of the first year, since its virtually impossible to maintain a high gpa in a tough major and do D1(Ivy) sport. And coaches know that the BS kids are there for the education/grades. Exceptions obviously abound as there are exceptional among the great athletes at BS (could count on one hand) or the many pg’s that are at BS to pad the teams. And in some sports, if you arent home schooled in order to concentrate your every waking moment on sport, you can forget about Ivy recruitment.</p>
<p>Experience at our kid’s boarding school suggests that athletes have an edge because they are from boarding school–because the kids get through Ivy admissions much more easily. Based on what I’ve seen in the past two years, it looks like a pretty solid hook (for top athletes.)</p>