<p>An interesting study.</p>
<p>"....we set out to answer this question: Does an education at a relatively expensive private school constitute a wise investment for students seeking admission to the nation’s 20 top colleges, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report in their influential National University Rankings?"</p>
<p>The conclusion is pretty much that yes, it did 50 years ago, and still does. Or at least as of 2009.</p>
<p>It’s very interesting…and would be much more interesting if there was some sort of control group of equally capable high school students who did not attend a prep school so that we can say whether there’s a difference on account of the school or if the matriculation trends are determined by the pools of students who get past the admission process. I wish we could see how well students fared in the college admission game if they were offered admission to these prep schools but declined. </p>
<p>All this tells us is that students at these schools do well in terms of college matriculation. We still have no idea if it’s the schools that make the difference, do we?</p>
<p>Thanks for posting and sharing this!</p>
<p>And take out the legacies and athletes and super rich/famous and URMs - I would like to see impact for UMC/MC kids with no hooks or racial diversity or special talent.</p>
<p>While I do not doubt that going to a leading private school is correlated with going to a top college, I think this analysis misrepresents an important truth: a much lower % of total kids are getting into the top universities/LACs than used to. Said another way, the top universities/LACs seem less interested in admitting students from HADES schools than they once did. I went to a HADES school in the mid 1970’s. At that time over half the graduating class each year went to the Ivy League itself. In my class alone, 14 kids went to Yale. I looked at last years’ placement in my alumni magazine and only about 25% of the kids went to an Ivy League school. A bunch went to schools that are neither top national universities nor top 10 LACs. </p>
<p>I believe what has happened is that a “level the playing field” bias now permeates the faculties and admissions departments of these schools. In a (progressive) quest to include kids who did not have the opportunity to attend an elite private school, they are taking students who may be less prepared academically, less experienced living away from home, less well rounded, and with lower SAT scores. It is unlikely, for example, that a college will find kids better than the top 50% of SPS – yet the top 50% of SPS no longer go to top universities/LACs. According to many comments on this board, the quality of the student bodies at the top private boarding schools has never been higher, yet their admit rates to top schools/LACs have never been lower.</p>
<p>I believe this bias against “privilege” has been going on since the late 1980’s and it has never been stronger than today. How did the world get so turned upside down? If this trend continues, it will be irrational to send your kid to private school – instead you will need to go to public school and pretend not to have had any “privilege.”</p>
<p>While I’m not a fan of class warfare, Devolution makes some good points. I agree that the elite universities/college believe they are on a mission to devalue privilege. That means devaluing the students of elite boarding schools. And it seems like the elite boarding schools are doing the same thing to graduates of the elite primary schools. The Occupy Wall Street crowd has taken over admissions departments!</p>
<p>Your agrument should be actually reversed. You had an easy ride back in the day. You have no evidence that colleges take less qualified non-privileged kids. With the improvement in public schools and internet leveling the playing field about EC opportunities, colleges can easily fill their classes only with qualified public school kids. They still take BS kids because of past connections, otherwise there would be even less BS kids at top colleges. Look at the stats posted by PS kids on colleges section of CC. So yeah the privileged kids are still taken care of, though to a lesser extent. Don’t forget that test based schools like TJ and Stuyvesant are filled with asian kids (no special treatment for privileged kids).</p>
<p>Perhaps I am being naive, but I believe that there is no way a public schooler on average, no matter how high his test scores are, is the equal of a strong student out of Exeter, SPS, Hotchkiss, etc., on average. They just can’t be. They have not lived on their own, they have not had the intense mentoring that goes on 24/7 at a strong boarding school, they have not been compelled to play 3 sports, they have not had the quality of resources and expereinces these schools provide, they have not hung out with (on average) very sophisticated people, they are not polished in their demenor, etc. I lived for a while in North Carolina and got to know the NCSMS. Those kids had high test scores and were very smart. But they were also – dare I say it – nerdy and unsophisticated (flame me, but that’s the reality). In the real world, the boarding school graduate is much better prepared for success. How many asian/NCSMS/etc. math/science geniuses are on Wall Street? How many are leading fortune 100 companies? How many are at white shoe law firms? What exactly are colleges selecting for today?</p>
<p>College matriculation is not synonymous w college acceptance. A contributing factor to why Ivy matriculations have decreased lately at the top BS is exorbitant cost. All the top colleges now practice the High Cost/High Aid model. The rate of inflation of their tuition has increased faster than that of even healthcare!</p>
<p>DS is at the top of his class at a very selective BS, but I have not encouraged him to consider a single Ivy school: the Ivy’s do not give merit aid. Given the option of only fullpay at Cornell or possible substantial merit aid at Carnegie-Mellon, I don’t see the cost benefit of Cornell, especially since DS is likely to go on to a graduate or professional school.</p>
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<p>If those unsophisticated nerds find a cure for cancer, people will darn want it.</p>
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<p>A lot of these nerds are all over wall street. Many of them don’t want to be lawyers anyway, cause who would need them? Looks like your data/knowledge is outdated, imo.</p>
<p>Agree with pwalsh about that last quote from Devolution. I’d add that it might be wise to wait a few more years before we judge the ability of the current graduating classes to lead Fortune 100 companies and law firms. </p>
<p>The irony, as I see it, is that many of the top boarding schools are themselves striving for socioeconomic and ethnic diversity. I suspect top schools could still recruit as they once did from these schools and maintain their commitment to a diverse student body. </p>
<p>That said, I think that in addition to the increased costs of those top 20 schools, students and college counselors are looking beyond the last generation’s best schools and picking schools for particular programs, geography, size as well as merit aid. Nothing wrong with expanding horizons…good educations are to be found in many places.</p>
<p>Devolution, boarding school kids are a tiny minority in today’s elite college applicant pool. Top students from top boarding schools are competing for the limited spots in elite colleges with top students from the super competitive magnet schools, private day schools and a few very good public schools, all of which have highly self select student body (yes even the top public schools often located in very expensive zip codes do). Colleges do value the training and experience rigorous boarding schools provide their students with, which is partly why we still see significantly higher Ivy matriculation rates in these schools. However, I do not believe the students top colleges selected from other types of schools in the above mentioned categories are any less capable, and yes many “nerds” are working on Wall Street, who have the quantitative analysis skills Wall Street need nowadays.</p>
<p>That is not the end of the story though. Whether you call it “level the field” or “look for potentials”, you are right that top colleges do make great efforts to find capable students from other background. These students are considered having great potential but because of their circumstances could not have achieved as much as those mentioned above. This practice ensures the desirable diversity in elite colleges. And it IS affecting the top college acceptance rates in many other types of competitive schools in addition to top boarding schools.</p>
<p>I guess the question begged by Benley, is why leading private schools were once a significant portion of the “elite college applicant pool” and today the are “a tiny minority”. Is it a failure of the leading private schools to keep up or is it that suddenly, over the past 20 years, out of nowhere, an enormous number of extrodinarily talented students have materialized? Or, as asserted above, that the talent is all about the same as it ever was and there is a bias against the leading private schools?</p>
<p>Seriously, why would colleges have a bias against private schools? They want qualified candidates regardless of where they come from, public or private. You need to look at the problem upside down. Previously the private school kids are given preference which less so now, not the other way around.</p>
<p>While I would not want to argue that declining admission rates to elite colleges are due only to anti-private school bias, it is not unreasonable to believe it is a contributing factor. Few would argue that there is a strong metatrend in the U.S. by educators and government elites against economic “privilege”, against the economic success of top wage earners, against wealthy parents passing their success along to their children by providing them with a superior education, and against successful institutions and corporations that produce this wealth (e.g., pharmaceuticals, energy, Wall Street, etc.). I clearly saw this at my kids’ grade school and I read it every day in the paper. Would an elite college have a bias towards choosing a relatively well qualified, but not amazing kid from a tough background over a better qualified Exeter/SPS student? Would they make this choice because they want to level the playing field?</p>
<p>Were, as some apparently believe, Exeter/SPS/etc. students really less qualified 20 years ago and were given undeserved preference at top colleges? I again ask the question posed in my post above. Something has clearly changed and it’s not the quality of Exeter, SPS, etc.</p>
<p>Oldmacdonald, elite colleges used to have a much smaller applicant pool. Many more capable kids out there either didn’t know about these colleges or thought rightly or wrongly that they were out of reach. The changes in the admissions policies and practice have expanding their access to a larger talent pool. So what you see as a decline of the top college admits in private school is at least partly the result of higher selectivity. As for the diversity factor, it can be considered a “change of perspective” I guess, meaning the colleges have “modifed” the way applicants are evaluated.</p>
<p>Incidentally, there’s a related article on today’s Yale Daily News.
[Yale</a> sets sights on low-income outreach | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/09/09/yale-sets-sights-on-low-income-outreach/]Yale”>Yale sets sights on low-income outreach - Yale Daily News)</p>
<p>That is a very interesting article Benley. If other schools start going the way of Yale – and I think many have even if they have not come out and said it – this could create an existential crisis for expensive private schools. Why would you drop $240K on high school if they have a bias for lower income, less advantaged candidates? It’s maybe OK if a few of the top schools think this way, but what happens if the top 20 LACs and the Ivy+another 10 or so of the top universities think this way. It could then influence the next tier too. I know there are benefits to boarding school beyond the placement, but let’s face it, being disenfranchised because of where you go to school in not cool and at some point it all could become counter productive.</p>
<p>The better strategy may be to hang low and understate any advantages. Go to a weak public school, get lots of private tutoring and summer enrichment (but don’t ever mention it), get lots of SAT coaching, etc. and then apply as a stealth “average” kid.</p>
<p>Whoever said BS kids’ spots are given to low income kids? Those spots for the low income kids may very well be coming out of qualified kids from good public schools.</p>
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<p>This is trying to game the system. But you won’t be able to do this, as being rich, you are locked into your zipcode for ps options.</p>
<p>Lower income, less advantaged does not always mean less qualified. As higher income, more advantaged does not always mean more qualified.</p>
<p>Devolution, suggests no way a public schooler could compete with a student out of “UNAMEIT PREP”.</p>
<p>I disagree. I think the public schooler living at home, with supportive and involved parents, has an easier time finding and cultivating a demonstrable passion - for example science fairs, and science competitions, or a niche sport like fencing. Parental legwork getting these activities organized, arranging for travel, and TIME to devote to them, are both sorely lacking in the average prep schooler. Increasing numbers of public schoolers are dual enrolled in local colleges, for example.</p>
<p>Playing 3 school sports, massive homework and living in the prep school bubble have advantages, but unique activities and passions that require individual time and/or travel away are NOT SUPPORTED by most boarding schools, and most students trying to maintain these interests realize it is not possible.</p>
<p>A savvy, involved “Tiger” parent can go far beyond prep school based opportunities, and encourage and help their child reach demonstrated excellence in a passion. Highly selective colleges like demonstrated passion, and have seen enough “well-rounded” moderately talented athletic/academic prep schoolers that they have an acronym for them NWRK (nice well-rounded kid). No longer rings the admissions bell.</p>
<p>The bottom line - where you are it’s not gonna be easy. Elite college admission has become such that they only take top students from the “sub-pools” of their applicant pool. Competitive schools such as top boarding schools, nationally or locally well-known day schools and magnet schools may see a higher percentage of their graduting classes get selected but it’s hardly if any benefit or advantage considering the overall quality of their student body is so much better than a lower tier school. Elite boarding schools used to be a surer bet for solid academic prep for college, early started training for acceptable mainstream social behavior, connections with peers who are more likely to aspire for the same things as you do and therefore more likely to cross paths with you in the future, AND a prestigious college to go to after graduation. Nowadays, they still pretty much deliver most of those things mentioned above except the last - or at least one needs to modify the list of prestigious colleges that used to be acceptable to include more universities and LACs to make it true. This is the reality. I think every family should make sure they know ahead of their student’s boarding school journey what they have signed up for, and decide whether it’s worth the cost. </p>
<p>As for “gaming the system”, well there’s only so much you could do. Just remember anything you can think of, thousands of others have thought of it and tried. The admit rate doesn’t lie and the process is just not predictable, in most cases not even one day before March 28 and certainly not 3 or 4 years before that. Let’s say low income, or URM kids do indeed get some preferential treatment, would you be willing to switch positions with them just to get that possible advantage? Even if you would, well you probably couldn’t. You are who you are. That said, there are always people who successfully game the system, so don’t lose hope. ;)</p>