<p>The URM issue gets very complicated. Who is a minority, and who is under-represented these days in secondary and higher education?</p>
<p>At Exeter, for example (because I know it best), 55% of the student body are “students of color”, and around 50% of all students receive financial aid. </p>
<p>While Asians are well represented, so are Hispanic and African American students, and all possible combinations of the above from all over the world. The diversity on campus is very striking, and is certainly one of the things Exeter is very proud of. If there is a dwindling minority, it is white upper and upper middle class students.</p>
<p>ALL the students are getting a great education, working hard and doing well (they were carefully selected to ensure that), and frankly for my Ds generation, racism is simply not part of her school experience. </p>
<p>Her excellent home public school was also 55% “minority” and socio-economic status seemed much more important than race in predicting achievement.</p>
<p>Many “URMs” coming out of elite boarding schools and high quality prep and public school systems these days are very strong college applicants. I think colleges are starting to broaden their considerations to include first generation college applicants, individual challenges and backgrounds, and socioeceonomic status in addition to minority status.</p>
<p>Agree with everything 2prepmom said. Ivys are designed to accommodate both PS and BS kids and one could even argue that the HADES kid is over-prepared and possibly less inspired as a freshman. it is harder to follow quirky interests at BS too - my DD had to give up her sport at BS and she was competing nationally. Plus she was on an AP track and is unlikely to qualify for APs at her new BS. Her chances at a name college are realistically far better at her PS but we believe the BS experience is worth the trade-off. </p>
<p>But if you think the PS kids are not going to equal the HADES kids performances in college, I definitely disagree. How many of us BS grads can say we outperformed the PS kids when we were in college? I would say any advantage I had leveled out by Xmass break freshman year. </p>
<p>As for playing 3 sports, top public school athletes are not able to do this often because they are training year round to play in elite leagues in just one sport. If you are looking for a star baseball player you just might find the PS athlete better trained and more competitive. Well- rounded is not as valued today as depth of experience. An URM who can pay full tuition is very attractive too and there are plenty at all the top schools both BS and PS</p>
<p>I’m not sure what you mean Benley, but I agree with your other posts - one big difference is that the applicant pool is so much wider now. The point I was trying to make - and didn’t most likely- was that from a college’s point of view, I’m not convinced that most view the boarding school experience as compelling a reason to admit a student as they may have in the past, possibly because the well-rounded kid is no longer as in vogue as the kid who has had more flexibility to follow a different path or to delve more deeply into one passion and who brings something unique to the table ie a better “hook.” </p>
<p>That said, as parents, we chose to forgo the advantage of a possible hook and a potentially more impressive transcript (on paper!)in order for our child to receive what we believe to be the best education which, for us, is undoubtedly at boarding school. Last year our DD had 27 kids in her Spanish class, this year at BS she has 6. I’m certain she is getting a more rigorous education and personal attention at BS and that she will benefit greatly from the additional independence, great peer group etc. that only a BS provides. And she will be well-rounded. Is it going to help her get into an Ivy - probably not now that she is with sophomores from Shanghai who take linear algebra while she takes geometry. If she gets into a LAC is she going to outperform a public school kid in any meaningful way that would matter significantly to the college? Who knows-she had some pretty amazing teachers in public school too. But our family does believe boarding school is the richer environment for her right now, and I’m sure many wonderful opportunities will arise for her there. We are thrilled she has this opportunity, but she did have to give up something to get there - that’s just life. Hope this helps clarify. </p>
<p>(Also there is nothing negative about being over-prepared for the child, just not sure that it’s an important advantage to the college, although certainly they want kids to hit the ground running and a boarding school child is likely better equipped to do that. They have already handled college level demands, dorm life etc. hence the boredom for some freshman year )</p>
<p>Why wouldn’t doing well in a high-class boarding school be in and of itself a “hook.” You would think that tons of schools would drool to get Andover/Exeter type kids, as they bring a whole wealth of history, connections, and experience to a college that cannot be replicated at your garden variety high school. I suppose HYPS gets enough of the BS types to choose from. Because they don’t want their minorities to fail, HYPS probably overweights acceptance of minorities from from the boarding schools who have prepared them well. The caucasian conterparts in the BS probably suffer in admissions as a result. The colleges will then take the caucasian superstars from the regular high schools. Don’t you think that is how they work it up there in the Ivies? If it were you, wouldn’t you?</p>
<p>Chemmchimney, very well said! This was exactly our calculus too. Our oldest son is the poster child for the well-rounded kid, he’s very good at a lot of things but not off the charts in any of them, plays mainstream sports well but not exceptionally, etc. We know this may be an issue when it comes time to apply for college (indeed, it was for applying to BS as well), and perhaps we’d do better (in terms of eventual college application outcome) to get him to really hone in on one or two areas and try to seriously excel. But BS is the richer environment for him, and who knows what passions he may discover there. Or maybe he’ll just continue to be a well-rounded, well-educated kid, and we’ll be thrilled with that too.</p>
<p>chemmchimney, maybe I should take part of the blame, but I found your ealier post a little too pessimistic or “out of balance” if you will. And my question didn’t mean to disagree. I was just curious how you figured out the “trade off’s”. Personally, I think rigorous academic training and the influence to a kid’s character in a competitive high school has a long-last beneficial impact (I don’t know how soon the advantage will be “leveled out” in college but frankly that’s not my concern), and a top boarding school offers more than that. However, equally capable students come out of other types of great schools as well, which unfortunately are only available to some families who happen to live close to those options. Such high schools may or may not hurt a kid’s chance of getting in a top college. There are too many individual circumstances to make generalizations. One thing I want to point out though is that from my experience, plenty well-rounded kids (i.e. not a recruited athelete, star musician, or winners of prizes awarded to 100 kids per year…) get in top colleges.</p>
<p>I would suggest that most of these points about who’s better qualified to be admitted are looking at college admissions all wrong…from the perspective of individuals knocking on the door hoping to be invited in, comparing themselves and their personal qualifications to all the others on the outside hoping to get in the door. </p>
<p>The college admission officer isn’t seeing it that way at all. She is looking at the overall pool of people she wants to see on the inside and isn’t really comparing public school kid with X background to prep school kid with Y background and devising which one gets in. That’s a false dichotomy. </p>
<p>The admission office isn’t squeezing out prep school kids who are “more deserving” to weaken the class that’s admitted. The admission officer is making the overall student body on the inside stronger by guarding against homogeneity and by actively seeking out a multi-dimensional group.</p>
<p>It’s like making a BLT sandwich. The admission officer wants the best ingredients to make a complete sandwich and once the best bacon has been selected, there’s really no point in pursuing the argument here, in this thread, as to whether the unchosen bacon is a higher quality than the lettuce that the admission officer is selecting. There’s only so much bacon you can load into that sandwich before it’s no longer going to be a decent BLT sandwich. </p>
<p>In the past the Ivies didn’t mind admitting all the bacon. The admission process back then was, I suppose, a matter of simply taking the most attractive applicants until the class was full. Then someone got the idea that they can make the student body stronger by creating a dynamic where the students on the inside are adding value to their peers’ education by bringing something different to the table instead of echoing what is already being discussed.</p>
<p>Think about it as though your child is already a sophomore at a college. Do you want the admission office admitting a pile of kids that are pretty much like him or her, with all the top stats? Or would the value of your kid’s education be more enhanced – would that college be improved – by an admission office that brings in a variety of kids from many regions and many educational backgrounds, even if their stats may not be as stellar as those of some of the kids left on the outside who are very similar to your child on paper?</p>
<p>Admissions officers aren’t choosing the best students. They’re trying to bring in the next 25% of the ideal student body. If that means leaving some Grade A bacon on the counter while they choose the best lettuce and tomato and bread, they’re not losing sleep over it and they’re sure as heck not thinking that their student body is weaker by not being loaded down with boarding school kids. And if you think about it, if there were colleges that admitted students that way, you wouldn’t want your own kid to go there.</p>
<p>College admissions may seem like a contest that should result in the top prizes going to the top applicants. If you’re a so-called top applicant, you might hope that would be the case. And if you are thinking that the system should be fair, then “fair” from the perspective of an applicant would be to take all the top applicants such that nobody who gets in would be viewed as weaker, by comparison, to any of the applicants who were not invited in. But ask yourselves why would colleges do that? Shouldn’t they be expected to be selfish and take the applicants who make the pool of matriculated students the strongest possible pool? Why should they care if, in getting to that desired result, applicants who will be attending other colleges may feel slighted or that their hard work was not rewarded or that they can point to 50 kids who did get admitted with lower test scores? As long as the admission office has delivered the strongest pool of new students to the other 75% of students, they are being fair – to the students already there and to the alumni and other constituencies who want to see the college, as a whole, excel in the myriad ways it engages the world.</p>
<p>I agree that the BS applicant in most cases will not have any advantage over the equally as qualified public school applicant. I also agree with 2prepmom that it is much harder for the BS student to pursue and cultivate a demonstrable passion especially in a sport that requires week-end competition - tennis, squash, fencing etc. BS’s are trending towards no Saturday classes partially for this reason. I do, however, perceive that the URM BS applicant has a distinct advantage over the public school candidate. Not sure how to account for this.</p>
<p>A lot of chatter here about URM boarding school students having an advantage in college admissions… Having watched several cycles, there may be some advantage, however, from my observations, the biggest advantages go to recruitable athletes and children of the ultra rich who are “development” cases.</p>
<p>Definitely not an expert on this, but I’d disagree slightly with creative1. I think the kids with the advantage are (1) athletes (2) URM’s who have done well (B average or better) and (3) kids in the top 5 percent of the class and (4) kids who have done something unusually impressive while in high school. Haven’t seen the development cases factor without one of the other factors kicking in. None of that surprises me much or seems very different from the public school admissions pool–except that at public school, top 5 percent (valedictorian even) is probably less of a hook.</p>
<p>I think the advantages “development cases” enjoy is across the board, and there are at least as many of them in other types of schools as in BS, and BS is not really giving much of a boost to them. That recruited atheletes can get in with lower stats is a known fact, but from my observation it’s getting more and more difficult to be recruited. For some “private school sports” such as crew and squash, BS atheletes may still have advantages but for most other sports not so much. As some posters pointed out, BS students are not best equipped to compete with the locals who have the resources.</p>
<p>Advantages of URM from BS seem obvious. I think the fact that the perceived academic readiness of these BS URM (who are URM in BS as well btw) is enough to get them to the front of the line. Compared with ORM there is simply less competition out there. Since colleges are still in short of qualified URM (hence the name URM), they would love to accept them from BS, who even if with lower “absolute” stats are still a safer bet.</p>
<p>+1 to Benley and D’yer, except I do have direct experience with a recruited athlete and at least for non-helmet sports, kids do not appear to get into Ivies with lower academic stats. The athleticism is just the fork that pulls them out of that slab of bacon. </p>
<p>As for pursuing passions, I think it depends on the passion. There are kids for whom boarding school brings out a passion and allows it to flower–maybe not for fencing or violin, but for economics or rowing or journalism. Just depends on the kid.</p>
<p>@benley and classicalmama, since you seem to be talking about elite colleges only here, from your experience, do unhooked kids who end up in the top 15-20% at elite BS have a leg up in top college admissions in general? By top colleges, I don’t mean only the Ivies+SM because the answer is obviously “no”, but also good schools like JHU, WSU, Berkeley, Michigan, CMU, Georgetown, and top 10 LACs. Are students looked at more favorably than if they had gone to a mediocre private school and been in the top 1-2% there?</p>
<p>@MBV: The best way to find out what your chances are for colleges of certain selectivity is to look at your school’s past matriculation data before you can access Naviance. Once you do get access to Naviance, you will be able to see the academic profiles (gpa and SAT scores) of students accepted to the colleges of your interest in recent years, which is even more helpful. It is hard to say what “percentage cut” would get you into what types of colleges without knowing your school and its tracking record. For example, I believe the top 50% of Andover students would have a solid chance for the top 25 universities and top 15 LACs as ranked by US News (In 2013, 60%+ of its graduating class are matriculating in one of them, which is consistent with previous years). Note though that even with colleges with similar selectivity, some may be more popular than others among students of a certain school and therefore more competitive. Again, the best resource is your school’s Naviance. </p>
<p>As for Ivy+ colleges, I’d say a student in the top 20% of the class of some top schools still has a good chance (For Andover '13, close to 70% of them <em>matriculated</em> in an Ivy, S, M or a top 3 LAC). It is however more unpredictable and often takes more than just grades to make. The higher selectivity of the college (e.g. HYPSM), the more “demanding” it is in terms of other qualifications or hooks.</p>
<p>The last part of your question is even more difficult to answer. “mediocre” can mean a lot of different things to different people, and of course factors such as size and location of said school makes a big difference too. In general though, if you graduate validictorian or close to it from any school that can be called mediocre but not downright lousy, you’d be in an advantageous position. If you are in a position like what you described, <em>purely</em> for the sake of getting in the most selective colleges, I don’t think boarding school is giving you a leg up. But depending on where you are from, I hope you will find many more benefits of going to a good boarding school as many families here do.</p>
<p>@MBV ^^
Yes, I think conventional wisdom supports the idea that boarding school kids in the top 20% get some boost in “good” college admissions, maybe not super-elite HYPSMChicago, but lesser ivies and top 20 universities. </p>
<p>When I’ve looked over Exeter matriculations to HYPSM the last few years, about 1/2 the kids were athletes, and the other half tended to be from the upper 5% (early cum laude). </p>
<p>But these days, matriculations are confounded by the merit aid factor. HYPSM and other ivies give no merit aid. Many kids are choosing state Unis and other generous merit aid programs, because they have graduate or professional school plans. Univ of Alabama has 600 National Merit Finalists matriculating this year, for example, on free rides plus 4000 for expenses and summer projects.</p>
<p>Let’s not get bogged down in anecdotes. A parent’s impression of how well a school does in placement depends a great deal on the child’s closest circle of friends. Naviance only reports GPA and test scores, which leaves out the other activities and characteristics which make a difference for most students. </p>
<p>I found the Porter Sargent article’s data to be less than helpful. Was Penn State a national university in 1957? </p>
<p>Top 5 in 1957: Andover, Exeter, Lawrenceville, Hotchkiss, St. Paul’s.</p>
<p>Top 5 in 2010: Harvard-Westlake, Andover, Hopkins, Horace Mann, Exeter.</p>
<p>(Both in order of # of matriculants. The graphic in the article is worth reading.)</p>
<p>The top 5 in 2010, considered as a group, sent fewer students to Yale than Exeter did in 1957. Three of the five schools in 2010 are day schools–all of the 1957 schools are boarding schools.</p>
<p>Don’t send your child to boarding school in an attempt to cut the line for college admissions. As far as I can tell, that doesn’t work. The most selective schools do very well in college placement, but they admit the early bloomers from wealthy families. I don’t think the students who get into the Ivy League from boarding schools score below 700 on the three sections of the SAT. (Unless they’re nationally-ranked athletes. And even the athletes must meet Ivy League academic standards.)</p>
<p>If your child’s doing well at Horace Mann or Hopkins, changing to Andover is unlikely to boost his chances of admission to Yale. There are lots of good reasons to send a child to boarding school, but a strong candidate from boarding school would also be a strong candidate from a day school or a local public (as long as the local public offers a sufficient academic program.)</p>
<p>Do the math. In 1957, 20 percent of the class came from the five boarding schools named. 56% came from private schools. That means 36% came from other private schools. </p>
<p>In 2010, 44% of the class came from private schools. The top 5 schools in 2010 sent only 3.6% of the class. That means 41.4% came from other private schools. So, MBVloveless, don’t discount the appeal of being at the top of a good private school.</p>
<p>Agree with both Benley and 2prepMom (and Periwinkle, though Periwinkle’s posts nearly always go over my non-statistically, anecdotally oriented brain!). Still I’d still say URM is a bigger factor than 2prep mom thinks in terms the half that is non-athletes (that is, if one is a URM, then top 5% is not necessary; it’s a similar advantage to being an athlete). The URM advantage tends to be one that we approach gingerly around here, but I’m not sure why. I’m not suggesting that we should automatically assume that URM’s are not in the top 5 percent–many are–just that sometimes top 20-30 percent is enough if there are other factors in the student’s background that help explain why. Not sure why we have to dance around that. My kid has an advantage because he has the good fortune to have the genetics that–combined with lots of effort and discipline–allow him to excel athletically. Others come from privileged backgrounds that give them a similar advantage (as a teacher of many poor first-generation college students, I have seen over and over how great an advantage this is–perhaps not the advantage it was 50 years ago, but a great advantage nonetheless). It is only when academic strength is a student’s main “hook” that I think that boarding school MAY put that kid at a disadvantage–if they don’t make the top 5 percent or reinvent the wheel as a teen. But honestly, it’s just plain hard for those kids anyway, no matter where they are. And yes, boarding school will, in my opinion, still give those students the preparation and advising they need to get into an excellent college, that may well suit their particular bends better than HYPSM.</p>