<p>I must say, having watched kids from a wealthy small private gain admittance for years, legacy and family connections are at least as valuable as "standing out."</p>
<p>my public high school has not only had one child get accepted into an IVY in 2003. This might be because a local magnet school is basically 5 minutes away...</p>
<p>Don't know about princeton, duke..
At Stanford and Harvard, supposedly unless you have a building named after you, legacy is only a major tie breaker.</p>
<p>I know three unremarkable but legacy kids at Stanford from back to back years. Alas, one has already dropped out. Too hard for him.</p>
<p>My son will definitely have a better chance of getting into an Ivy from his bs than our local public....maybe one person every three or four years goes to an Ivy from public. Lots of kids from his bs go. The profile is so much more respected and he has a good sports hook. He's not interested in an Ivy, though, because the team isn't as good as some other schools' teams he is interested in.</p>
<p>I guess it really depends on the quality of your local public.</p>
<p>definetly. prep schools give kids the upperhand when it comes to ivies because of their rigorous education and preparation. my mom actually doesn't want me to go to boarding school, but she told me that if i got in she would be proud of me and want me to go but if i wasn't accepted, she told me she would be sad but relieved. i think it's like a journey for the parents as well as the students because their in it together.</p>
<p>PD
If your PHS has 4x as many kids yet yields the same number of kids going to Ivy's, Then going by your own #'s BS increases your chances of Ivy admission by at least 3x .
PHS 4,000. Graduating class= 1,200 students. Student going to Ivy's= 10
MDX 350 students. Graduating class=85. Student going to Ivy's and Stanford=11</p>
<p>Its easier to stand out in a class of 85 students as opposed to a class of 1,200. students.</p>
<p>I have a few lousy HSs in my area that never get kids to Ivies and only graduate 60% of their class. It seems like it would be really easy to stand out there!</p>
<p>You may find yourself in my situation (25 years ago) - admitted to a top Uni from a poor HS as Val, but unable to do the work those kids from prep schools were doing. The moral I took from this story is that it is better to be well educated.</p>
<p>My public school back in New Jersey was the best high school in the county- my brother's best friends went to Columbia, Princeton, etc.
So it really depends on the school and what kind of school is right for you.
Boarding school may be what is best, public school may be what is best :P</p>
<p>Exactly, Grejuni! I graduated 7th in a class of almost 300 in 1978. I attended a top LAC and had a horrible experience. I just could not do the work. I was surrounded by prep school students (my roommate included) who were so much better prepared than myself. I remember sitting in my freshman organic chem class as the professor outlined an equation on the board. People behind me were saying this was the easiest chem class they had had (they had taken two years of chem in high school). I barely passed that class, and this after acing the only chemistry class my local public offered.</p>
<p>As far as standing out in a high school that only graduates 60%....that still might not get you far. At our local high school, if you graduate with a 3.0 average, you might not get into the local public university; if you graduate from my son's bs with a 3.0, it is not difficult to get into a great LAC (as was the case with my older son). Our public hs has a very poor profile and fewer than half of the students were even able to test "proficient" on the recent NECAP tests. And, I live in an upper middle-class, well educated area where most people are college educated and many with advanced degrees. However, it is a small state with few financial resources and public education really suffers.</p>
<p>The classic result from be admitted to a school where you are smart enough, but not prepared enough, is that the tendency is to drop the math and science.</p>
<p>For me, even though I had always been the top math student in my school, Calc I in a large lecture hall was murder. But all the kids around me were taking it for the second time. Uh oh, time to bail out. I don't even want to talk about the science preparation I had in HS. :(</p>
<p>I did well enough in Humanities classes with there small seminar style classes and new material for everyone. But I did give up my plans to continue to upper level science and math. (I graduated with a degree in social sciences.)</p>
<p>Go where the education is best.</p>
<p>I believe if my son was only concerned with getting into a Ivy League College- he should have stayed at our local high school, which every year gets a kid into every Ivy- and top 10% does very well. However, in his case he needed a challenging academic environment- I think he would have been bored at our high school. He had some extraordinary teachers at prep school, and learned to be independent and develop himself and go the direction he wanted to go. I asked him if he ever felt he should have stayed, and he would not have traded the experience for anything. Even the kids don't "compete" in prep school, you are measured against some very strong students, so you need to stand out in some way- and most kids are admitted because they have a strength.</p>
<p>The kids I felt did best in college admissions had a hook (URM, Athletics, not legacy as much) and then coupled it with being successful at BS was pretty compelling. The days of being a straight "academic" admit are really difficult, and these schools want to see you develop more then that, and give you those opportunities. One thing I must caution, there isn't that much time to "study" for SAT, SATIIs and APs- you are spending a lot of time doing school work- so if you don't test well, it could be a little tough- as these tests are more important then they should be.</p>
<p>Now that he's in college (at an Ivy), he has found his preparation was very good and that the four years of learning how to debate, think and compute at a higher level has prepared him for freshman year, and</p>
<p>I agree, go where the education is best. Whether or not our kids get into an ivy, they will go to a very competitive school. And these days, graduate school is necessary in most fields. So if they are well prepared for college, and excel there, more likely that they will get into the top graduate school programs. I went to a highly competitive university (though not ivy), but because of the reasons listed by others here (many other kids better prepared), was only an average student, so went to middle of the road graduate school program. I've often thought its more important to go to a top graduate school, than top college (though if you can do both, fantastic). In the end, I had to work very hard in graduate school to get into a top post-graduate program in my field, and there was a clear divergence of levels of teaching between the top and middle of the road programs, as well as student body. Better that our kids are working to their potential, amongst peers who feel similarly, and be well prepared with the thought of a long future ahead, not just the goal of an ivy. But most of it all, it has to be what they want as well; BS is not for everyone, but for those who are excited by th prospect, it can be an amazing opportunity.</p>
<p>s.martin.up - Congratulations on your son, those are some great schools so it looked like BS worked for you - although I thought you said on another thread that your son was a sophmore.</p>
<p>Also, with respect to your point about Middlesex students being 3times as likely to get into an Ivy - as a noted statistics expert once told me: "there are three kinds of lies - lies, damn lies and statistics." The problem with your figures is that it assumes the pool of Middlesex students is identical to the pool of students at a local HS. As I'm sure you'd agree Middlesex is filled with kids who would stand out academically, athletically, in EC's etc. if they were in a local public school. If 50%-60% of the kids at Middlesex would be in the top 5-10% of their class at a public school maybe attending Middlesex has actually hurt their chances to attend an Ivy League school. As I've said before, ultimately these schools are so competative that it can be a crapshoot for even a top student at a top BS.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If 50%-60% of the kids at Middlesex would be in the top 5-10% of their class at a public school maybe attending Middlesex has actually hurt their chances to attend an Ivy League school.
[/quote]
I guess it goes back to this...
YES, those 50-60% have the POTENTIAL to be in the top 5-10% at a local public school...but would they? I know a good many kids (my son included) who certainly have the ability to be there, but wouldn't.</p>
<p>My son is one of those who would have the potential to be in the top 5% of his local public high school, which does send quite a few kids to the ivies every year. However, I think another 4 years of large classes, discipline problems with many kids, few opportunities to do anything other than the standard ECs, no chance for discussion and debate in classes, and the majority of the kids looking forward to dropping out of HS rather than going to an Ivy would have done him in. (His local public is one of those school within a school -- small IB program that does well, large regular student population that struggles).</p>
<p>He recognized it himself when we started talking about schools in 7th grade -- he was tired of being "the only one" who did his homework, cared about his grades and pursued activities. He wanted to go to school where he could find some like-minded kids.</p>
<p>Now -- I have a feeling that this son will not be interested in an Ivy, but if he was and he worked hard I think he could get in. However, I think at the local public school he would just "give up" and do what was needed to get by. At BS, I think he will find the environment that he needs to support and recognize his efforts. At his current school, they don't like to publically acknowledge the kids who do well and get awards and such -- it makes the other kids "feel bad". Of course, they do recognize those kids who have managed to improve their citizenship by not getting into a fight or staying out of trouble with cigarettes and joints by having a special party for them. My son feels like he is working for nothing -- but when those acceptances came from BS, he realized that someone really does care what he has been doing.</p>
<p>Stef,
Unbelievable. My son's public is the same way. I proposed starting a junior chapter of the National Honor Society and was told by the principal that they were actually doing away with even the honor roll as "putting kids up on a pedestal" made other kids feel badly. Yet, they continue to recognize the trouble-makers for staying out of trouble. It does make kids feel like there really is no point to their hard work.</p>
<p>it is unbelievable -- I said something at the end of 7th grade (my son worked really hard on several things, got several big awards including state and national level and had perfect attendance). They said they felt that it separated the kids according to performance and negatively impacted those kids who were struggling in school. </p>
<p>However, they did give out some kind of "bee" award for those kids who were "improving". My son was upset that he didn't get one of those awards -- they were the only ones acknowledged at school. He said that if had only gotten caught smoking dope in the bathroom and then stayed out of trouble for a month and brought up a couple of F's to D's, he could have gotten one. Why work your butt off for more?</p>
<p>keylyme and hsmomstef
Those anecdotes are very familiar, and make me laugh as long as I imagine them in the abstract: How about an award for girls who manage not to get pregnant? But then it might make the others feel bad. Maybe get rid of "A" grades or give them to everyone? I hate it when people feel bad! How about trophies for the kids who aren't on the sports teams? They feel bad too.</p>
<p>And then there are the teachers who complain when students enthusiastically go above and beyond the homework assignment. Gotta get those kids to toe the (mediocre) line!</p>
<p>"And then there are the teachers who complain when students enthusiastically go above and beyond the homework assignment" -- yep, had a couple of those in the past three years. I tell my son to work hard and do his best and try and get an A, teachers tell him that as long as he can manage a C, he should be happy (and half the time he can manage the A without doing a single minute of homework for weeks).</p>
<p>I still remember our first Kindergarten parent/teacher conference -- he was much further ahead than the other kids, reading and double digit addition. We were told (and they had so little sense they actually put it in writing) that we should let him watch television and stop letting him read books and do math games on the computer. If we would just do that, he would be much "happier" in first grade -- and at that time he was in what was considered one of the best elementary schools in the rich, suburban area we lived in.</p>