Admissions staff at Prep Schools throw around elite school acceptances very proudly to attract parents. Faculty at those schools, many of which are the products of LACs and fine grad schools, are less interested in Ivy hype as the mission of the school. The vibe set by the faculty is centered on liberal arts and lifelong love of learning, not aiming at prestige and salary as life’s goal. My kids go to a private school but for the educational experience and opportunity (as in above post) not as a stepping stone to a top whatever school. I’ll be happy if they go to Wittenberg, Hendrix, Or Denison.
After I wrote the last post I took a further look at the admissions results of some of the schools I named above. At each of Brearley, Chapin, Collegiate and Trinity, the college with more matriculants than any other over the past five years is…Harvard.
http://www.brearley.org/page/about/at-a-glance
http://www.chapin.edu/page.cfm?p=3725
http://www.collegiateschool.org/page/program/college-guidance
http://www.trinityschoolnyc.org/page/Our-Program/College-Counseling/Trinity-School-Matriculation
@snarlatron The question is will your kids be happy attending the schools you mentioned? Especially after being surrounded by highly motivated kids for four years many of whom will be heading off to elite colleges? I went to a decent public HS and got a solid education. I doubt going to a private school would have been worth the extraordinary cost if my goal was just to get into any college.
John and Jane in the above example. If the were all the same as two freshmen, Jane at a top school is likely to be a better Senior in terms of academics and EC after receiving better educational opportunities for the 4 years. So it would be hard to say who will end up with better college. John with higher class ranking or Jane with more challenging courses and higher test scores.
What I can tell more easily is that, if they end up with same college, Jane is likely to be more successful in college career.
If you are saying that Wittenberg, Hendrix, and Denison are “just any college” then you are illustrating how far from reality the Ivy Fever has taken us. My wife and I went to similar CTCL-type schools. I hope that my kids don’t drink the Ivy-or-my-life-is-over Kool-Aid. They certainly aren’t getting it at home.
@DeepBlue86 said it all. The way a school like Trinity School in Manhattan works is that the kids entering in kindergarten are usually the children of Ivy legacies and very wealthy parents. They also take a test and have very high scores.You have to be smart to get in. A new crop of kids join them in high school. Often these kids come from Prep for Prep or they are very smart minority students. Between the two groups, they do exceptionally well with college placement. The unhooked have to go above and beyond to get into the Ivies, but they still get into other top colleges. Remember, the biggest factor is the “relationships” cultivated between these top school GCs and admissions officers. It makes a huge difference.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend. I have seen firsthand the resources, opportunities and connections that the very top schools can offer and I don’t think it is kool aid at all. My sibling attends a tippy top school and the companies they interned at recruit primarily at their caliber of school. Their start-up easily found funding. Research opportunities with people who are tops in their field are abundant. I could go on and on. In any event, if your children are grounded and happy in their choices then that’s all that matters, I just don’t understand why it takes $200k apiece to drive home the point that striving for top schools is a fool’s errand.
OP, something to think about when applying from a school such as yours is find out what great schools are out there that are not on all your classmate’s radars. For example, they may all be applying to Bowdoin, but not too many are applying to Davidson which is equally as good. They may all be applying to Princeton, but not that many are applying to Rice.
@Multiverse7 not offended, just take issue that the Ivys are Nirvana and everything else a disappointment. They are all great schools, none are “better.” True that some firms only recruit from Ivys and those hires will have the life they deserve.
@citymama9 provides another piece that I should have mentioned. Over time, a bunch of the kids that were admitted to the top NYC prep schools in kindergarten find that they’d do better at a different school, so they leave. Others move, or go to boarding school. The result is that the prep schools get to replace kids along the way with others who’ve got a strong track record elsewhere and/or various favorable attributes. For high school, the prep schools get to “reload” - in particular, something like a quarter of the girls at the single-sex female schools leave after eighth grade - with top-quality students, particularly high-achieving minorities, and some of the schools increase enrollment at the high school level to take in more top kids. So it’s not that surprising that these schools have stunningly good college placement.
The Frog Pond Revisited: High School Academic Context, Class Rank, and Elite College Admission
Thomas J. Espenshade, Lauren E. Hale and Chang Y. Chung
Sociology of Education
Vol. 78, No. 4 (Oct., 2005), pp. 269-293
http://www.jstor.org/stable/41504
^^^ article not accessible + article is 20 years old.
Its not just new York schools. Philips academy Andover send 1/3 of their students to ivy leagues+ Stanford and mit every year! that is one of the highest rates in the country. The reason more kids get in from public school is that there are so many more public school students. If colleges just accepted the best applications, every Harvard, Yale, and Princeton student would be a straight a student from a top tier private school.
Your statement is totally untrue. What is true is that the average student at expensive prep schools is far better qualified than the average students at public schools. Also don’t forget the top prep kids have many more hooks than the typical student and many use expensive application coaches. The other thing is that these schools are rather small with small class size.
@SAY and they also had to test to get in to those elite prep schools. Those schools are starting out with a top tier applicant pool to begin with.
go to a prep school if you can. from personal experience, the opportunities for stuff like research, national competitions, etc. are VASTLY better at a prep school than a public school