New article in Slate.com today
We also lose to MAPL schools all the time. Anyways, the coach had other reasons to leave.
In other news, it appears as if Lawrenceville’s most recently constructed building has won another award to put on its already lengthy roster: https://www.world-architects.com/en/architecture-news/reviews/the-lawrenceville-school-gruss-center-for-art-and-design
Wow, someone really has an axe to grind. There’s a lot of selective reporting and anecdotes. A lot seemed outdated.
The only thing in there that caught my attention was the retreat attended by AOs and CCs. That’s not a good look.
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Yep…
Consider the source. It’s Slate.
I found a similar article based on the same research where writers extrapolated demographics from the earlier half of the 20th century to fit their narrative.
Isn’t that one of the main advantages of attending one of the elite private schools with well-connected college counselors? Instead of “super selective private colleges X, Y, and Z are a reach for everyone, including you” that a strong student at a public school may hear from a counselor handling hundreds of students (and not just on college matters), the student at an elite private school may hear “based on what we know, X never admits students like you, Y is unlikely for you, but Z is fairly likely to see you as a fit for them”, or “X, Y, and Z are unlikely for you, but have you considered W that is fairly likely to see you as a fit for them, and has similar characteristics that you like about X, Y, and Z?” from a well-connected college counselor who knows more about what various colleges want than the colleges announce to the general public.
The closest we have gotten to that is that kiddo reminds CC of kids she knows who go to college x. That unhooked kids don’t fare well at the super-elite. And that kids from his school don’t seem to get into college y. The latter I know from the scatterplots anyway.
We were flat out told that the days of a cc picking up the phone and calling an AO are long gone.
The AOs who come to speak make the disclaimer that they are not the one assigned to reading apps from the school.
The value of the cc is helping find cultural matches on the spectrum of safeties to reaches, but they don’t shift where a college is on that spectrum. They help keep the students on track timeline-wise, and offer some wisdom about essays. The school itself provides robust academic and extracurricular opportunities, and it is up to the student to take advantage of those opportunities.
I don’t doubt that there are marginally higher admit rates for some of the most competitive colleges, even for unhooked students. But it is hard to parse out how much is the talent of the kid, the resume the kid put together, and the name recognition of the school.
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And if you read a book like “Priveleged Poor”, you’ll also learn that for a number of reasons, the high FA need students from prep schools tend to do better at college because of both academic and social preparation.
Information that ended in 1990 is really out of date. And this ignores how selective the St. Grottlesex schools are – meaning the colleges are choosing from an already filtered pile.
I do agree that most BS are whiter and wealthier than most other pools, and for many, that is part of their appeal. But my hunch is that it is middle class white kids at public schools who suffer more from this “favoritism” in admissions than any other group.
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Also linked in the Slate article:
Thanks, @familyrock . While that’s the source of the antiquated data, I think it is that access to the old boys club that some are looking for in their BS experience.
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That Slate article was almost funny to me. Ignoring so much overlap, like with Ivy legacies and private school overlap.
Yes ignore the fact that some of the private school kids go to schools where less than 10 kids a year can get an average of 90++ and just compare them to kids who get 5.0++. That sounds totally reasonable. I think that these authors really don’t understand how intensely rigorous some of the top private schools have become.
(Sure, the Harvard legacies who just trundle through with an 85 average are kind of annoying but whatever, those people exist all through life.)
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Seems like part of it is informing students about colleges that the students may not have thought of or known beforehand. It may also mean that, while colleges X and Y may both be stat-reaches for the student, the counselor may be able to inform the student that X may already have a surplus of similar students, but Y may be wanting to balance its class with students like the student in question.
Wouldn’t be surprised if recommendation quality were better, both from counselors who know the student better and from teachers who have more practice writing recommendations and time to do so than teachers at a local public school where relatively few go to highly selective colleges where recommendations matter a lot or are used at all.
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Yep - there was another article similar to this one that erroneously stated that less than half of students at elite prep schools are on FA. So, I’m not sure if they are packaging stats from decades ago to fit a narrative, or how this Slate story being published now might relate to an upcoming Supreme Court hearing on affirmative action in admissions. As some of you may know, the Supreme Court will be hearing an appeal brought by Students for Fair Admissions….
- The cynic in me always wonders why certain stories and statistics are planted at certain times
It’s predictable, like a sand trap at 150 -175 yards in front of your tee box.
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Interesting- new to BS so find all of these news bits fascinating. One small observation related to the diversity aspect, our LPS is 97% white, 1.1% hispanic, 1.3% asian, 0.9% black, 3% reduced lunch…. So, kiddo is looking forward to some diversity at her new BS!
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Many local public schools have low diversity because they serve neighborhoods that are segregated by both SES and race / ethnicity. High schools tend to be more diverse than elementary schools that serve smaller neighborhoods, but often that is the difference between low diversity versus very low diversity.
On the other hand, prep schools probably do have a strongly high SES skew, despite some students attending with financial aid.
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Yes, very bi-modal. Not a lot of middle class representation. But the mean income is probably still very high because there are .001 percenters skewing the curve.
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Lol. Those Harvard parents gripe all the time how the legacy boost only comes with $2m donations.
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And even without that skew from the Uber wealthy, at a school with say 50% on FA the 50% paying full boat pretty much automatically skew “wealthy” whether the $60k/year makes them break a sweat or not.
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Looks like Thacher will be in the news for awhile:
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This is a sad day for the Thacher community. Those poor children and their families who suffered and were gaslighted.
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Awful. Heartbreaking for those kids and families.
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