<p>I don’t get your point. PrepReview absolutely has competitors in the business of providing data to families interested in private schools (both objective and subjective as you will find on this site). If it’s your belief that competitors are only those sites that try to distill the data down to an absolute ranking of schools on a single metric (as opposed to, for example, BoardingSchoolReview, which ranks on probably 20 different metrics), then I strongly disagree. </p>
<p>For most people the best thing to do is identify what’s important to them and then gather as much pertinent data (objective and subjective assessments) as possible. The great thing about the information age is the massive amount of raw data that is available from first party sources. If one truly believes Ivy+SM matriculations are most important - a very questionable perspective but to each their own - then the data is available directly from the schools without intermediate filtering. In Wikipedia-esque fashion (i.e. I didn’t do all of the calculations) the CC community has provided the analysis above based the data supplied by each school’s website. Please correct it if it is wrong.</p>
<p>And I don’t really get your point. I don’t see any other threads about other ranking systems like prep review. Before we criticize one ranking system, find another one and post some of the data. Before we call in question 5 years of statistics disprove every year, not just one. That’s all I’m saying. I do</p>
<p>P.S: and yes, that is my belief. People want to see clear lists, whether you like the criterion or not is up to you. US news for example, no true competitors until Forbes started making there own list. Like previously stated, you either like/believe in the criterion or you don’t, lots of people do. This is the PrepReview thread and the stats from the site are the stats.</p>
<p>People, we have hard data. Prepreview can’t know more than the schools themselves. If you look at the matriculation lists published on the school websites, the statistics derived are not consistent with those from Prepreview for year 2004 through 2009 (of different combinations - e.g. 3/4/5 year overall) for multiple schools including SPS. They were not reliable last year, and they are not this year. Were they reliable before last year? Well although you can see a pattern emerging here, we can’t say for sure that they were not because we don’t have the hard data, but can you say there were?</p>
<p>I don’t know that PrepReview is unreliable because we don’t know the algorithm it uses to create an estimate of Ivy+SM college matriculation. It’s a “black box” in that we know they use from 1-5 years of data and we know what comes out, but we don’t know what happens in between. It doesn’t appear to be a simple arithmetic average of the most recent '06-'09 data published on the school websites because we’ve done those numbers and they don’t match the rankings. Perhaps they have the 5th year for SPS and it was an incredible year like Andover had in '09. Alternatively, perhaps their algorithm places lesser weight on such a great year until its been shown that it wasn’t an outlier. Perhaps it was actually created months before it was formally published and doesn’t even include '09 data (a common occurrence for those of us that grew up in the pre-real-time data era). Who knows? Certainly no one here.</p>
<p>I also understand why people associated with SPS would want to promote the fact that someone considered them #1. I remember one year when my school won a championship and we went running around claiming “We’re #1” even though in that case we’d lost twice to the same school earlier in the year and probably would have lost 4 out of 5 if they’d replayed the championship game. In this case SPS has been #1 for 5 consecutive years and even though we don’t know precisely how (or by whom, since most of us don’t have a clue who created PrepReview.com), it’s an impressive run. I get it.</p>
<p>What I find disappointing was the need to plaster it all over the place while taking a few gratuitous shots at a competitor (I’ll bet the Rector would use the word “peer”). Others seem to assign far too much significance to it - refusing to recognize that even as rankings go it is incredibly limited by its dependence on some undisclosed variant of a single and somewhat questionable metric, Ivy+SM matriculation. It’s certainly something to be proud of, but I’d be very disappointed if anyone used that list for anything more than to say, “These are some schools I may want to consider.”</p>
<p>I did. “Some large schools to the south of SPS will moan and wail.” “So… sit down, relax and accept that these are the facts, whether you like them or not. Milton may like them, and Andover who Really want to be 1st will argue and feel insulted or offended.” </p>
<p>Those comments were unnecessary and condescending. I doubt the Rector would approve of them.</p>
<p>BTW: To be technically correct, the only fact is that you presumably quoted an opinion accurately. I could say, “My father believes the Red Sox were the best team each of the last 5 years.” That statement is a fact. But if I told you to “Sit down, relax, and accept that these are the facts” that would be condescending because the fact is not determinative of anything. It’s only as good as my Dad’s ability to judge baseball teams. Your fact is only as good as the value of PrepReview’s subjective opinion that its Ivy+SM matriculation estimation algorithm is the best way to judge a prep school.</p>
<p>Once again, congratulations to SPS for having been ranked #1 five years running by PrepReview.</p>
<p>My apologies Padre. As you hopefully read in post #19 on this page (see above), there are many great schools, many of the differences are slight and vary over time. This thread was started by a request for these PR #'s. I will admit I get tired of certain schools repeatedly maintaining they are better (true to the north and to the south). My mantra has been that they are “all great schools with great students”. I decided to post the five year numbers to smooth some of the variations in the data. But I admit overstepping the bounds by citing any one school.</p>
<p>Fratri ac cervisiae, I apologize. My nephew is at Andover, a great school. My brother went to Exeter, another great school. I certainly will not defend or analyze the statistical methodology of the PR site. But alternative attempts are also flawed. I have seen people post stats where the numerator and or denominator are imputed numbers, and then they conclude that a particular school has a minuscule statistical superiority for a single year, from which they extrapolate overall superiority. In my post #53, my frustration simply overflowed. Mea culpa (okay, and hubris may have interceded). Talented students tend to go to great schools where they do well and have an opportunity to go on to colleges of their choice. </p>
<p>So returning to my more balanced past statements:
All of these schools are Great schools.
All rankings are bunk.
The Ivy’s do not define college excellence.
The School You are at is the Best (and the Red Sox are okay too).
I suspect the school matters less than the individual student.
All schools have areas where they excel.
Different schools are ‘best’ for different students, there is no single yardstick.
Andover had a great boy’s 8 crew last year (but they mostly graduated).</p>
<p>Good morning Winterset and the world has returned to normal. I agree with everything you said. It’s also a beautiful day in the northeast, the domain of the Ivy League and a host of other excellent colleges, prep schools and public schools - including my never confused with the Ivy League alma mater that I will always contend provided at least as good an education as the grad school I attended with green stuff on the walls. The Red Sox have even “closed” to a mere 5 1/2 games out. Oh, while I’m not a crew person I’m pretty sure that outstanding group was at the extreme of “mostly graduated” - all of them including the coxswain were seniors.</p>
<p>Which "certain schools repeatedly maintaining they are better "? You mean better than SPS? It’s because some SPS people go around and repeatedly shout “we are #1”, “we are #1” - AGAIN, says PREPREVIEW! People are getting tired of hearing that, because: 1. That measure is hardly a convincing evidence to support SPS is the best; 2. Even with this measure, prepreview provided inaccurate statistics. Just look at this year’s ranking, 3 schools are ranked #1, when we have the recent 4-5 year matriculation lists for SPS and Andover, which shows it is not the case. What statistical method is more reliable than divide the number of students matriculating into ivy+SM by the total number of graduates? If it’s sound method, shouldn’t a professional service like PR document what was their formula??? I doubt the schools would provide a different list than what we see from the school website, especially not likely to provide PR a list that would generate lower stats.</p>
<p>Do we really need to go there? I think the point as been made that the measure used is at best a single interesting data point. Furthermore, perhaps PrepReview has recognized that whatever permutations they put the raw data through don’t generate enough significant digits to absolutely separate the candidates. This year’s results apparently (I’ve never subscribed) would be better described as clusters than an absolute ranking (e.g. several schools tied for #1, #4, etc.). That might be a step in the right direction.</p>
<p>Prep Review is provably losing subscribers by continually naming SPS #1. No Drama you won’t be a subscriber will you?
Go Dodgers!
Go Lakers!
and Go USC!</p>
<p>Yeah, that must be the reason - they continually name SPS, which I dislike so much, #1. NO, because their approach is not scientific (not the common sense approach either) and their results are misleading. I was once a subscriber before I knew the stuf was right on the websites of most schools. It would still be appealing if it could provide accurate statistics because some schools don’t have the full matriculation lists. Whether losing subscribers or not, my bet is that Prep Review will still be around in the years to come. Which reminds me of the acronomy HADES. Five years down the road, people would think it was 5 best schools recognized by the “mainstream”. Who knows it’s just a name coined by a kid going to Hotchkiss.</p>
<p>This is off topic, but are SPS’s sciences good? Math? I thought it was more of a arts / humanities type of school, with the rest of the other courses pretty well rounded.</p>
<p>Math @ SPS is certainly not bad, but Exeter trumps all others by a huge margin in the math department. No doubt. They win national awards every year over schools like Thomas Jefferson or all-state teams. I’d say then comes Andover. The rest are all similar.</p>
<p>BUT, you have to realize I’m talking about the very top of all mathematicians (say, top 1% of the entire nation.) Otherwise, all the math departments will suffice. More important is meeting the right teacher, etc.</p>
<p>I prefer Padre’s “cluster” idea. Differntiating shades of gray is at best a highly argumentative process and accuracy if often lost in the pursuit of precision.</p>
<p>Why do you need “clusters” when you rank schools based on one number - which is ivy+sm matriculation percentage of the graduating class? “cluster” is useful if subjective measures or at least multiple quantitative criterior are involved. If Prep Review is serious, they should tell its customers where they got their raw data, and what formula they use to calculate the percentages. Then ALL that people can argue about is their methodology and its usefulness maybe, which is - well - what we human beings do - we challenge. However, if you provide frustratingly “wrong” stats without explaining how you got them, then the results should be dismissed. I am sorry, but “cluster” idea can’t save the reputation of prep review ranking or justify a school’s fame that comes with that ranking.</p>
