Private prep schools and "hot" colleges

My child attends a highly regarded public school in an affluent town that sends the top 5% of students to Ivies and Little Ivies, but most of the rest end up at either just-below-Ivy, second-tier or third-tier private colleges or–increasingly common–the local state flagships.

I took a look at the college matriculation list of one of the premier private prep schools in our area and saw a great difference between their list and ours. I understand that most of the parents of these students can afford to send them anywhere, so private colleges are heavily represented, but it was very noticeable to me that there were certain schools that were “hot” and certain colleges that seemed to be completely off these kids’ radar. For instance, alongside the requisite Ivies were lots of Duke, Wililams, Boston College and the like. Lehigh seems exceptionally popular at this prep school, as does Colgate, Tufts, etc. I did not see schools like Brandeis (conspicuously absent), Franklin & Marshall, U of Rochester, etc.–in other words, schools with a terrific reputation that for some reason don’t seem to have this “hot” factor. These schools are just as pricey as all the others and have excellent grad admit rates, but the prep schools turn their noses up.

I have the sense that guidance counselors at this prep school have their “approved list” of schools with which they’re comfortable and that they mention year after year to their students without thinking outside the box. By contrast, I did a ton of my own research to help my older child find the right-fit school for her, a selective (37% admission rate) liberal-arts college that also does not seem to be on this prep school’s radar.

Am I wrong? Or is this prep school just a direct feeder pipeline to the same 20 or so colleges?

OK, I’ll bite.

College counselors have existing relationships with certain colleges?
Alumni from some of those colleges encourage their kids to go to their alma maters?

Yes, the counselors could have schools that they are comfortable recommending. This may be similar to how counselors in many more ordinary public schools are most knowledgeable about the in-state public universities and community colleges. Or similar to how some posters on these forums seem to suggest the same schools to all students asking where they should apply to.

But demographics may also play a part. For example, when I went to high school, one of the more popular distant private college destinations was BYU, because there was some LDS presence. But if your high school has no LDS students, BYU is unlikely to be on the college radar there.

From our experience with a small private school, I gather that GCs have good relationships with admissions reps from certain schools. Those colleges (Bates, BC, and Cornell, for example) like what they get from our high school, so they accept a few of our students each year. It doesn’t mean that a kid can’t get into a school that isn’t on the “approved list” (for lack of a better term), just that if they’re a good fit for one of the familiar schools, the GC might be more likely to steer them there.

I have heard a handful of parents complain that our GC (we only have one because class sizes are typically only 60-70 students) hasn’t done more to cultivate relationships with certain top schools–it’s a Christian school with a balanced whole-life view, rather than a prestigious prep school whose goal is get kids into top colleges–but the truth is that every year a couple of kids are accepted to the Ivies, (usually Harvard, UPenn or Cornell, for some reason), so I don’t think our GC’s lack of coziness with Princeton is hurting any of our grads. But I also don’t doubt that if a Princeton rejectee from our high school had graduated from say, Exeter, with the same stats, he might have a better chance of admission because that school does have a good relationship with Princeton. That’s just the way it is.

That said, I imagine top public schools have similar relationships with admissions reps. My daughter went to a highly-regarded public school for her first two years, and every single year, kids from that school end up at the Ivies.

From my experience as the parent of a kid at private school, I think the guidance counselors desperately want the kids to apply to a wider range of schools and schedule visits from college reps from all the schools you mentioned but there is a group think mentality among the kids and parents that limit the list. I don’t know about Franklin and Marshall but Brandeis and U. Rochester are perceived (whether accurately or not) as “less fun” than Duke, Colgate, Tufts. Once you get past the HYPS/MIT kids, a lot of kids at our private school seem to be looking for a “work hard/play hard” school.

This is true of public schools too but it is less noticeable due to numbers. Nobody is ever accepted to Rice University from one high school I know quite well. It isn’t just geography. Plenty go to Stanford. I have no idea why this is the case but each year several apply and none get in. I don’t know if they are loath to accept a student who lives a great distance from the school unless the student applies ED (and I don’t know if that has happened) or if the two schools imply have no relationship. T

Let’s look at private colleges from Business point of view. Private colleges want student who are rich (no need based or merit money needed), good grades (ability to study and graduate in 4/5 years) and have some sports in their resume so they can play in college. If you want to look for customers (students) who fit this profile you will surely target top private school (rich kids - private schools cost - $35K). There is a certain school are highly ranked which college counselors know and have build relationship with school. I live in Dallas and all the private college have local visit at private schools or near private school.

OP, I agree at your post #0. At one time, when I took a look at the college matriculation list of one of the premier private prep schools, I had the same “feeling”. But I do not know the reason behind it. One possibility is that the kids at the prep schools are indeed better at academics (Some wild guesses: the teachers at a prep-school could be better, their students may not be asked to do some “busy but useless” things in order to get their class rank as high as possible.)

This. It’s the student/parents who propagate those boring lists. The college counselors tear their hair out trying to get students and parents to consider a broader range of fine colleges. The top schools have great relationships with hundreds of colleges, not just the usual suspects.

I completely agree with both of these posts. At my D’s private HS the CCs were constantly suggesting colleges and the kids and parents were stuck in the Ivy/S/MIT group. Very few go to LACs (mine did because we can see the value in them), although quite a few do end up applying to them. Many just want the “big name recognition” schools and will choose an OOS flagship over an excellent smaller U or LAC.

I had not considered that the GCs were trying to widen the net and the parents were the ones talking up the usual suspects. This makes me very sad for some reason.

I think DS’s public HS is the same (at least it was like this about 10 years ago when DS was there.)

The majority of the colleges DS were applying to were LACs, and he applied to very few schools in the Ivy/S/MIT group. He was likely an outlier in his HS graduating class (and a few classes prior to his graduating class.)

I was looking at the list from my old prep school. It looks very different from what it did in my day. The founding headmistress attended Vassar and there were always a cohort who went there including occasionally one who had gotten no acceptances and got in via a phone call in the spring. There was only one girl in my class who attended a technical university, but they’ve had six recent grads at Carnegie Mellon. At least one went to U of Rochester. And there were acceptances at RPI and WPI though no one attended. Lots of acceptances at public universities, though not as many actually attending them. No Harvard, Yale or Princeton. (My class alone had 6 at H, 4 at Y and 2 at Princeton out of 80.) More Canadian Universities and a smattering of European ones.

Our local high school has a bigger range (as you’d expect it’s 10x bigger - with both a higher top and lower bottom.

My kids went to one of those top private prep schools. Each year, graduating students attended ~65 different colleges. Yes, there were a disproportionately large # who went to one of the Ivy League schools. Yes, I do think that the college counseling department had relationships with admissions offices which had been cultivated over many years. When one of my sons was accepted to a highly ranked private university, the Dean of Admissions called my son’s college counselor and told her that my son was “going to get good news.” This was a couple of days before he actually got his acceptance. That’s what really opened my eyes.

My kids go to a private prep school, and sometimes the list (without context) can be a little misleading.

Not sure about the premier prep school you refer to, but ours has some super strong athletic programs that act as feeders to the same universities every year. The coaches have relationships with other coaches, and they have significant numbers of D1 and D2 kids going to these places year after year.

Another factor is that the prep schools are smaller so there is more intermingling among classes, and the kids from the older classes encourage the younger kids to look at the colleges they attend. Schools seem to go in and out of favor, but over longer periods of time. I think this is one of the biggest factors. As my son visited places, alums from his high school encouraged him to apply and told him how much they loved their school. He did apply to a lot of places that were out of the norm for our school, but the ED school he applied to is rising in popularity there, and that’s where he is going. So from looking at a list of where the graduates attend, you wouldn’t know the wide variety of schools he looked at - - just the final result.

I very much agree with post #4. The athletes go to certain places. The top academic kids go to the Ivies and very elite LACs. And then there’s a large constituency who want the “work hard/play hard” schools . . .these are quite popular.

I know this is the parents forum, but I wanted to point out that the guidance office at my expensive private high school has also received calls and letters from several colleges admissions offices about who was accepted before official decisions were released, at least from this most recent EA round (I’m a senior now).

My school also definitely has strong relationships with certain private univerities - notably UChicago, Vanderbilt, WashU, and Boston College. Certain Rep’s from these schools are on campus several times each year, many students are urged to apply, and many are accepted.

Very few students from my school apply to LAC’s. They’re basically unknown in South Florida, where my sister was asked if Middlebury was a community college, and where guidance at her high school (different school from mine) pointed out that she didn’t need another safety besides Bowdoin.

My kids went to a public high school where the ratio of students to gc was about 600 to 1. There is no time for the gc to develop relationships with AOs even if they wanted to. There is probably 100 different schools where the kids went. In our area there is no ivy obsession probably because we are too far away

A couple on thoughts on this. First the prep school will have less of a range in student ability than the public school and this is due to the fact that the prep school hand picks their students for admittance based in part on test scores. The public school has to take everyone. This is a big reason why the college list will be more top heavy at the private. I think at all schools, certain colleges develop a popular reputation and then in subsequent yrs the new seniors tend to gravitate towards those. You mention Brandeis and it does have a reputation for having a majority of Jewish kids, so if the prep school has few, you’re not likely going to see it appear on the matriculation list. And of course some colleges do have great respect for particular high schools in terms of knowing that the kids from those schools are well prepared to do the work.

I agree very much with post #14. HS alumni giving the boost to the younger classes really increases enrollment.

Social factors also affect enrollment. Cornell fell out of favor when “The Office” was popular. I hear some chatter that ‘shrieking girl’ may slightly dip the popularity of Yale.

My kids are students/graduates of a private prep school. Extensive college counseling is part of why we chose to send them there. The GCs have relationships with many different schools and encourage students to cast a wide net when looking at schools. However, many of the kids want the same familiar names over and over.

Here in south FL people know the FL schools, a few ivies, and schools with famous sports programs. Sometimes the kids are influenced by their neighbors quizzical looks when they mention the smaller LAC. The kids are influenced by the older students who are happy with their choice. The school tends to attract families so younger students often know that so and sos brother went to Vanderbilt and loves it there so we have kids flowing to Vandy every year.