Private prep schools and "hot" colleges

Parents Forum
61

"Each of the hot hundred colleges held a certain position in a vast and inscrutable cosmology that only the students and their parents seemed to understand. The very names of schools I had always considered excellent made many students shudder—Kenyon, for example. They would snap briskly to attention if I said “Williams” or “Amherst.” So why not Kenyon?

On the other hand, schools that I had never considered particularly dazzling turned out to be white-hot centers of the universe. In vast, high-achieving droves, for example, these kids wanted to go to Duke. Fine, but here’s where I couldn’t figure them out: they were dying to go to Duke, but Chapel Hill left them cold. Why? They couldn’t put it into words exactly; it was as inexplicable and irreducible as falling in love. They would do whatever it took to get themselves to Duke—enroll in as many AP classes as they could, stuff their heads full of Robert Lowell poems and differential equations and plein air paintings, invest untold, unrecoverable hours cramming for standardized tests that a growing number of admissions experts hope to abolish altogether.

Certainly, I understood why students who had worked so hard and done so well would want to go to schools like Harvard and Princeton, but many places seem to be prestigious simply because student fads and crazes have made them hard to get into. Brazenly capitalizing on the whims and passions of teenagers seems a questionable practice for institutions dedicated, in part, to the well-being of young people. Here’s how Rachel Toor describes her former job as an admissions officer at Duke in her new book, Admissions Confidential:

I travel around the country whipping kids (and their parents) into a frenzy so that they will apply. I tell them how great a school Duke is academically and how much fun they will have socially. Then, come April, we reject most of them.

The university devotes a considerable amount of money and effort to recruiting BWRKs (“bright, well-rounded kids”) only because denying them boosts the school’s selectivity rating. Although Toor seems disillusioned by the task of pumping up application rates, she also seems to believe that some measure of a school’s worth can be found in the number of students it rejects.

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I am always suspicious of how useful it is to “show interest” (other than playing the ED or SCEA card – if there is still SCEA today.)

We heard that it is helpful to visit a college to show the interest. So we visited a particular school in our state to show interest.

Guess what, the only “National Research University” that rejected DS was from that school we visited. Granted, he did not apply to many such colleges.

Only ED or SCEA could be useful in our experience.

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“The very names of schools I had always considered excellent made many students shudder—Kenyon, for example. They would snap briskly to attention if I said “Williams” or “Amherst.” So why not Kenyon?”

Once again, this is all regional. There are regions where Kenyon elicits wow and Williams elicits huh?

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I’ve chuckled quite a few times over the years here, especially regarding the “passion” posters feel about one or two of the many equally excellent small midwest colleges. Macalester especially gives me a chuckle. Great school and I have a few friends that attended, but particularly fond of mention by many kids (and parents) here in years past. Why Macalester over many other institution in the midwest where you can get a virtually identical education? Where did that come from? When did that happen? In the eighties…in the nineties? It was certainly a surprise to me when I started posting here and I lived for seven years in the Twin Cities. Or why is Trinity in Connecticut listed as a “top liberal arts college” on CC but not Colorado College or a dozen other liberal arts colleges in the midwest or west that are as good or even academically more rigorous than Trinity :slight_smile: and in a better location to boot. I can only attribute it to a small influential group of high school guidance counselors or prep school counselors, good admissions marketing and herd instinct among the young and their parents, there can be no other reason.

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Mom, there are plenty of other reasons than the ones you describe.

For example, NYU- a commuter college back in the 1970’s with what was only a skootch higher admissions criteria than the public colleges in the region. But back in the 1970’s the crime rate was high, NYC was on the verge of bankruptcy, quality of life offenses such as graffiti and public urination meant that even when you were walking in a statistically safe part of NYC (where you were very unlikely to be a victim of a crime) you could feel “threatened” on a daily basis.

NY is not bankrupt, is safer than many other parts of the country, has had vigorous “quality of life” policing thanks to the broken window theory of community management- and whether you consider the changes positive or negative philosophically (certainly gentrification has pushed many middle class families out of the city), there is little question that a young person will feel safe walking through the NYU neighborhoods. So this isn’t a commentary on NYU or about herd instinct among the young and their parents. It’s a commentary on what happens to a college when the surrounding area undergoes a significant shift demographically, sociologically, etc. And NYU is now a “hot college” which is hilarious to people who grew up in the region and remember its early incarnation.

Why do you believe there are no other reasons?

I could continue- Northeastern in Boston, GW in DC- two other urban colleges which have benefited from the gentrification and shifts in public policy in their respective neighborhoods. Or Yale- it’s own finances were so troubled not so long ago that buildings were crumbling due to deferred maintenance. Yale’s turnaround was less about New Haven and more about a shift in investment strategy and endowment- headed up by someone who is considered one of the world’s leading investment/portfolio managers.

Then there are colleges whose undergraduate schools have benefited from the rising reputation of their graduate programs- and one could argue that the grad programs have little effect on the quality of undergrad education. So whenever you see a university with a law, med or business school which ranks in the top 15 for example- you will typically see a college whose “popularity” has increased in the last decade or so now that “rankings” are so ubiquitous. (NYU has to get a mention here- a law school typically in the top 10 even though it’s undergraduate programs are nowhere near as rigorous, difficult to get into or out of, prestigious, academically intense, etc.)

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@pizzagirl “Once again, this is all regional. There are regions where Kenyon elicits wow and Williams elicits huh?”

I guess maybe if one considers the 10 mile radius around Columbus Ohio a “region,” that might be true.

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Kenyon and Oberlin are well known in private equity circles in the Northeast. Not to your gardener but people who matter.

A school like UCLA has basically no creds in the Northeast. No one would differentiate it from Rutgers, U Conn, U Mass, TCNJ, Maryland or Binghamton.

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That’s just silly, 8bagels. But feel free to believe prestige isn’t all regional.

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@ferrarepatrick73 “Kenyon and Oberlin are well known in private equity circles in the Northeast. Not to your gardener but people who matter.”

Has anyone suggested otherwise?

And lol at the UCLA thing. It’s the most applied to university in the world, a perennial Top 25 National university, and one of a handful of most selective, with a sub 20% acceptance rate. No one in their right mind would compare it to Rutgers, et al.

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“Kenyon and Oberlin are well known in private equity circles in the Northeast. Not to your gardener but people who matter.”

IMO, the “people who matter” when evaluating colleges are people who are into academics / higher education. They may or may not be wealthy, and they may or may not intersect with the set of people who are into private equity. LOL at the idea that being in private equity “makes one matter.”

And sorry, I have to agree on the UCLA thing. I don’t really see it having much credentials outside California. It’s not on radar screens, except for sports. That doesn’t make it not a very good university but it’s pretty low share-of-mind outside California.

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I’m being serious. No one in the Northeast would ever differentiate UCLA from a Northeastern state school. The acceptance rate you speak of is just a function of the population density and relative lack of competition. The profile of the average attending UCLA student is no different than what you find here at state schools. The other reason is that native Californians don’t adjust well here.

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I’m still trying to figure out where the “regions” are where people are wowed by Kenyon but say “huh?” about Williams.

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Having lived in the Northeast, everyone that I know easily distinguishes between UCLA (and any other top 25 international powerhouse university) and places like Rutgers.

National rankings and international recognition don’t lie.

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UCLA is perennially one of the most recognized and respected universities in the world, by any metric and on pretty much any list.

Just some examples.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/11464059/Top-100-world-universities-by-reputation-in-full.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/03/05/the-worlds-most-reputable-universities-in-2014/

etc.

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Most people around here who aren’t from the east coast or very knowledgeable about LACs would say “huh?” to Williams. Bu they probably know Kenyon because it’s in this state and they might be aware of some high-achieving kids who (inexplicably, to many) chose it over OSU.

My kid gets very excited when people around her know her school, and it is perhaps a bit more well known than Williams.

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UCLA 2014:

25th Percentile 75th Percentile
ACT Composite   25  32
ACT Math    26  33
ACT English 25  34

Ohio State 2014:

25th Percentile 75th Percentile
ACT Composite   27   31
ACT Math   26   31
ACT English   26   32

I’m not seeing a vast difference.

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@OHMomof2 That can’t be right?! Ohio State accepts 55% and UCLA accepts 17%. There is no way OSU can be as good of a school as UCLA! /sarcasm

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LOL. 8bagels edited his/her post which had mentioned ACT scores, which is why I responded as I did.

…but your acceptance rate can certainly be higher when you have 2x as many students and a somewhat higher yield rate :slight_smile:

The average man on the street probably knows both because of the game they play in fall with the oblong leather ball…

79

This weekend I’ve been analyzing college matriculations among students at 10 elite private high schools, including 5 in the NE (Phillips Exeter, Trinity, Hotchkiss, Horace Mann, Dalton) and 5 elsewhere (Harvard Westlake in LA, San Francisco University HS, Lakeside-Seattle, and Ransom Everglades ). For this cohort, it’s true to some extent what Pizzagirl often says about prestige being regional … although it’s more true for some colleges than for others.

For the 5 elite prep schools in the NE, the 10 colleges that capture the most matriculations are:
Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown, Harvard, NYU, Princeton, UChicago, UPenn, Yale. Yale is #1, Stanford is #13. The top 30 matriculations also include 9 Northeastern LACs (Amherst, Barnard, Bowdoin, Colby, Colgate, Hamilton, Middlebury, Wesleyan, Williams) and one state university (Michigan.) UCLA gets the 74th highest number of matriculations. Oberlin (#41) is the only LAC outside the NE/Mid-Atlantic to be among the top 50 for matriculations from NE elite preppies.

For the 5 elite prep schools outside the NE, the 10 colleges that capture the most matriculations are:
Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Michigan, Princeton, Stanford, UChicago, USC, WUSTL. Stanford is #1, Yale is #12. The top 30 matriculations also include 3 Northeastern LACs (Barnard, Wesleyan, Williams), but more matriculations go to Claremont McKenna, Kenyon, and Whitman than to any East Coast LAC. 3 state universities are in the top 30 (Michigan, Berkeley, and UCLA). UCLA gets the 16th highest number of matriculations. Berkeley gets the 14th highest number (compared to the 54th highest from the NE preppies).

USC gets the 26th-highest number of matriculations from the Northeastern preppies, but the 2nd highest number of matriculations from preppies outside the NE. WUSTL gets the 26th-highest number of matriculations from the Northeastern preppies, but the 3rd highest number of matriculations from preppies outside the NE. Vanderbilt gets the 2nd highest number of matriculations from Ransom Everglades (FL) but ranges from the 18th to 63rd most matriculations from elite prep schools outside the south. Trinity College (CT) gets 6 matriculations from Phillips Exeter (NH) but zero from the 5 elite prep schools outside the NE.

Colleges that seem to be about equally popular among both the NE and non-NE preppies, by average matriculation ranks:
Boston-area Colleges
Harvard (#4 for the non-NE, #2 for the NE)
Tufts (#13 for the non-NE, #15 for the NE)
MIT (#29 for the non-NE, #30 for the NE)
BU (#35 for the non-NE, #31 for the NE)
BC (#30 for the non-NE, #34 for the NE)

NYC Colleges
Columbia (#5 for the non-NE, #4 for the NE)
NYU (#6 for the non-NE, #6 for the NE)
Barnard (#25 for the non-NE, #25 for the NE)

Chicago-area Colleges
UChicago (#9 for the non-NE, #7 for the NE)
Northwestern (#15 for the non-NE, #17 for the NE)

For all 10 elite prep schools, by total number of matriculations the 8 Ivies rank between #1 (Columbia, with 271 matriculations) and #20 (Dartmouth, with 97 matriculations.) NYU appears to be the hottest non-Ivy private RU (#3 overall with 241 matriculations); Michigan is the hottest state university (#10 overall with 188 matriculations); Wesleyan is the hottest LAC (#14 overall with 120 matriculations.) Among the top 100 colleges by total matriculations, I count 40 national universities, 39 LACs, and 13 state universities (the remaining 8 are international/other).

One elite college that appears to be universally unloved by elite preppies (unless it’s the other way around … with tons of rejections):
Caltech, #10 ranked by US News, gets zero matriculations from elite NE prep schools and only 2 elsewhere (both from Harvard Westlake in LA).
A couple other technical institutes also do poorly relative to their US News ranks:
MIT at #26 and Harvey Mudd at #126 by total matriculations.

As stock and real estate brokers like to say, the above information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

80

For Phillips Academy outside Boston, the top ten (3 year running total) are: Penn, Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Columbia, Georgetown, Boston College, Brown, Stanford and Cornell. Worth noting is that WUSL, Dartmouth, UMass enrolled about the same number of graduates, and Princeton is not too far off either.

http://www.andover.edu/Academics/CollegeCounseling/Documents/PhillipsAcademySchoolProfile2015-2016.pdf