<p>Even though DD's prep high school have > 27% admittance to IVY+MIT+Stanford which was one of the criteria it didn't make the cut most likely because of absence of any famous alumni because the high school is only 10 years old.</p>
<p>America's</a> Best Prep Schools - Forbes.com</p>
<p>Still it shows the % admittance at Ivy+MIT+Stanford is as high as 41% at the top Trinity pre school.</p>
<p>So going to prep High school certainly increases your probability to get into a top school.</p>
<p>Honestly, who cares. As long as your daughter can get into a top school from her prep school, and received a top, well rounded education.</p>
<p>Stop worrying about the ranking.</p>
<p>I’ll bet a significant percentage of the Ivy/MIT/Stanford admits were also legacies. It would tell us more about the school if we knew how many of those admits were non-legacy, non-URM, FA recipients.</p>
<p>POIH…thank goodness these “raters” look at things OTHER than the admit rate to top colleges. What difference do the rankings make anyway? Really, all they do is give schools and parents bragging rights.</p>
<p>POIH: Your daughter is a brilliant kid who would have done great and gone to MIT even if she was from a regular public school. Lots of her classmates at MIT are from public schools. No doubt, the prep school provided excellent education- but you really have no objective evidence to tell if the prep school made a big difference in the college admissions game in her case. You can’t do the necessary control experiments.</p>
<p>So just be happy your daughter is happy, and move on. That is the only thing that counts.</p>
<p>By the way, this article’s almost a year old. You’re “sad” to see your D’s prep school didn’t make this list? Isn’t she at Stanford? What do you care about this ridiculous ranking methodology? Probably your D’s prep school isn’t well known yet. And this is coming from a parent whose 3 boys went to one of the very top schools on this list. Not one of them went to any of the schools used in their methodology. I’m not “sad” about that. They received a superb education at their prep school, were very well prepared for any coursework which their colleges could throw at them, and attend/have attended fantastic colleges/universities which were the perfect fit for each of them. Care about the education, not about the ranking!</p>
<p>ETA:If she’s at MIT and I am mistaken, it doesn’t change my comments.</p>
<p>Why do you care how your D’s former prep school ranks? What does it matter? </p>
<p>You have a bright daughter who fared very well in college admissions and goes to MIT. </p>
<p>I hope the reason you sent her to that prep school was not to boost her admissions odds at elite colleges (you say attending such a prep school boosts the probability). In my view, I would hope you sent her there for the experience itself. </p>
<p>My own kids went to rural no name public high school that might send maybe one kid per year to one of the colleges on that list. In my view, it is the kid who gets in, not the school from where she came. One of my kids ended up at one of the very colleges on that Forbes list (Brown) and eventually at grad school at another school on that list, your D’s school, MIT. My other kid didn’t apply to any of those colleges as they did not have the program she was seeking but she also landed at a top program in her field at NYU/Tisch. They would have had a different HS experience had they attended one of these fine prep schools, no doubt about it. But their admissions results would have been the same because they got in, not their former HS. And, they fared very well at their colleges, receiving top recognition there, and were well prepared. </p>
<p>Prep schools sound wonderful but if I were to send my kid to one, it would have been for the experience, not to boost their odds at college admissions.</p>
<p>By the way, it is a no brainer that a significant number of kids at an elite prep school will garner acceptances to elite colleges because it is a selected group of students in the first place who went through admissions to get into the elite prep school. Add on many legacies.</p>
<p>This is the evidence that you need, POIH, to show that these lists generated by various magazines are no indication of the quality of instruction of a particular institution nor are they any indication of the ability of a particular institution to have great placement after graduation. Your daughter’s HS clearly draws from a talented and hard-working group, gives them a great education, and allows them to have incredible opportunities after graduation.</p>
<p>So if these HS lists are flawed, in some respect, by not putting your daughter’s high school in the national top 20, despite having lots of Intel semifinalists, great Ivy League acceptances, etc, then it should tell you that other lists generated for colleges and universities might be equally as flawed.</p>
<p>So yes, it is possible not to be in the top 20 list and still have a great future, whether it is the high school top 20 list or the college/university top 20 list.</p>
<p>Couple of clarifications:</p>
<ol>
<li>Maybe wrong choice of words but I thought the DD school deserve to be there because it really provide an excellent education experience.</li>
<li>I didn’t send DD to the school to get into a top college but to get the best possible experience, I still think many children might actually have a better chance of getting into top schools from other near by schools (just because there are too many highly accomplished children at that school making it difficult for colleges to accept all)</li>
<li>I do believe the probability of success do increase with a good school environment (whether public or private).</li>
<li>I know ranking is just a good time pass and everyone have to create their own ranking whether for school/college/doctors etc. because everyone have their own parameters to judge against. Still it is a good topic of discussion because it provide opportunity to debate good and bad points of schools making or not making the ranking.</li>
</ol>
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<p>I agree completely, soozievt.</p>
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<p>I followed your link to the list, and from there linked to a much more interesting article:</p>
<p>[Pomp</a> And Circumstance - Forbes.com](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/29/kids-pressure-privilege-opinions-wade-rouse.html]Pomp”>Pomp And Circumstance)</p>
<p>Any ranking of these schools would only matter to the tiny fraction of people who can afford to and are willing to pay $35K/yr or thereabouts for HS for their kid. The rest, far greater than 99% of the people, don’t care a whit about it and you can take some comfort in knowing that the ranking of that school (or any of them) won’t matter at all in your D’s future now that she’s in college and that she, at least, has moved on.</p>
<p>I disagree it’s entirely the kid who gets in. A lot of the elite colleges have a great deal of respect for people who are leaders at the prep school (to the point where they will hesitate to reject the president of club X if they really want that demographic), whereas they might not care as much for such leaders at a regular school. The school I went to (which is on the list) always had the Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper and president of the student body get into HYP, and most presidents of the Asian/Asian American, African American, Latino/a organizations get in as well or at the worst, get waitlisted (unless there’s something egregious in their record, like a serious disciplinary action). If somebody popular at the school gets rejected by a particular college, the effects (in terms of apps initiated and yield) last for years. These colleges know that and try to prevent it from happening. Like I said, by contrast, elite colleges tend to not care if you’re president of club X at a regular school.</p>
<p>Prep school counselors have strong relationships with the colleges, and teachers (who often double as house advisors) write detailed recommendations. Boarding school students also tend to be more mature as a result of having lived independently, and this maturity comes across in their applications. Even after they get in, it’s easy to tell that these kids came from a prep school, no matter their demographic. They have a certain disposition about them that’s different. Would they have been as mature and poised if they had been at a regular public HS? It’s hard to say, but I’d say for those who chose boarding school over a regular HS, the answer is yes.</p>
<p>Really? Let’s put educational glory where it belongs. I would love to stop reading stories about a 41% admit rate from private prep schools and start reading about the admission to top schools from kids who had to scrape and crawl to make their “public” education happen against bad odds. For me personally, rankings about Prep schools are crazy. Who would not hypothesize that a child who has a silver spoon shoved so far down their throats would not throw up ivy? But maybe what is more interesting is the kid that is attending said Prep school on scholarship, and makes it to the top (and I say top school with a huge grain of salt) despite all obstacles. I am all for the underdog.</p>
<p>My S graduated from a school on this list and his brother will not be (and I suspect the brother is the smarter one).</p>
<p>Don’t worry!</p>
<p>The top 20 universities dipped as low as middle of the class at my prep school (B average) and there were admits below that even, if they had extenuating circumstances. Top 20 LACs dipped even lower. There were a lot of kids in my prep school from the Appalachias, inner city NYC, LA, Chicago, etc, farmkids/smalltown kids, etc.</p>
<p>Great link, vicariousparent. Interesting read.</p>
<p>So feeder schools feed top colleges and U’s is this a newsflash to anyone?</p>
<p>A friend’s child just graduated from one of the schools on that list but isnt at a top 10 LAC/University. Oh the shame…</p>
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Just quoting this in case anyone missed it - funny!</p>
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<p>I misspoke. I meant the answer is no. Kids who chose the boarding school over their regular HS are more likely to be mature and poised. How much you would pay extra for this extra personal development is up to you. Some of these schools cost a fortune, almost as much as an elite college. Kids who got in on a scholarship are extremely lucky, and their lives will never be the same again after such an experience.</p>