<p>
</p>
<p>I used to think so too, but started to doubt it. A prep school has so many advantages that it could package/prepare an average kid as an excellent one. I’m saying it in general not about OP’s DD whom I know nothing about.</p>
<p>i am a fan of PoIH since he began posting. Our kids are at same school (tho mine in grad school now). What has always been so interesting to me is that my son went to a HS that doesn’t even make the top 1000 schools. For all I know, it could be well below 10,000 HSs. He was the first student from his HS to be admitted to several colleges that PoIH’s DD was interested in.</p>
<p>My message–don’t be discouraged if you don’t go to a prep school. It would have been easier if his HS had a math club, or offered advanced math tests, let alone Intel advice, but it can still be doable.</p>
<p>PS to PoIH: My son at the ski trip this weekend–a first for this kid who never lived in NE before!! Did your DD attend?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If your definition of brilliance is same as mine then you are correct. I’ve seen brilliant kids at DD’s prep school and at MIT, so I know the difference.
I’ve always maintained that most students i.e. almost 99% do benefit from the resources and environment of a good school (private or public). If I’ve not believed in it I won’t have send DD to prep HS.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t think so but she have gone skiing during the last semester and may go this semester.</p>
<p>I think the main thing that prep school students benefit from is small classes. Our high school has some great teachers, but they just can’t give students the same kind of attention or assign as many papers as a teacher in a school where the average class size is 1/2 to 1/3 of what our students have. My older son commented for example over the last break that his year there were two AP Chem classes, for some scheduling oddity there were five students in his class and 30 in the other. His class got through the material weeks before the other class even though for the most part it actually didn’t have the strongest science students. I think prep school is valuable - I learned far important more in high school than I did in college, but at the price we just couldn’t make it happen for our kids. I don’t think they were hurt in the college acceptance game at all, but I wish they’d written more papers.</p>
<p>Mathmom, I know what you mean. I had to chose between the one good private school, about 45-60 minute drive each way, or saving funds for a private college. Based on my experience at a state college, with 500+ kids in a lecture hall, I wanted son to have the choice of college. I always regretted my choice, which I did to save money. Fortunately, i got to work at the UG college that I didn’t accept, and spent many years teaching at your alma mater.</p>
<p>Knowing that your son#1 has a job lined up at the company known as best place to work, I think his choice of colleges was best it could be.</p>
<p>^^ bookworm, yes, that’s a choice that most parents are forced to make, although apparently POIH didn’t have to. I have a young relative at the same prep school that POIH’s D went to, and there is a younger sibling following in a few years. Including college, the parents are going to spend well over half a million dollars educating those two kids. :eek:</p>
<p>^^ By ‘college’ you mean ‘UG’ - what if each one also wants to be a doctor or lawyer? Now we’re talking some serious $$$ !</p>
<p>(Assuming full pay)
- Prep: 35K/yr x 4yr x 2kids = $280K
- Private U: 50K x 4yr x 2kids = $400K
- Total cost just to get through UG for the 2 kids - $680K (and that doesn’t count an occasional ice cream cone)</p>
<p>It’d be over $1M to get through law/med school for the 2 of them.</p>
<p>The question to ask is does it make YOUR list of the top Prep schools for your child.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I didn’t make an analogy. I questioned the logic, and explained in direct terms what I meant by the phrase [“correlation</a> is not causation.”](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation]"correlation”>Correlation does not imply causation - Wikipedia) </p>
<p>Your comment simply illustrates my point: we don’t have enough information to know one way or another whether the admission statistics of students at prep schools reflect the quality of the students coming in, the influence of the schools, or both.</p>
<p>As no one tracks outcomes for students who are admitted to prep schools but choose not to attend, there is no way to know whether they get admitted to top colleges at similar, greater or lesser rates. Moreover, you would need to delve into factors influencing outcomes --for example, if they decide not to attend prep school for financial reasons, those same financial concerns might influence college choice; if they opt out of prep schools because they want a less competitive or more diverse academic environment, again they may make similar choices for colleges.</p>
<p>I don’t doubt that most prep schools provide an excellent educational foundation for their students, but if 41% of the students at a given school are getting admitted to top colleges, that implies that the majority – 59% – are not. So it isn’t like those schools have some sort of magic elixir that they can provide all of their students.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m not kidding. These colleges think twice before rejecting a popular highly respected student from these prep schools (at least from mine) because it affects the perception of the college within that particular school and perhaps even outside of it.</p>
<p>I think the colleges care more about the positive benefit to them (of accepting such a student) than the negative (of rejecting him/her), though they consider both important. For example, if a top but not tippy top college wanted to up its profile at the school, they would accept the president, and if he/she ends up matriculating, you can be sure that school will be seen in better light in future years (i.e. gain prestige). If that same person becomes famous someday (and being president of one of these prep schools shows great promise), the decision will also pay dividends in the long run.</p>
<p>It’s true being popular at a prep school doesn’t necessarily mean you have an excellent academic record, but those things typically go together. You wouldn’t be voted president if you weren’t diplomatic, poised, well-spoken, and intelligent. You are representing a highly accomplished group of students after all, and these students almost always choose well.</p>
<p>By contrast, a student body president at a regular HS was probably elected based on superficial qualities, and the student body who elected him/her probably isn’t all that bright. Top colleges wouldn’t care as much if you’re president of that HS and you would need something else to add to your background to show you’re impressive. Does that make sense?</p>
<p>calmom:
</p>
<p>41% matriculate @ Ivies + MIT + Stanford and not all top schools. Out of the rest 59% majority would be matriculating to the top 20 national universities or LACs.</p>
<p>But I do agree that the real benefit of a good prep HS is the excellent educational foundation and ample resources for the children to learn from.</p>
<p>
Getting rather elitist sounding there.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Talked to DD and it seems the trip was for grad or post doc students and is done every year during IAP. It sounds like lot of fun and I’m sure your son must have had a great time.</p>
<p>I can empathize with parents who are fearful of their childs future & hope to put some guarantees in through paying for the best prep school money can buy.</p>
<p>I know parents who thought they were doing the right thing by say- having their kids in at the " top three school"- because that was where mom/dad attended. but changed their mind after a year or two & enrolled them at a school that * isn’t even on the list!*</p>
<p>& yet- their kids are still fine- with jobs & all their teeth & everything!
:D</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>They might think twice but they might do it anyway, if they have a good reason to reject that kid. What is unthinkable is for all applicants from one of these high schools to get rejected by any top Ivy. For instance, I don’t know if there has ever been a year in history when <em>all</em> applicants from Andover were rejected by Yale.</p>
<p>Another point about the tuition at these prep schools- the schools actually spend a lot more per student, so in some sense, the students are getting a great deal. The following is from Wikipedia, quoting NY Times:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Similarly, my D went to grad school at MIT too,but went to a public high school that would not make any rankings. Very few from the high school attend elite colleges.</p>
<p>I agree that a fine prep school would be a really neat experience with lots of opportunities. But even for those who went to a regular 'ole high school, you can still end up in the same place for college or grad school as those who went to elite prep schools. The experiences will differ prior to college but great students exist everywhere. </p>
<p>In our case, private high school was never a consideration. For one thing, living in a rural area as we do, there are not private high schools in our area. The only option would be boarding schools out of state. We wanted our kids to grow up at home, though it was a moot point as we never could have afforded private high school for our kids. And I’m glad for the experiences they had right here in our community. (actually, mathmom, at our high school, our kids did a LOT of writing) </p>
<p>My kid was skiing this weekend…it has been freezing up here in the mountains of New England.</p>
<p>nychromie, the more you post on this thread, the more elitist you sound. Now, the comment that the kids at the public school who voted for the school president are not too bright…oy vey, is all I can say. Leaders are everywhere. My kids came out of a rural high school that you likely would think is the dregs compared to your top 20 prep school but they ended up in leadership positions at their highly selective colleges and garnered top awards there as well. Bright students and leaders can come from any school. Prep schools have a larger concentration of such kids because the it is very selective in the first place to gain entrance to these high schools. The public schools takes everyone. But even in public schools, cream rises.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad, yep, that’s the ballpark. Hopefully the kids will get some merit money along the way, because need-based aid is out of the question. I think they’re going to be on their own for post-grad.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I do agree to this and have respect for students like soozievt’s DD and bookworm’s DS and I’m sure that parenting skills in both cases were no less than Amy Chua’s techniques but in more children friendly ways.</p>
<p>But I still recall one of DD HS adv. in the paper where they listed Homecoming King/Queen go to top schools which might be what ‘nychromie’ be referring too. </p>
<p>Now I think the purpose of the adv. might be similar to what nychromie pointing too. In the description it listed that being smart is not odd but the norm at the school. They had a further explanation which went like being smart is popular here.</p>
<p>During DD’s 4 years at her high school there was one student body president who was valedictorian too. Since I never tracked that one characteristics so won’t be able to supply the statistics about the matriculation of all the student body presidents. But the one who was valedictorian matriculated to Harvard.</p>
<p>^^
Is it just me, or is it a little creepy that a parent makes a practice of tracking other students’ educational accomplishments, “characteristics,” and outcomes?</p>