With one notable exception the schools that appeal to us broadly have SSAT averages that are 15 to 20+ points below DD’s. She would be applying to 9th. To understand dispersion I’ve looked at the top quarter of these schools SAT scores which seem high to me. I assume (assumed?) that there are plenty of kids who should be great peers. However some of you say there is a real difference in students at different “tier” schools. Being around kids who are engaged in the classroom is really important to us and to her. Is it normal that she has shadowed with juniors and sophomores? Might we be casting the net too narrow but in a different (down stretch) direction than most?
Take the tours, read the materials, meet the future fellow students and teachers and apply only where she feels she would be comfortable. If the higher SSAT schools strike her as too formal, kids are jerks, cold or impersonal, too hard, rundown, ugly, too strict, too far from home, bad food, whatever her reason is that makes them unappealing, then it is not likely that she is going to excel there. Figure out where she thinks she belongs and apply to those schools. Worst case, your result is a happy, well-settled daughter who ends up with a big-fish-in-a-small-pond kind of situation and she ends up top of her class in a place she loves.
Also, check out the pinned thread on “second tier schools”
especially the @albion comment on page 1.
Thanks for the suggestion @EarlyMTNester!
I think it depends on what your options are. For example, if you are full pay and have a highly ranked public high school or even day school, and if the BS did not have any compelling ECs, I might wonder if the high achievers at the BS were really going to offer more than the high achievers at the local public school. Is it worth it, all things considered?
At the other end of the spectrum, let’s say one needed full FA, had no particular hooks or compelling EC’s, was a good student but had unusually strong SSATs. Then maybe a school with lower median SSATs would be a good strategy to get in and get FA, perhaps.
Outside of those two extremes, my gut feel is that +/-10 vs the median SSAT percentile for any given school is probably the sweet spot. It is probably false precision to suggest that the SSATs are terribly meaningful on a more granular level than that.
For families serious about attending boarding school–and not involved a situation where they are only applying to the local boarding school as a day student and will attend the local public if that doesn’t work or where they are go big or go home and it is Exeter or Hotchkiss or nothing–those serious families should build their list just like they would for a competitive college applicant: reach; match; safety. As long as you only apply to those schools your kid actually would attend, you stand a good chance. Many folks use the SSAT stats to figure out where individual schools should sit on their list.
Second tier schools are more likely to be second tier in reputation, endowment, facilities, luxuries than they are to be second tier in how smart and motivated their best students are. The snob appeal and sundries do matter, as we see people pay big money for them every day, but there are a bunch of good schools out there beyond the biggest ones most folks seem to care about, and each of those good schools attracts of cohort of smart and motivated students.
Not so sure about lesser endowment, facilities or luxuries. After all, one of the acronyms for “the” top schools includes only five schools. According to BSR, there are but 2 schools with >$1B and four with >$500M in endowment. So, one of “the” top schools has hundreds of millions less in endowment than the rest.
If you move the cut-off to $300M, there are 11 total schools. Above the $200M level, you will find 17 or so schools & 30+ schools that have endowments >$100M. Those cut-offs even leave off some schools that are discussed on here all the time, e.g., Blair, Emma Willard. At any of those levels, you are going to have a hard time seeing a drop-off in resources.
I was going to say, from my visits, all those schools that are considered hidden gems and “second tier” have beautiful beautiful facilities. That’s why I think they are hidden and gems, because people don’t know about them, but they are still awesome. Also, the depth and breadth of programs is super awesome. Of course, PEA and PA are HUGE schools so there are obviously many opportunities because of that, but if you compare similar sized schools, the opportunities and luxuries and unique programs are just as good.
Endowments matter, but it is usually best to talk about endowment per student and not necessarily the overall number. Of the elite schools this cohort adores, St. Paul’s is second only to Exeter these days. Groton has a very high endowment considering its size, comparable to Andover. Deerfield, the upstart, late to coeducation, is playing in the same sandbox as Andover and Groton. Hotchkiss is right behind. Choate has a very much lower endowment, about half of Hotchkiss.
These numbers fluctuate somewhat, but the hierarchy is not likely to change much and has not in fact change in forever, except for Deerfield–Deerfield’s really come up in the world since they returned to coeducation and have become a true peer of those other schools, thanks in part to all that cash.
That said there are indeed other schools with high endowments, including St. Andrew’s in Delaware, Peddie, and Mercersburg. Lawrenceville’s endowment is very close to Choate’s, as is the size of the student body.
What the long-standing high endowments get you are those luxuries and sundries. Like financial aid. That’s a good one. Choate’s FA policy is not even on the same planet as its peers. Plus things every school needs like the new boathouse with a huge lounge or the spiffy student center with a dozen 9-foot pool tables or state of the art dorms or the second hockey rink or pool with diving well or a dedicated football practice field or whatever. Nobody NEEDS any of that, but if the other folks have one or more of those, well then you do kinda need those things. Or a billion other things.
The schools without the sky-high endowments are not likely to be short on flasks in the chem lab or chairs in the dining hall or basketballs in the gym, but don’t think it doesn’t matter. It does. There is an arms race of science buildings and boathouses and stuff and the schools with the bigtime endowments have a much easier time keeping up without endangering the existence of the school or the ability to be as selective as they wish.
Look at what Northfield Mount Hermon did a few years ago: they cut the size of the student body in half. That made the school much healthier financially. A generation ago, there were at least four huge boarding schools in New England, with Andover, Exeter, Choate, and NMH all having over a thousand students. Only Andover and Exeter have been willing and able to maintain that student body size. Choate cut the size of the school in the mid-late 90s iirc, at least in part to make the endowment look better when compared to its peers.
Everybody should be willing to peel away the curtains as best they can when they consider these schools. Peek in the corners. Don’t be overawed by any one thing. Look closely and see if it looks like the kind of place for your family. Money isn’t everything, even at boarding schools, but more FA probably, hopefully means a more diverse student body, for one. But the smaller schools often pick and choose their top FA candidates to build their classes to the best of their abilities, so it is possible that one school will offer much FA for a particular applicant while another school offers none or simply rejects that same candidate. As always, make your lists well and hope to find that important good-fit school that loves your family, especially if you need FA.
There’s already self-selection taking place in the pool of kids who take the SSAT-- there are no dummies.
I know of quite a few families not needing FA and having acceptances in hand, who opted for less “intense” schools because they knew the high-SSAT schools can be real pressure-cookers, and they were seeking better study/life balance.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we could do it all over again, we would give more consideration to less uber-intense schools for both our kids.
Nice post GMT (I have a hard time not calling you Rockie) we have looked at the same thing for my twins. They are in a small private school now in southern NH in 8th grade. We took them out of our local public school because at the time my son’s ADD did better in a smaller class size. My daughter is an A student hard worker and will do great in our local public high school test in academy. My son is gifted as well as having ADD, he has tested into the CTY program and is really good at math, he is already doing high school geometry and algebra 2. He is a classic under achiever and has a A-/B+ grades. He got 89th%tile on the SSAT. Boarding is out of the question for many reasons, primarily he is immature and cost. We looked at the Phiilpi ( I should trademark that) as we are in commuter range for both but feel they are way too pressure cooker for him. We looked at Brooks, Pingree and Governor’s but those schools are expensive and don’t offer any better math than the local high school and all were reluctant to talk about accelerating math courses. We are in a tough position financially, I make too much to get FA but not enough to pay out $40,000+ per year for high school and save for college. We looked at the local Catholic high schools and some were not a good fit but St. John’s Prep in Danvers Ma stood out. They have an excellent math program and a built in test in program to place kids in the proper math and can and do go beyond AP Calculus BC. The price is only $21,000 so it offers a better value than the other schools we looked at. Now we got our info from visiting the schools, from CC and from talking to parents and students who have been at the school. St John’s has a local prestige, but prestige is a relative thing after all. Choosing a school for yourself or your child shouldn’t be just based on a rank on a list.
On money: It is a wonderful thing to see what can be done for a school when immense amounts of money are wielded by people with good hearts, good minds, and - most importantly - good sense. (Any public school principal would drool.)
My children are lucky enough to attend a school (Mercersburg) where a couple of very rich and very grateful alumni have had an extraordinary impact (also thanks to great planning by the head of school). Facilities are spectacular, financial aid is generous, and faculty are well paid. But before the money was there, the culture, spirit, whatever is the appropriate word, was already alive, or the school would not have had the powerful effect on its alumni that has made those who can afford it give so generously.
On tiers: 1) What Albion said. 2) More of what Albion said. “Second-tier” schools can be full of “first-tier” teachers/administrators, and they have plenty of “first-tier” students as well. 3) Size matters. A student at a school of 400 is likely to have more opportunities to shine, and to shine earlier, and to try new things, than a student at a large school whose population is skewed toward high achievers. 4) Some schools are not considered “top” schools by the kids/parents using that term simply because of their location outside New England, so unless you live in New England and want a short drive to your child’s school, look to the schools outside that region. 5) Bottom line: It will be your child’s home, so (as best you can) make sure it’s a good one and that it feels like a possible home to your child. Don’t worry about the numbers; wonder about the people.
As the parent of a child who has always had very wonky uneven scores due to a learning difference in math, SSATs were something we worried about a good bit as we applied. Our experience was that some schools weight applicants’ scores more heavily than others and this has more to do with the school’s ethos regarding testing than the rigor of the academics once you arrive. At Lawrenceville, we were told by the AO that she could easily fill the entire class with perfect SSAT scores but that the school was not interested in doing that - they wanted a well rounded community. Good teachers also do not necessarily favor the tippy top student over the middle of the class student who is dynamic in class and excited to learn. Rather than focusing on SSAT scores, I would make sure my child had the opportunity it sit in on a class (and yes at same grade level or just a year above the applicants) to determine if the school is a good fit. Ultimately your peer’s scores are going to be irrelevant - it is how they perform once they get to the school. Every school we looked at had the capability to advance a child in math all the way up to number theory, linear algebra and other college level courses, and it is good to remember that most prep schools will place you not according to grade but according to ability. It is not uncommon for a freshman math whiz to be in class with juniors and seniors - but I would worry if it looked as if your child was going to be placed in ALL classes where she/he was the youngest.
What I think most important is if the school has resource to accommodate my child’s need, and the peers would be in reasonable level to make group activity worthwhile. Failing those, the academic level of a class can be less meaningful.
In my daughter’s community college English Composition 1A course, the professor is going to give one 10-minutes individual review session per student for the final paper only. The rest papers were peer reviewed by classmates, which were entirely consisted of “I like your argument” and “Good job” with couple of punctuation corrects. I don’t see how any boarding school with average class size of 15 or so can fail at that.
I really appreciate all of the thoughtful responses. The concern about peers stems specifically from having a child who is focused on humanities. It is relatively straightforward to accelerate to the right level math class - I think, she is no math star. The complexities of scheduling classes and default approach that anyone should be fine in any first or second year English or history class (just challenge yourself!) just make things a little trickier outside of math and science.
FWIW, I have humanities-focused kids too, and that default attitude (especially toward history) was a big problem in middle school. It’s much less of a problem in high school (and that was true in our local public HS as well), but there is still no choice at first other than honors vs. regular track. A few schools are flexible, but I think most don’t allow much choice for English and history classes the first two years. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that my thoughts on challenge, etc. have absolutely nothing to do with science or math. 
@twinsmama, I am very comfortable for mandatory English and History. That’s where quality of class matters rather than set level as the learning is not linear, unlike math and science where repeating basic principals can be counter productive at times.
Mandatory classes are also very useful for freshman and sophomores because the students get to know the other students in their grade including many students whose paths would not normally cross outside of classes that the whole grade takes.
We visited a less known local bs last weekend. The academics is probably not as great as top schools. But we loved how small classes are taught by highly qualified teachers. The class we visited was taught by a Ph.D. Students were enthusiastic and engaging. They were collaborating a local university professor on his research project and had access to resources that college students majoring biology don’t usually have. We would be very happy that if D would be attending there.
One of questions by AO to me, after seemingly some hesitation, was how would I feel about their “mandatory” courses that are lower level than D has taken already in colleges. I told her that I would be very comfortable for the grade level English and history as D can learn well at 9th grade if students are engaging and class size allows individual expectation from each student. She isn’t very advanced in Math due to lack of practice which is due to over-scheduling other subjects. Repeating Algebra II would be perfect because D only “barely” passed math placement test for Algebra based Physics course for next semester. We will just let teachers to figure out what would be the best for science and Spanish.