<p>^ isn't sps also like that? some university in scotland as well</p>
<p>If you are referring to foreign colleges, then, yes a number of SPS students do that. In the above cited book, there are a number of students that have attended University of St. Andrews (Scotland) and McGill University(Canada). For some reason those are both popular destinations. In fact they rank 15th & 16th over that period. Also, Coldwind is correct. A number of SPS students traditionally go to both Amherst and Williams, both great schools. But lets no overdo the ranking discussion. Suffice it to say, SPS is a wonderful school. And most impartial statistics (like Coldwind's) substantiate it.</p>
<p>Quote from ColdWind:</p>
<p>"I believe that my ratings & rankings completed last year based on the most recent five years was & is the most complete study ever done on elite prep schools based on college placement success. ..."</p>
<p>ColdWind, your methodology sounds very comprehensive, especially compared to other studies. Would very much like to see the results if you care to share.</p>
<p>Certainly I will share the rankings--not the ratings, however--of the top ten or so. All twenty five schools rated & ranked were furnished with the results as was the New York Times (but they did not publish it as St. Paul's probably finished too high for their tastes).
I won't release the entire results because it may be a bit insulting to some elites who were very co-operative. The two schools which did not co-operate were Taft--which was very straightforward & also led the effort to block USNews' failed attempt several years ago. Peddie-which frequently called me for info. but did not follow through on their promise to supply data (most likely because I furnished the Headmaster with the formula to work on his own & gave him my up to then completed findings and, well, you can figure out the rest.) The only data received that I could not validate--and it does need to be validated--came from Lawrenceville, New Jersey (I'll let the readers guess the school).
This is a study of 24 elite boarding schools and my one benchmark day school--Roxbury Latin--which I suspected would finish on top (even though the NYT systematically ignores this school to make the NYC day schools look better, in my opinion) and it did.</p>
<p>I have to search for my printed copies, but the top 5 schools for college placement success based on the entire class matriculations for the most recent 5 years:</p>
<p>Roxbury Latin School--all male day school which graduates about 48 students each year. The former President of Harvard University used to review their applications to Harvard prior to submission.</p>
<p>St. Paul's School--top rated & top ranked boarding school. 100% boarding, no PGs.</p>
<p>Phillips Academy at Andover.</p>
<p>Groton School.</p>
<p>Deerfield Academy.</p>
<p>These schools were in a class by themselves (although I can't recall whether Deerfield was slightly higher than Groton or vice versa.)</p>
<p>Even if validated, the Lawrenceville, New Jersey school would not have finished in the top 5 (it finished at #8 with the assumption the material was accurate). and I recall that Hotchkiss was also very impressive finishing at #6 or #7. Exeter, which was very co-operative, finished at #14, 15 or 16 as the top third of each class did amazingly well, but then a significant drop-off occurred. I would not in any way allow this to affect one's decision to attend Exeter over any school on this list as the resources are as impressive as the curriculum is demanding, and the school administrators are very open & honest. And, of course, Exeter is still well within the top tenth of one percent with respect to elite college placement when compared to all US high schools.</p>
<p>Coldwind, do the results correlate at all with size? Roxbury Latin is small. Exeter is large. I know from a WSJ study that the small NYC day schools put up impressive numbers.</p>
<p>I don't know how to answer your question other than to say that the largest boarding school--Andover--finished third & was close to SPS which is about half of the size of Andover. The smallest schools examined were Roxbury Latin, Groton School & St. Andrews in Delaware.
Also I just remembered that I used three--not just one--day schools, and they were Roxbury Latin (Boston area) & The Westminster Schools of Atlanta, Georgia & Albuquerque Academy in New Mexico.
Albuquerque Academy & The Westminster Schools were used because they ranked as the top two endowments in the continental US for day schools, and both are academic powerhouses.
My study, completed last year, cannot be replicated in a fair manner when venturing outside of the Northeastern US due to the surging popularity of large state university honors colleges (for which I made an appropriate adjustment in my original study).</p>
<p>OK. Seems like size is not an important variable.</p>
<p>The United World College of the American West (junior & seniors only--almost all on full scholarship) did very well & has many places reserved with scholarships at elite colleges, such as Middlebury College. St. George's School in Rhode Island did well also. Spectacular oceanfront setting, co-ed, boys required to wear coat & tie.</p>
<p>ColdWind, I really like how your methodology takes into account a school's entire graduating class, not just the top matriculations. Well done.</p>
<p>I looked at some older posts on this topic and it appears the consolidated ranking is as follows. Perhaps you can fill in the blanks when you have access to the printed reports.</p>
<p>1) Roxbury Latin (day school)
2) St. Paul's
3) Andover
4) Deerfield
5) Groton
6) Milton (50% day)
7) Hotchkiss
8) Lawrenceville (unvalidated)
9) Middlesex
10) United World College
11) Choate
12) Cate
13) St. Andrew's
14) Cranbrook (66% day)
15) St. George's
16) Exeter
17) Thacher
18) Westminster (day school)
19) Albuquerque Academy (day school)
20) ?
21) ?
22) ?
23) ?
24) ?
25) ?
26) ?
27) ?</p>
<p>My list was limited to 25 schools. The ranking for Lawrenceville on this study was validated; the most recent info. from Lawrenceville contained an extraordinarily high number of placements at Princeton university, which Princeton refused to confirm. Doesn't mean that the info. is wrong, it just wasn't confirmed. Lawrenceville claimed 16 or more matriculations at Princeton from their most recent graduating class. This is not in line with the prior years so it may be accurate or it may have been a 3 or 5 year total placed in the wrong report. And it may include an unusually high number of athletic placements. The surest way into the Ivies is to be a Division I caliber rower on the crew team.
Also #18 is The Westminster Schools, Atlanta, Georgia which is not affiliated with Westminster (an excellent school also) in Massachusetts.
Additionally, #10 should read The United World College of the American West since this school has several campuses located around the world. It is for junior & seniors only.</p>
<h1>14 The Cranbrook Schools in Michigan enjoys in-state tuition (day & boarding school) for the Univ. of Michigan which has a very high PA rating in USNews.</h1>
<p>Boarding Schools Ranked by College Placement Success:</p>
<p>1) St. Paul's School (New Hampshire)
2) Phillips Academy at Andover
3) Deerfield Academy
4) Groton School</p>
<p>5) Milton Academy (50% boarding/50% day students)
6) Hotchkiss School
7) Lawrenceville School
8) Middlesex School
9) The United World College of the American West (New Mexico)
10) Choate Rosemary Hall (Connecticutt)
11) The Cate School (California)
12) St. Andrew's School (Delaware)
13) The Cranbrook Schools (Michigan)
14) St. George's School
15) Phillips Exeter Academy (New Hampshire)
16) The Thacher School (California)</p>
<p>The Top Four (4) Boarding Schools were in a class by themselves based on the most recent class matriculations for the prior 5 years. (For example, approx. 20% of the bottom half of graduating students at St. Paul's School matriculated at an Ivy. SPS doesn't rank students, but almost half of each class graduates with a "cum laude" designation; 20% of those who did not graduate "cum laude", "magna cum laude" or "summa cum laude" actually matriculated at an Ivy. This is astounding when considering that many in the graduating class of about 150 students did not even apply to an Ivy, and that many accepted to Ivies chose to attend Williams, Amherst, Stanford, MIT or other elite non-Ivies, although all US based, 4 year, college placements were factored into my survey results.)
All prep boarding schools listed above were, & are, well within the top one (1%) percent of all schools in the nation for college placement success at the most highly selective 4 year US based colleges & universities.</p>
<p>Woah! I go to Westminster in ATL GA, what were you saying about the school Coldwind?</p>
<p>Oh ya and Winterset. When Mr. Francis got back from the big boarding school tour or w.e it looks like he talked to their track and field coach. He remembered me and gave the coach my name and e-mail and everything. Think that's a pretty good sign, so we'll see.</p>
<p>Good luck, mpicz. My son is enjoying SPS and I am amazed at how much he has grown in two months. The school mantra is "freedom with responsibility" which requires the student to take charge of their daily life. This is a lot to expect but the dividends come in college when the SPS grads are able to better manage their time.</p>
<p>Just realize that you and the Admissions people play revolving hats. First they put on the sales hat to convince you to apply. Then you put on the sales hat to convince them that they should admit you. Then they put it back on to convince you that you should accept the offer. Bit frustrating to keep changing roles. Good luck!</p>
<p>If anyone is interested, a classmate sent me the following video link from Boston TV about the SPS 'trayless' program. It interviews students, shows some of the dining rooms and discusses the program. </p>
<p><a href="http://wbztv.com/topstories/New.Hampshire.School.2.581962.html%5B/url%5D">http://wbztv.com/topstories/New.Hampshire.School.2.581962.html</a> (click 'play' on the upper right)</p>
<p>The hydo-electric made it in the press too:
Concord</a> Monitor - Packing hydro into big picture at prep school </p>
<p>With the current financial markets, who knows how soon it will happen, but it has regulatory hurdles to cross first. Oh and congrats to the cross-country team for winning the New England Championship. </p>
<p>Glad to see good news, and sad to see articles like this (from my nephew) at Philips Andover: Three</a> PA Students Arrested On Drug and Alcohol Charges | News | The Phillipian Let's hope it stays that way! I was told two of these (ex)students are 18 and will be charged as adults with drug dealing. Problem for all teens, a similar article was in the paper the same week about 3 Andover public school students. So, no one is immune!</p>
<p>Tour/interveiw at St. Paul this past Wed. The campus is as beautiful as everyone says. What made our visit even more pleasant is how friendly and helpful everyone is. After our visit we decided to go see the music building (ran out of time during tour). We stopped one student to ask direction, he not only pointed out the building but decided to walk us there and answered a few more questions. I also noticed that everyone walked pass us would smile and say hello (guess it is obvious we were on school tour). </p>
<p>As a parent I can't help but judging the school (manybe just a little bit :-)) by the student tour guides. Before we visited SPS I thought girls seem to be "better" at this than boys. SPS certainly presented itself very well (our "official" tour guide was also eloquent, funny and very much at ease with us).</p>
<p>As for the Andover article mentioned above, it is indeed sad. I did some digging before starting this process and many big name schools (Groton, Milton, SPS......) were all in the news one time or another. I guess kids can be dumb no matter how high their SAT scores are. :-(</p>
<p>We also had the pleasant experience of encountering many friendly students on St. Pauls campus, on a Saturday morning no less. It really stood out because at some of the other schools we visited the students were not as friendly. Also, during our visit the headmaster and his wife came to the admissions office and talked with parents and kids. Everyone seemed really sincere and enthusiastic about the school.</p>
<p>Mr. & Mrs. Matthews are very friendly and genuinely warm, nice people. They host an open house at their house every Saturday night that is always very well attended. They set a very good tone for the entire SPS community.</p>