Strategy for Attaining Admission to Top Colleges

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
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<p>Thanks @ItsJustSchool‌. I think that the formula you suggest and advice is certainly worthwhile and I agree with them. Looking over GMT’s analysis from March and plugging in a few additional variables, I have concluded that there are some schools that have a better adjusted Ivy+ placement record assuming that the school is a good fit for a particular student.</p>

<p>To recap, these are the things I have learned from this thread:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Assessment of a school’s influence in college matriculation/placement is almost impossible to measure. The days when boarding schools sent 1/3 to Harvard, 1/3 to Yale, and the rest to various liberal arts colleges and other Ivy’s are gone. One should not have this expectation.</p></li>
<li><p>Because historically there are parents obsessed with college placement, rational discussion can be challenging. Some experienced parents feel strongly that this is a superficial and overly simplified method for judging a school, while other parents truly are that superficial and concrete in their approach to school selection (or at least place this variable very high on their list).</p></li>
<li><p>“Goodness of fit” (to borrow a statistical term) matters most as this will likely translate into a more engaged student who may pursue various interests and enjoy the educational value of the school. For this reason (in addition to item #1 above), an attempt to place a child into a school solely for the purpose of improved chances of a specific college matriculation is unwise.</p></li>
<li><p>Once matriculated into the boarding school of choice, assuming that there is a choice, a parent and child can consider different ways to distinguish themselves and improve their chances for being a desirable applicant to a particular college if this is a goal of both parent and student. Of note, this goal is sometimes not a major emphasis for many parents who feel that the quality of the education and experience is similar across a very large number of colleges and not just the 10 most competitive ones. Therefore, in these parents minds, gaming the system by having their child reluctantly build houses for habitat for humanity in Haiti over the summer (as an extreme example) is futile. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>I, for one, have enjoyed the conversation. I think that I lie somewhere between Exeter Dad and twinsmom, choatiemom, others when considering the whole issue. College counseling and placement is important but it probably should not factor highly (certainly not exclusively) into the decision of what schools to consider. </p>

42

<p>I just want my kid to have a better set of choices than the local state funded party school and community college. Honestly, once they hit college, it’s hard for parents to keep pushing for ‘success’ however we define it. It does not seem to help us, and it does not seem to serve our kids, either.</p>

<p>One of my good friends in undergrad was all set to inherit his dad’s medical practice. As the only boy in his family, he’d been set up to take over the practice since before he was in kindergarten. Most the time he was a happy guy but when studying he was MISERABLE. I was the first person to ask him, at 22, if he actually wanted to be a doctor. The answer was no.</p>

<p>Ten years later, he’s in lower management at an IT firm, doing technical support- the same job I had that I hated. He could not be happier, and is doing great. He has a career he loves at a company he loves and is happy as a clam. If he’d gone to med school and taken over his Dad’s practice, he probably would make a heck of a lot more money, on the other hand I’m pretty sure I would have gone to his funeral by now 'cause he would have blown his brains out or drank himself to death. </p>

<p>It’s way less status, but in most ways he’s way more successful than the path his family chose for him. I think of the poem ‘On Children’ by Rumi when I start to fret about the kid’s future choices on colleges and careers-</p>

<p>Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.</p>

<p>You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.</p>

<p>You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.</p>

43

<p>@NotTheMomma‌ Thanks for sharing that lovely poem. Good reminder for us parents. I often find it sad how American society frequently defines success - getting in to an Ivy, making a lot of money, big house, expensive car, other trappings of perceived status. Very often little discussion of happiness, contentment, quality time with family and friends.</p>

44

<p>2prepmom’s advice is excellent and, as I reflect on the kids in my son’s class who got into Ivies, spot on. I did go back and read ExeterDad’s thread and have to say that I found the counselor’s ranking of my son’s school choices both conservative AND accurate. For example, one point she made about schools that seemed like they would be safeties for my son, was that those schools might well not admit him simply because they wanted to protect their matriculation rates (the “Tufts Effect”). I suspect Exeter Dad’s child’s list was vetted smilarly. Because kids from Exeter go to top tier schools, second tier school may well be more difficult for them to get into from Exeter than from the local ps. I just can’t see this as a bad thing! And it is true that Exeter encourages kids to think beyond Ivies–but that is not to say that they don’t counsel well or encourage students to find schools that are best fits for them. </p>

<p>And I remember that there were lots of disappointed kids at ED time who ended up having their pick of great schools (yes, including Ivies) in the regular cycle. ED seemed to primarily go to athletes and URM’s.</p>

45

<p>Yes, I noticed the same phenomenon at my DC’s school. All ED’s to Ivies were either recruited athletes or URM’s and the rest - a lot of disappointed kids. And my DC tells me that they are counseled by their advisors to not ask the seniors about ED results unless the information is volunteered. </p>

<p>I thought the ED results were a bit odd, but now seeing that the same happens at Exeter as well, realize that this is probably more the norm than unusual.</p>

46

<p>At my oldest’s small prep school, those kids accepted the early round to the Ivies a couple of years ago were a mixture of athletes, legacies, development, and really strong academic kids. This is just gathered from my kid, as parents don’t get a list. Some students could have had multiple hooks. </p>

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Why do you have to be so accomplished to get into college?

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/01/02/why-you-have-accomplished-get-into-college/GCXtX0epvvVKoHur0ptlkM/story.html?comments=all&sort=NEWEST_CREATE_DT