<p>I feel like my high school has hurt my chances at getting accepted to some top colleges but even if I had known that before, I still would have made the same choice. My high school does send a good percentage of students (I think it was 15 or 16% this year) to Ivies, but if we all went to our towns' public schools I feel like a much larger percentage of girls could get into Ivies/other top 20 schools. It's really hard to stand out when every single girl has in your grade is intelligent and hardworking... I think the acceptance rate into our school is at 17.5% now.<br>
My GPA and rank (we don't rank but I'd assume they have to show some sort of decile ranking or something of that sort) are really hurt by going to my private HS but I definitely wouldn't go to the public HS in my town given the choice again.</p>
<p>This discussion is timely for me. I've been struggling for a while with the question of whether to send my 13-year-old son to our good (on Mathews' list!) public HS or to an independent HS. He is entering 8th grade now. It has gradually become clear to me that he really should be in a private HS, for a number of reasons. I'm hoping that he will be admitted to one school in particular, which is one of the most academically rigorous in the country. </p>
<p>Our local HS is quite small, but a handful of students are admitted to elite colleges each year, and quite a few more to very good colleges. It is possible to go to any college in the country from this school. I have explicitly made the mental tradeoff that my son's chances of being admitted to any particular college (MIT is his goal at the moment) will be reduced if he is admitted to a very selective HS. There, he will be one of a crowd of students as talented or more talented than himself. If he stays in the public HS, he will be the biggest fish in the pond. He will also have done more unusual things - he is already significantly accelerated in some subjects and he will end up taking a number of college courses during HS. He is likely to participate in science fairs. I think that he would be a more attractive candidate for college admissions under this scenario. </p>
<p>Another factor that I considered is that because of the staggering cost of private schools in this area, his college options may very well be limited for financial reasons. </p>
<p>In spite of this, we've decided that he should go to an independent HS, assuming that he is admitted and decided to go. Even though our HS looks good on the surface, I've come to believe that the education offered there is not what it should be. This is not a statement about public schools in general; I am familiar with other public HS, not available to us unless we move, where I would be happy to send him. </p>
<p>Marite, I have heard that the top 30 graduates of Boston Latin have automatic acceptances to Harvard, and that the valedictorian gets a full scholarship.</p>
<p>I agree with your comment, sjmom, about the HS having a profound influence on how a student turns out. And I think most of the differences would not even be reflected in test scores or grades. I'm putting a high priority on those differences.</p>
<p>I do not believe that the top 30 graduates at BL have "automatic acceptance"at Harvard; I do not believe any school has that many students with "automatic acceptance." The apparent automaticity probably comes from the fact that year in year out some schools produce a large crop of highly qualified students. BTW, all of Ss suitemates are graduates of public schools from all over the country. </p>
<p>There may be a scholarship specifically intended for BL graduates. Harvard and BL have a long history, and Harvard has a quirkly set of restricted scholarships (I investigated them when I was in grad school). </p>
<p>As you may recall from my posts, I made the decision to keep my S in our public hs and I am happy I did. He took college classes beginning in 9th grade, had some great high school teachers and had a very diverse set of friends (from the point of view of ethnicity, SES, academic achievements and interests). The private school I was considering for him was too homogeneous for our taste and he was not enthusiastic. </p>
<p>Obviously, every case is different, so what works for one child in one situation does not in another. I would not choose to send a child to a particular school to enhance his chances of admission into top colleges, and we will never know whether he would have learned even more in a top private school; but he learned plenty (and we saved at least two years worth of college tuition).</p>
<p>As with many choices in life, different paths have advantages and disadvantages. There's little doubt that one can get an excellent education at a good private, but the competition at the top will likely be far more difficult than at an average public. So, is it better to be valedictorian at a very average public, or a top quartile student at a great private?</p>
<p>While in some cases absolute rank and GPA count and strength of schedule or school don't, clearly the public route works best. If the goal is a great education, it may be harder to achieve that in a public environment where there are few superb students. Then again, a standout student in a public may get more teacher attention, have more special opportunities, etc.</p>
<p>In short, there's no easy answer to the question - it depends on the schools, the student, etc.</p>
<p>Well, I'm a student, but I love to read the parent forums, since they're so much more structured and logical than the rest. </p>
<p>I struggled with myself as to whether going to a good high school, know for vigorous classes, and high scores in everything, or my local high school, which is regrettably much lower caliber. I thought out most of the pros and cons listed so far, plus the diversity factor (by which I mean that at the other school I'd be one of the few Hispanics, whereas at my current school 99% of us are). I ended up choosing the low caliber school, which seems to be declining with every year now (it's considered academically unacceptable now), not so much for the "big fish in a pond" factor, but the financial. I'll admit that going to the high caliber school would've drained my family's funds, and was the main reason for my choice. However, I don't think I'm at a disadvantage, or at least not one that cannot be overcome. Nobody in the school has ever been admitted to an Ivy, or really anything more prestigious than UT Austin, but things do change. I agree, attending the high caliber school would've probably be a better learning experience, and I'd have near perfect, if not perfect standardized test scores, but still, there's nothing stopping me, or any other driven student in a similar situation from achieving this.</p>
<p>I feel rather sorry for students whose parents are concerned with getting them into ivy league schools. I don't like it when students get "prestige" fixated, seeing parents that way makes me wonder why they are being like that.</p>
<p>I guess it is different living out here where private schools are rare (other than a catholic school or two). My sons school (public with a nice cross section of SEC represented) has a parent evaluation and review process yearly. The parents tour the school and meet with teachers with questions and suggestions about schedule, rules, etc. Quite a healthy process actually. Without the options of a private school I think the quality of a public school may actually improve.</p>
<p>Quite a healthy process actually. Without the options of a private school I think the quality of a public school may actually improve.</p>
<p>But is that because families who can move to an area without the density to support a private school, are able to support the kids and the schools better than those who live in a more diverse area, that may have pressure to develop alternatives to the public schools?
Or
Is it that the lack of private schools, provides a spur to those parents to become more hands on with their kids education?</p>
<p>Ds school has tours, teachers that give their home number & respond by email, that stay after school to help, the basketball coach even has the girls over to her house for dinner. But thats the school, not the district.</p>
<p>Id like to know more about the parent evaluation process though, is that PTA initiated. principal initiated?
( are they evaluating the parents or are the parents evaluating the school?)</p>
<p>I just read an article in the local paper that published a study explaining how private school students do worse on state tests and eventually worse in the workforce.</p>
<p>was this study funded by the education association?</p>
<p>It was conducted by the State Board of Education in Ohio.</p>
<p>emerald</p>
<p>The school has a school improvement team made up of teachers, parents, and the principal. One of the reccommendations was to have a group of parents visit the school, while it was in full session, ask questions and make some reccomendations for school climate and academic improvement. The parents are evaluating the school and the school is explaining how it does business on a day to day basis and why. This is a large HS with over 2,000 students.</p>
<p>It is a very healthy process with many parents far more supportive of school discipline now that they are in the halls. The school has also made quite a few changes when looking at the education process through parents eyes.</p>
<p>Proud parent of two grads of Bumblewood High checking in!</p>
<p>My take: We chose to stay with the local somewhat uneven public for a variety of reasons, most of which will not resonate much here. First, because they liked going to school with the kids they live near and grow up with. Second, to save money for college. Third, because there are diversities which no private school can supply. Along with racial, Socio-econ, and academic diversity, I think there's something to be said for aspirational diversity. I think it was a good education for them to sit next to kids who were heading for the armed services, union jobs, or other directions as well as the college-bound. After all, they'll be sharing this world with them.</p>
<p>The result--both had higher SATs than most prep school grads. Both had 4.0 or near 4.0 averages. Both were accepted into highly selective schools. The first graduated Phi Beta Kappa from a top ten LAC; the second maintaining a 3.7 at an Ivy.</p>
<p>I think that Bumblewood High did okay for them, both in where they ended up in college, and how qualified they were to be there.</p>
<p>Quit logging me out!:mad:
(This was not a long post.)</p>
<p>Posts #2, 16, 18 have a lot of truth to them. I particularly agree with the diversity comment. The high-rent (suburban) publics in our region are quite homogeneous ethnically, with 2 population groups represented. That is as opposed to the stand-out privates in urban areas of the same region, which include many ethnicities & many income levels.</p>
<p>The outcomes in Post #2 accord with our experiences as well. OTOH, I do not believe in choosing a h.s. "because" of expected or hoped-for college admissions outcome. The high school is only secondarily the "applicant." Primarily, the student is the applicant, & that application will reflect a certain level of satisfaction, self-confidence, self-knowledge -- which will translate both into choices of colleges & into the application content itself. I've seen many an unhappy, ill-placed student at D's h.s. making desperate & self-conscious college decisions, often with unhappy results. </p>
<p>I also wanted to add a twist to an aspect of Post #2. Unfortunately, knowledge of excellent high schools is not universally shared among higher institutions. That knowledge tends to be weighted toward the upper-tier kinds of colleges. So the student applying to a middle-level private can be viewed as "numerically" -- & without regard to source -- as he or she is viewed by a Public.</p>
<p>i definitely strongly disagree with this quote simply because i go to an extremely competitive high school. i openly admit that many people are prestige driven when it comes to college selection/admission, but that's something you simply learn to accept when going to certain high schools. however, we have a number of students accepted at the ivies and other elite private colleges each year (and when i say a number i mean like above 10 to u penn, yale, stanford, and columbia this year). and i know of friends from various other top private schools (though not many on the west coast) whose schools have similar matriculation results.</p>
<p>The problem with this post is that every situation is fact specific - not only with regard to the high schools at issue but also with respect to the colleges to which applicants may apply. </p>
<p>I agree with those that chose the path of simply trying to get the best education for their kids they can (finances permitting). If in a certain area (for that kid), a private school education is best, that is simply right choice in the long run, irrespective of whether they get in a brand name college. The intrinsic quality of the education received (not just the piece of paper) and the human capital that is developed will last a lifetime, and it really does not matter whether a student further develops that capital at Harvard, or Georgia Tech (just to name a good school). </p>
<p>Generalizations about public schools are also difficult. My daughter goes to a public high school that has a 1484 average SAT (old SAT). In terms of raw numbers, it has more top school admits than any other public school in the country. If not the best public school in the country, it is in at least the top 5. And headmasters at the local private schools (again, some of the best in the nation) freely admit that this public high school offers the best chance, statistically, of Ivy type school admission (although they don't do badly either). My daughter, who is in the top 5% of the class there, will likely have choices that even most great students don't have. But that is not why she goes there. (Her older sister chose to go to the "regular" high school - she is a good athlete and that was a factor - and was admitted everywhere she applied, including a couple of top 10 schools - and is going to a top 25 school on an almost full academic ride - so success is what you make it). My younger daughter wants the challenge and level of education that can be obtained. She simply belongs there. And she knows that college admission and developing her own human capital will take care of itself as long as she puts in the work. And this, and not some frantic search for a brand name school, ought to be the gravamen of any parent's concern.</p>
<p>I had a lot of interest in this question, because a few years ago I took my kids out of a famous, elite private school and put them in a large public academic magnet school. At the time, I studied (and I have continued to follow) the admissions performance at both schools.</p>
<p>Long story short:</p>
<p>The private school offers a magnificent education. The public school offers a very good education to kids who perform well and push themselves into honors, AP and IB courses. The public school is probably stronger in most sciences, especially chemistry and physics, but has far fewer resources. The private school is much stronger in English and languages, and the general intellectual level is much higher. The private school talks a lot about diversity, but effectively has none; even families from different backgrounds think alike. The public school is dizzyingly diverse in every parameter.</p>
<p>There is very little overt competition at the private school. The school tries very hard, and generally succeeds, to make sure that it is hard to tell much of a difference among its strong students. At the public school EVERYTHING is a competition, EVERYTHING gets a numerical grade, EVERYTHING is ranked. Kids bet on top kids' class rank performance as if it were horse racing.</p>
<p>The stats for the private school are much stronger than for the public school: 1320 average SATs (old scale) vs. 1100, 25% of graduates go to Ivies vs. 5%, etc. But that's really a function of the different class sizes (95 vs. 600). The scores and results for the top 60 kids at each school are really very comparable. </p>
<p>The private school sends a couple more kids to HYPSM each year than the public school, but that's almost entirely a function of two things: (1) Many of the top public school students don't want to go far from home (while all of the top private school students affirmatively want to go far from home). (2) Very few of the public school students will apply ED anywhere other than Penn, for economic reasons. At the top levels, what this means is that it's very rare for a public school kid to get into Princeton (which takes half of its class ED), while the private school often sends at least one kid there. At both schools, some of the kids admitted to these colleges are legacies, recruited athletes, or URMs (or some combination thereof), but the majority aren't.</p>
<p>If you expand the focus to other top universities, the headcount from the two schools is about the same, but the distribution is very different. Penn is the most common destination for top kids at both schools, but the public school sends 2-3 times as many kids there (see above, also there are financial reasons relating to scholarships for Philadelphia residents). The private school sends more kids to places like Brown, Dartmouth, Chicago, Duke. Both schools send about the same number of kids to Columbia, Cornell, CMU, and NYU. The grading practices (no inflation) at the private school, and its refusal to participate in the AP system or to weight courses, disadvantages kids there at schools like Berkeley and Michigan.</p>
<p>Where the differences really show up is the rest of the top 60 kids. At the private school they are going to top LACs. Four or five kids from the public school go to those types of school, but most of the others will go to Penn State, Drexel, Temple, or a service academy. And for kids outside of the top 60, at the private school they are mostly going to good LACs (places like Skidmore, Smith, Elon, Davidson, Earlham); at the public school they are going to one or another Pennsylvania public university or college. Economics play a big role in these differences, but it's also true that (despite some half-hearted attempts at education by the GCs) at the public school LACs are simply off the map for 90% of the kids.</p>
<p>The college counselling at the private school is exquisitely personal and very good, although kids are definitely steered to LACs, and subtly encouraged not to apply to too many of the same schools. The school pulls out the stops (and has impressive success) when they think a college has made a fundamental mistake. The public school GCs do very little counselling; they are essentially managing paperwork and ensuring that everyone applies somewhere they're likely to get in. The ambitious kids counsel themselves. Half of them never think much about applying anywhere other than Penn. In my daughter's class, one single-digit ranked kid actually failed to get in anywhere because she only applied to a two highly-selective schools. It's not that her GC (and all of her friends) didn't notice that and urge her to put in more applications, but the private school would have locked her and her clueless parents in a room and not let them out until she had completed some safety applications. </p>
<p>Bottom line: Both schools do very well by their top students, taking into account the students' differences. Standing out isn't usually a problem either place. The private school intentionally makes it hard to distinguish among its students, but tries to make certain that too many aren't competing head-on-head at the most selective schools. (Sometimes it doesn't work; 10 of my daughter's ex-classmates applied to Brown ED, and none of them were accepted, including one athlete who had been recruited.) At the public school, they don't need to stand out to get accepted at Penn or Penn State, and few enough kids make serious applications elsewhere that head-to-head competition is really only an issue at Harvard and Yale. It is probably easier for a kid from the public school to get into Brown, since only three or four apply there in any year. But if you wanted to go to Williams, or Pomona, you could face the problem that no one in the admissions office had ever looked at a kid from your school.</p>
<p>Would things be any different at a non-magnet public school? In Philadelphia, a kid going to a top college (including Penn) from a public school other than a magnet school or one strong neighborhood school (that physically, demographically, and in its location is much more similar to suburban schools than to other city schools) is a once-in-a-blue-moon thing. I looked at the arts magnet public school here with my daughter, which had a writing track that appealed to her a lot. The college admissions history for kids in that program was very sobering, and it was clear that the school was much weaker academically than the academic magnet schools. In my daughter's cohort, exactly one kid from a non-academic-magnet public school other than the exception noted above was accepted at an Ivy League college (Penn, of course). She knew him; he was considered the best student in the past decade at his school; everyone (including D) thought he was a great guy who walked on water; economically disadvantaged URM with amazing personal accomplishments. SATs under 1100 -- his admission was conditioned on a fair amount of remedial work. At least around here, the notion that there are schools offering a decent education where a kid who would be in the middle of the top pack at a magnet school could stand out and waltz into Harvard is not even a myth. It just doesn't happen, and no one expects it to. It's tough enough for the few academic magnet schools to sustain a critical mass of ambitious, qualified kids to challenge each other.</p>
<p>The suburban school districts don't have magnet schools; they tend to have large high schools with honors tracks. All of them are pretty competitive. The schools with the most high-profile admissions success are the schools with the biggest reputations and highest number of competitive kids.</p>
<p>A number of families who sent their kids to our public schools for k-8 sent their kid to private high schools. While some were dissastified with the high school (which was constantly re-inventing itself over the last few years) a number said to me that they thought high achievers would do well in the high school; but their own above average but not stellar students might be lost in the suffle. They wanted their child to have the support they feared might not be available for kids in the middle, caught between the high achievers and the struggling students. I think there is a lot to be said for this perspective.</p>
<p>Does anybody remember seeing on CC a while ago a list of high schools and the number of students from them that were admitted to Harvard? </p>
<p>I wonder where that is...</p>
<p>Well, here is one list that seems to defy Jay Matthew's theory:</p>
<p>Posted by Papa Chicken, <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=1338442&highlight=exeter#post1338442%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=1338442&highlight=exeter#post1338442</a>
Post #259</p>
<p>
[quote]
Part 4 Super Feeders to Ivy, S&M, SWAP
I've defined (albeit imperfectly) Super Feeders to be:</p>
<p>12 or more matriculants per year to:
Penn
Harvard
Columbia
Cornell
Brown
Stanford</p>
<p>9 or more matriculants per year to:
Yale
Princeton
Dartmouth
MIT</p>
<p>6 or more matriculants per year to:
Swarthmore
Williams
Amherst
Pomona</p>
<p>SUPER FEEDERS
Exeter NH: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn
Stuyvesant* NY: Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, MIT, Williams
Andover MA: Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Brown
Harvard Westlake CA:Penn, Columbia
Thomas Jefferson HS * VA: Princeton, MIT
Horace Mann NY: Cornell, Columbia
Hopkins CT: Yale
[/quote]
</p>