<p>toad, your post should be required reading. Parents should be aware what they are getting into, especially kids coming from public schools that don’t have the competition top private k-9 schools may have.</p>
<p>This is a little off topic, but even in selective boarding schools, not everyone is an Ivy fan or even the “top school” fan. Some may choose to stay cool in the college admission game by not aggressively competing to be in the top 2/3, some may miss out for various reasons - health, distractions of all kinds in teenage years, or simply not being able to handle the academics that well even though they had a 90%+ SSAT in 8th grade (would a huge sucess in college placement be garanteed for the same student in the “local grammar school”?). Secondly, as discussed in the forum many times, many students and parents would choose “fit” over reputation of a college. A proof is that every year many students attend boarding schools that don’t have an impressive college matriculation record (in the USNWR standard anyway) in the first place.</p>
<p>We are prepared, as the boarding school experience is so much more than just getting into the top top school.
And now with this new economy and the upcoming new government economic control agencies, we are finding that even top notch students from top notch colleges aren’t getting their jobs this year after graduation from top notch companies.</p>
<p>I guess it depends on what you consider to be a “top top school.” If it’s Ivy+SM, they enroll a fraction of 1% of each year’s secondary school graduates. I don’t know how well the SSAT correlates with the SAT/ACT or any academic performance measures, but it would seem a score in the 90th to 97th percentile range would not by itself put a student in the “highly likely to be admitted to a top top school” category. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of grammar school “big fish” will never get there via any academic path either.</p>
<p>Paying $150K+ to attend a prep school does not automatically entitle a student to admission to the school of their choice. However, the data I produced above shows that overwhelming majority of kids at a top prep (which, if the SSAT was a good predictor, would include the 90% to 97% SSAT students in the class) will go to top 25-30 colleges and universities. Even at slightly lower performing preps, where they would be the upper echelon of the class, I’ll bet the data shows those 90-97% kids are getting into similar schools. Perhaps some of those aren’t “top top schools”, but they are unquestionably “top schools” where students get excellent educations that position them well for future success.</p>
<p>Padre13, my analysis of college placements of the top BS’s was based upon my own rankings, knowledge and evaluations of colleges accumulated over several decades of irregular study. Neither my methods nor conclusions were overly scientific or systematic. It just appeared to me that SPS had more kids on average going to more top colleges than the other top BS’s. Again, such was my reasoned opinion and, of course, many may, should or will differ from conclusion.</p>
<p>Padre13 is an asset in multiple discussions on this forum. 
He/She can find the convincing (to me at least) stats to support his/her views. Granted, some things are easier to quantify than others, so I guess it’s OK to talk about impressions sometimes, but we prefer to read some supporting “evidence” when possible.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/fashion/05summer.html?scp=2&sq=graduates,%20july%205&st=cse[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/fashion/05summer.html?scp=2&sq=graduates,%20july%205&st=cse</a></p>
<p>And the beat goes on.</p>
<p>sarum, don’t you get the feeling that the whole paradigm is changing?</p>
<p>No surprise there. We’ve seen this happen to before. I graduated from engineering school in 1982, which was during another nasty recession. I saw many highly qualified grads leave school and move back home without a job. Others had job offers pulled by major corporations just as they were about to begin work. One friend was a Chem E that worked in a grocery store for nearly a year before finally landing a “real job.” I was one of fortunate few that had multiple job offers but none of them were very attractive or promised much of a future so I went to grad school. That was a good thing too, because one of the companies pulled its offers in June, another was sold and basically gone within 18 months, a third was in a declining industry plagued by on-going layoffs throughout the 1980s, and the last was from a government agency which probably would have sapped the life from my veins.</p>
<p>BTW: Does anyone know how long it took for employment to turn around during that recession? It was January 1983 - two years after Reagan’s inauguration - before unemployment began dropping. Regardless of whether you think the recession will end later this year or we’re plunging into a depression, it will be many months after the recovery is underway before there will be an appreciable upturn in employment.</p>
<p>As for a connection to the topic of this thread, it’s tenuous at best but here’s hoping that the Class of '13 sees much better economic conditions when they become members of the full-time job market.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if this is the right forum, but does anyone have an educated sense of whether a student at a toip BS is better off for college matriculation getting A’s in non-honors courses or B/B+'s in honors courses? Thanks.</p>
<p>The “standard” answer is that a student is better off getting As in honors courses.</p>
<p>Obviously this isn’t really practical advice, however. I personally believe that a good solution is to take some honors courses and some regular ones at first if you’d be getting those grades. This way, one wouldn’t be overwhelmed but would be challenged, and one could improve one’s study skills, work on procrastination issues, and so forth, and hopefully be better prepared for most/all honors level classwork by the end of high school. The courses may look less impressive than classmates doing all honors work, but by working through one’s “faults,” the reasons why one would be achieving B’s in honors courses, one will be better prepared to adjust to the rigors of college, wherever one goes.</p>
<p>That’s my take, at least.</p>
<p>Colleges look for students to stretch themselves. If they cant see the “mantra” of A’s in honors courses, they would rather see that a student went beyond a comfort zone and still was able to take the honors. Since you usually cant get into an honors or an AP class without permission from the Dept. then that also tells colleges that the teachers had confidence in the student. Having said that, it may be demoralizing for some students to always get the lower grades than their peers. So you need to balance: perhaps honrs inHist/Lang/Eng, and regular in Math/Science or vice versa.</p>
<p>Have parents found they can influence the placement into AP/Honors? We wonder if we can push the school to put D/S into more advanced class despite what the BS recommended.</p>
<p>Deerfield is said to have great college placement. PrepReview in 2008 rated it among the top 5 BS’s with an IVY+SM percentage of 32%, but based on the actual matriculation lists published on the school website, in both 2008 and 2009 that percentage was around 23%. If the PrepReview’s number has any truth in it, that means for the 3-4 years prior to 2008, that percentage used to be much higher. Is that true? What happend the past couple of years?</p>
<p>It has been updated recently, according to the report, Deerfield’s ranking has been lowered to the 7th while Andover, Exeter & SPS is on the first ranking.</p>
<p>100% sure and I have to pay for it. It is from the PrepReview.com - America’s Best Boarding School 2010.</p>
<p>Oh sorry I deleted my last post before I saw your last post, but ya…what are the top 5 schools. Who are those 3 number 1s?</p>
<p>Rank no. 1 - PEA, PA, SPS
Rank no. 4 - Groton, Milton, Noble & Greenough</p>
<p>Oh ok…Well I don’t get prep review. If andover is one of those 3 at 30%…how come they have andover also on best high schools, but there it lists andover at 39%?</p>
<p>No, PA is not the third in the top 50 high schools, it should be the 9th which is the same as PEA and SPS.</p>