<p>I think that one can not generalize. In some states, the state flagships are not cheap, and private schools with aid can make more sense. It is an individual decision.</p>
<p>My D was 8th in our small-town downstate IL HS’s class of 63, and chose Monmouth College (in western IL) over UIUC, because the financial aid was much better. Several of the other top-10 students in her class did pick UIUC, though, with Joliet Junior College, Augustana, and St. Ambrose being other popular choices. No one was heading anywhere east of Indiana.</p>
<p>Oh, I don’t know why I keep coming to cc-it is so depressing. So regarding schools with dozens of NMF each year, I’m not sure that our school has ever had one. It is really hard to believe that there are NEVER any highly intelligent kids from our area. Standardized testing is supposed to be the great equalizer, but is it really? Our accelerated math track would put a Junior at PSAT time having completed Algebra II and Trig, whereas so many other 11th graders across the nation have completed college level Calculus classes. Sure, you don’t need calculus to answer PSAT questions, but how can a student with that type of math background not have superior speed and reasoning ability?</p>
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Eh…To say “so many” 11th graders across the nation have completed college level calculus class is a bit of an exaggeration. </p>
<p>If by completed you mean at the time of the PSAT they have already taken the class then I consider that by no means “behind”. I took this route and I’m not “behind”. I’m ahead. There is no problem with a student leaving high school and the highest math they have taken is calculus. </p>
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Easy. You learn the materia. You take the test. You don’t need to the “mastery of calculus” to have a “superior speed” and “reasoning ability”.</p>
<p>Proud mom don’t feel so bad. My daughter is a sophomore and is taking the highest math track- honors algebra 11/ trig, which essentially puts her one year ahead. She will be taking the PSAT in October. BTW I live in a school district that is considered to be outstanding. She will take honors pre- calc junior year and AP calc as a senior. I do not think there are any sophomores here who have taken calc in time for the PSAT, although it’s possible that one current senior took calc junior year. I do agree with you that there seems to be many many highly accelerated kids in other areas as far as math is concerned, but it’s not happening here despite having lots of very smart kids.</p>
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<p>I look at your data point a different way. I’m guesing that the high school that you’re referring to is an affluent, suburban, upper middle class district if it was sending so many kids to top schools in 1981. (That certainly describes the hs I went to, which sent kids to top schools too as a matter of course.) </p>
<p>What you’re seeing as “aw, a shame, these schools are no longer accessible” I take a different way. It tells me that these schools aren’t just turning to New Trier and Short Hills and so forth to fill their classes – that they are now open to, being heard about, and being filled by, and hence more accessible to, the kid from the small high school in rural Mississippi or the rancher’s kid in Montana or the kid from the barrio in LA. And to me, those things are good things, even if a few kids from New Trier and Short Hills are “left behind.” Those kids – like my own, to be sure – were already born on third base.</p>
<p>PSAT and Math level - The Math level for PSAT is same as SAT and never required Calculus and in most cases, does not go beyond basic geometry. There are one or two Statistics questions thrown in representing simple permutations and combinations. </p>
<p>However, Math curve on both PSAT and SAT tends to be the hardest. I believe the last exam had 3 wrongs at 69 or 690.</p>
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<p>But in general the very expensive state publics are also very good and very competitive and selective universities…that is the difference. When you have a very good public with national and sometimes global recognition many families need to have some other reason e.g. legacy, bragging rights, athletic recruit etc. to spend more money to send the kids to a more expensive college or university. We’ll spend more money on 3 paying full freight in state than we did for the other two sending them to small not nationally known colleges. Now, both 1 and 2 got fine educations and they will do just fine in life, but 3 will definitely have more recruiting opportunities at graduation. </p>
<p>We have a wealthyish community, but it’s an old money commonsense community, the type that doesn’t get a ton of financial aid so you really have to weigh the value of where your bucks are going. Even if we could afford $60,000 (and we can’t) a year per kid we would not pay that much for an undergrad degree, even to HYPMS. The kids that have gone in the past were heavily subsidized with finaid and you knew it because you knew the families.</p>
<p>You know, the unspoken truth is if you can afford full freight to an elite college you don’t need “connections” post graduation you already have them. It really is a personal choice about where you want to spend your money and less about outcomes.</p>
<p>I find it interesting that the current generation of parents seems to think that private is better than public. I don’t think for one second that my parents thought my private undergrad was “better” than my sibs public education. It fit me better, but I doubt they “presumed” it was a qualitatively better education. If I were a sociologist I’d be studying this phenomenon.</p>
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<p>That’s a really interesting insight. I’m not fully sure I agree 100%, but there’s a germ of something in there. Certainly the corollary is that people who have truly “made it” don’t need to prove anything to the neighbors by where they send their kids.</p>
<p>‘Dat true…it’s been interesting to see where our friends’ kids ended up. Many sent them to the family favorite boarding schools but brought them back to the midwest for college. But then our kids were going and in college during the scary 2007-2011 period and we were all watching money and business evaporate at a remarkable rate. That will scare even the strong and make you think twice about value.</p>
<p>Here’s a link to our local school’s acceptances. It is self reported public data so it likely has some errors</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.pvphs.com/pdf/CollegeAcceptance.pdf[/url]”>http://www.pvphs.com/pdf/CollegeAcceptance.pdf</a></p>
<p>In the back of the list it is sorted by school, and it looks like most kids accepted to an Ivy type school chose to attend there,and we’ve got some good in state choices.</p>
<p>But some people around here have some money, not sure if that makes a difference.</p>
<p>^Bovertine, that is horrible! I don’t understand why that information needs to be public. Is this common? I could see a list of where kids are attending, but the full range of where they applied, their scores, etc…I am sure some will find the information useful, however.</p>
<p>Most of the kids are being rejected. There are likely 3x-4x the number of applicants as there were in 1981, and the number of places has grown, but marginally. So more of them are being rejected. Yields are not declining. I expect that many if not most people who say their kids chose the state u over the prestige college are simply lying. As a matter of pure statistics, they have to be.</p>
<p>The reality is that the parents went to the state u’s, and now the kids are doing the same.</p>
<p>I don’t know how common it is but they’ve been doing it for years. They ask permission from the parents abd everyone knows about it. I think it is a year or two old so it isnt current students.</p>
<p>Proudmomx3, at our school it is not the case that SO many kids are that advanced. There are always a few kids who manage to get to multivariate by 12th grade, not a classfull by any means. They take it at the university. This year there might be 10, not sure exactly. My daughter is in BC. They usually have one full class of calc BC, high 20’s, mostly 12th graders. This year there are I think 3 juniors in the class. </p>
<p>At my S15’s HS, a different one but still public, they manage the math differently so that kids may skip alg2/trig and go directly to precalc if they have good grades in h. geometry, which allows one to advance without having to be so advanced in younger grades. So my S and 2 other kids he went to middle school (private) with did this last year in 9th grade, along with an 8th grader from the middle school attached to son’s HS. Rest of class was mostly 10th graders who took geometry in 9th grade. Additionally there is a girl from son’s middle school studying math all summer to jump up so there will be 5 of them at MVC level when son is in 12th grade. Not a huge number of kids out of 500 seniors. Trying to persuade him to take AP stats instead that year since going to the university is such a bother.</p>
<p>Oh, and son’s HS had 19 NMSFs this year, first time they tied D’s HS. Though her HS also has one National Achievement Scholar, so still claims the lead.</p>
<p>Our local newspaper had a section listing the top students (I think they were all the students with an unweighted 4.0) from all the local high schools and where they plan to attend college. This is a mid-sized city dominated by a large public university surrounded by rural areas. </p>
<p>A majority of these students from the high schools in the city were planning to attend an elite out-of state school and most of the rest will be going to the state flagship. </p>
<p>The vast majority of the students from the rural high schools will be attending CC, with the next largest group attending one of the non-flagship state Us. A very small number were going to attend the flagship, a couple were going to join the military. Only three were going out of state and only one to an elite U, Harvard.</p>
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<p>That seems a bit odd. Pennsylvania’s flagship is one of the worst flagships for in-state financial aid, so non-wealthy top students in Pennsylvania may have more financial incentive to go elsewhere than non-wealthy top students in other states.</p>
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<p>The two state flagships are at opposite ends with respect to in-state financial aid.</p>
<p>Non-wealthy Michigan students are likely to find the University of Michigan to be affordable, while non-wealthy Illinois students are not likely to find UIUC to be affordable.</p>
<p>Re: <a href=“http://www.pvphs.com/pdf/CollegeAcceptance.pdf[/url]”>http://www.pvphs.com/pdf/CollegeAcceptance.pdf</a></p>
<p>The scatterplots at the end are interesting – particularly in how “fuzzy” the dividing line between admits and rejects is at various schools. “Fuzzier” dividing lines may mean greater consideration of factors other than grades and test scores. For many of the state universities, “fuzzier” dividing lines are likely due to varying selectivity of different majors or divisions within the school (e.g. Cal Poly SLO, UC Irvine). Interestingly, UCLA’s “fuzz” zone is much smaller than that of Berkeley, UCI, UCSB, UCSD, or USC.</p>
<p>They don’t seem that fuzzy to me for Cal and UCLA at least. I think you can draw a vertical line and get a oretty good idea at a certain GPA level. At least for the GPA that is a pretty certain admit. Sure below that level there is some uncertainty.</p>
<p>The Berkeley “fuzz” zone ranges from about 4.5 to 4.8 GPA with admits and rejects in all SAT ranges, but there are scattered admits at significantly lower GPAs. The UCLA “fuzz” zone ranges from 4.5 to 4.7 GPA with 1900 to 2200 SAT.</p>
<p>(These GPAs are presumably the high school’s weighted GPA, not the UC admissions GPA, which typically won’t be above 4.3 or 4.4.)</p>