<p>Mootmom, I'm curious why CA parents don't want to send their kids here to the East Coast. Could you elaborate? Thanks...</p>
<p>Agree, size of the graduating class is most meaningful. Many schools increase (often doubling) their class sizes in their high school grades as opposed to their middle school grades.</p>
<p>I was working on the class size issue, & noticed that the Bullis matriculation page has changed drastically....don't know why....similar schools, but different order & #'s.....#'s make more sense now for 5 years of matriculants:</p>
<p>1/ George Washington U (11)
2/ Boston U (10)
3/ Miami U (9)
3/ Syracuse U (9)
3/ U Colorado Boulder (9)
6/ Brigham Young U (8)
6/ Duke U (8)
6/ Johns Hopkins U (8)
9/ U Virginia (7)
10/ Georgetown U (6)
10/ U Arizona (6)
10/ U Delaware (6)
10/ U Maryland College Park (6)
14/ Brown U (5)
14/ Franklin and Marshall College (5)
14/ Gettysburg College (5)
14/ Kenyon College (5)
14/ Muhlenberg College (5)
14/ Rollins College (5)
14/ Skidmore College (5)
14/ U of the South (5)
14/ Vanderbilt U (5)</p>
<p>
[quote]
Just an observation...not one Swarthmore.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Swarthmore currently enrolls only about 25% of its incoming freshmen from private, non-parochial schools. That's only about 90 students per year. So the odds of a single private school sending multiple students per year to Swarthmore are slim. That's what it would take to make most of the lists shown here.</p>
<p>Plus, Swarthmore is not viewed as preppy, pre-MBA enough for many of the prep schools listed here. Once you get beyond HYPSM and some of the regional choices, many of the colleges that appear on these lists are known for serving a particularly preppy clientele, as you would expect!</p>
<p>In looking at last year's freshmen facebook at Swarthmore, there were multiple students from some high schools, but they tended to be public high schools. For example, there were three students accepted from Greylock High School in Williamstown, MA. Several from Lexington High outside of Boston, etc. There weren't a lot of duplicates.</p>
<p>Perhaps Swath has very limited appeal as do other small LACs. A self selecting small audience not really known outside of a select knowledgable few.</p>
<p>Remember that most newspapers are written for a sixth grade education. That should tell you that Swath isn't going to appeal to the masses.</p>
<p>From what I do know, many of these schools send kids to Swarthmore. But just one a year. For example, my son's long-time roommate is from Hotchkiss. He is the only kid from Hotchkiss that year (class of 2008).</p>
<p>WIS, where my son graduated (<a href="http://www.wis.edu)%5B/url%5D">www.wis.edu)</a>, is an IB school in upper northwest DC, pre-k through 12. A large proportion of its students have parents working at the World Bank, IMF, Inter-American Development Bank, and some of the smaller embassies. There are are approxinmately 50-60 students in each graduating class with about 40-50% of them American citizens.</p>
<p>The list doesn't include the number individuals attending each school. The fact that it is an international school, with a substantial number of non-Americans, explains the large number of stduents atending college outside of the US.</p>
<p>American University
Boston University
Brandeis University
Brown University
Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design
Clark University
College of William and Mary
Columbia University
Davidson College
Dickinson College
Goldsmiths College, University of London
Haverford College
James Madison University
King's College London
McGill University
New York University
Oxford University
Pomona College
Royal Holloway, University of London
St. Mary's College of Maryland
Stanford University
The George Washington University
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of Texas, Austin
Universidad de Chile
University of California at Los Angeles
University of Durham
University of Guelph
University of Manchester
University of Michigan
University of Pennsylvania
University of Teesside
University of Toronto
University of Virginia
University of Warwick
Vassar College
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University</p>
<p>It is possible that schools like Swarthmore (and other small LAC's) do not appeal to many independent college prep school graduates because they see such schools merely as an extension of their high school experienece. Graduates of many of these schools are ready for a different experience, and opt to matriculate at Universities in order to experience different academic and social experiences and perhaps different parts of the country. Many of my son's friends (who attended independent prep schools in NE) felt that the LAC atmosphere would be too similar to what they had experienced in high school.</p>
<p>There are as well some LACs that seem to give an edge to public high school graduates when it comes to evaluating their applications. Some years ago, I heard an adcom (not sure if I remember correctly) suggest that it was better to have graduated from a good suburban public high school than from a prep school.</p>
<p>1sokkermom:</p>
<p>I agree with you. Most of the American students go to larger schools. Many of them have gone to school with the same 20 or 30 kids since kindergarden and they universally, with some exceptions, want to try something larger. In any case almost anything is larger than WIS.</p>
<p>My daughter went to a California prep school, and my impression was that the students wanted to go East and it was difficult to get them to look West. In her graduating class of 40 girls there were three that went to Barnard, two to Wellesley, two to Smith, two to Bryn Mawr, two to Yale and two to Brown. Those are just the ones I can recall off hand.</p>
<p>2331clk, personally I'm fine with sending my son to college on the east coast -- but perhaps it's different for us since we lived in NY until 1997. This will sound like stereotyping, so please forgive me, but a vast majority of the families at our CA prep school are Asian and Indian, with many of the parents being immigrants and their children being the first generation in the family to attend undergraduate schools in the US. In parent meetings, they asked almost exclusively about CA schools or "Ivys", and the GCs made what I thought to be rather poignant pleas for the parents to PLEASE consider east coast schools beyond just the "big names". The "stay in CA" attitude may have something to do with the fact that the UCs are really quite excellent for state schools (especially at the in-state price!), in addition to the distance factor. (And then there's Stanford, USC, and Santa Clara, all of which our school seems to feed to.)</p>
<p>Then there's the fact that many kids from CA just simply don't want to take a chance on snow. ;) (My younger son, however, has informed me in no uncertain terms that he <em>requires</em> going somewhere where there will be snow throughout the winter. Not snow in the mountains which he can visit on weekends, as we have here, but actual snow on campus. Go figure.)</p>
<p>I just looked through the Class of '05 "top 20" list (which is 23 schools because of ties) and see that 8 of the top 14 are CA schools. (The non-CA schools in the top 14 are, in declining order of matriculants: MIT, UPenn, Yale, NYU, Wellesley, and BU.)</p>
<p>discovered some transcription errors from PDF on my part...here's the revised version:</p>
<p>1/ Univ of Colorado, Boulder / 22
2/ Dartmouth / 11
2/ Stanford / 11
4/ Colgate / 10
4/ Southern Methodist / 10
4/ Tulane / 10
4/ University of Puget Sound / 10
4/ University of San Diego / 10
9/ Brown / 9
9/ USC / 9
9/ Bucknell / 9
9/ Lehigh / 9
9/ Washington University / 9
14/ Cornell / 8
15/ Colorado State / 7
16/ Penn / 6
16/ Bowdoin / 6
16/ University of Denver / 6
16/ Yale / 6
20/ NYU / 5
20/ Denison / 5
20/ Lake Forest College / 5
20/ University of Richmond / 5</p>
<p>I'm working on senior class size, SAT composite scores, & more for the named schools.....should have something ready to post in the next 24 hours....PC</p>
<p>Then there's the fact that many kids from CA just simply don't want to take a chance on snow. (My younger son, however, has informed me in no uncertain terms that he <em>requires</em> going somewhere where there will be snow throughout the winter. Not snow in the mountains which he can visit on weekends, as we have here, but actual snow on campus. Go figure.)</p>
<p>Mootmom:</p>
<p>This is exactly what my S said. He passed up on Stanford; I've told him I may ask him to come home and shovel snow :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
This will sound like stereotyping, so please forgive me, but a vast majority of the families at our CA prep school are Asian and Indian, with many of the parents being immigrants and their children being the first generation in the family to attend undergraduate schools in the US.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>i'm asian myself, and from what i can understand, many asian cultures value family, and thus like to have each other stay close to home (i've heard this is similar to the hispanic culture too). this can explain the "stay at home" attitude of many immigrant asian parents, although weather and choice of nearby schools are factors too. but my parents always say, why would you want to go anywhere else outside of california? they say that you don't know how lucky you are to be in california until you leave. the "stay at home" attitude was definitely a HUGE factor during my college application process. to my parents, going to local UC Riverside may have been slightly more desirable than going to "far away" UC Berkeley!! (although that is probably an anomaly because most asian parents would love to have their kids attend berkeley).</p>
<p>
[quote]
they see such schools merely as an extension of their high school experienece.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Exactly. The facilities and faculty at many of the abovenamed prep schools would rival most LACs. </p>
<p>Did you do Exeter and Groton?</p>
<p>Thanks P Chickie..this is great data. Can't wait to see some stats on size vs acceptances....</p>
<p>Groton is under post 19, and I did peruse Exeter's web site, but they don't appear to publish, at least publicly, these stats........same story as many others.</p>
<p>Thought I would add some info from my son's school. They publish only a list of the colleges being attended (2001-2004 grads), but no numbers. But, I was able to count up the info for the class of 2005:</p>
<p>St. Paul's School for Boys, MD</p>
<p>From a class of 77, 100% attending college:</p>
<p>1.University of Delaware--4 (I think this is because the honors college there is offering bigtime merit money, better than UMD)
2. Tied with 3 each:
University of Pennsylvania
Franklin & Marshall College
University of MD, College Park
College of Charleston
6. Tied with 2 each:
Bucknell
Boston College
University of Richmond
University of Vermont
Wake Forest University
Washington College
Roanoke College
Towson University</p>
<p>The other 45 students all were singles. The mix ranged from the other Ivies all the way to one student entering a local community college. This is a student who nearly killed himself driving drunk and has significant brain damage leftover from hitting a tree. He has made amazing strides in his recovery, but it is so sad--Everyone, talk to your kids AGAIN about this even if you think your S or D would never do this or ride with someone who does. It happens all too often</p>
<p>Ok, here's my stab at senior class size & a few other stats.</p>
<p>Some notes:
1. For the most part, senior class size was either reported directly somewhere on the web page (class of 2004 or 2005 typically), or I calculated it as the average from the matriculation pages. In cases where I marked a "~", its more of a calculated guess based on upper school student body # or some other less direct measure I found on the web sites. Probably close enough for this ballpark analysis. Georgetown Prep doesn't seem right to me...too big.....if anyone has any corrections, please speak up.
2. Combined SAT was either directly reported as a combined total or added from V & M scores reported on the school web pages. Again, I did not discriminate.....I took what I could find.....may be class of 2005, 2004, as juniors or seniors, so comparability is not exactly apples to apples, but it does give one an idea of gross differences. Where I marked an "~", the reference was some remark I found in the text that was less precise than I'd like.
3. What's a slice & dice like this without some kind of quasi-Ivy analysis? From the shortlist of 20 top colleges/uni's for each HS (NOT THE ENTIRE MATRICULATION LIST), I calculated the percentage of matriculants heading to Ivies, Stanford, MIT, & SWAP (Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst, & Pomona). These stats will be very lumpy, but perhaps interesting nevertheless. Note that for SWAP as some have opined, Swarthmore is altogether absent in the top 20 lists, with Williams being the college most reported, followed by Amherst & Pomona.
4. Following up on interesteddad's observation, I calculated the in-state percentage of matriculants out of the top 20 for each school. Haven't studied it thoroughly yet, but I'd say Pennsylvania is similar to California in staying close by. Likewise, Dixie southerners appear to stay close to home. Note that I included DC colleges in the Maryland HS calcs, but all others were pure in-state calcs.</p>
<p>Have at it:</p>
<p>High School/ Snr class # / SAT comb / % Ivy, SM &SWAP / % In-State
Andover MA 315 1363 30% 19%
Bullis MD 78 NA 1% 21%
Castilleja CA 48 1410 NC NC
Cate CA 69 NA 12% 40%
Chapin NY 41 NA 37% 19%
Chestnut Hill PA 45 NA 8% 62%
Choate CT 201 ~1300 20% 15%
Cinci Country Day OH 72 1276 4% 32%
College Prep CA 80 1437 29% 53%
Collegiate NY 52 NA 57% 14%
Culver IN 206 NA 0% 45%
Deerfield ~165 NA 38% 20%
Delbarton NJ 101 NA 29% 11%
Durham Academy NC 93 1296 2% 77%
Episcopal Acad PA 115 1298 22% 32%
Ethel Walker CT 36 NA 3% 10%
Fountain Valley CO 59 1145 4% 27%
Georgetown Prep MD 199 NA 3% 20%
Gilman MD 99 1345 20% 23%
Groton CT 87 1390 24% 24%
Haverford PA 79 1290 16% 45%
John Burroughs MO 97 1380 14% 23%
Kent Denver CO 107 1265 10% 18%
Kentucky Country Day 51 1238 2% 25%
Landon MD 78 1294 12% 17%
Lawrenceville NJ ~190 NA 26% 6%
Mary Inst & St Louis CD MO 143 1280 10% 21%
Menlo CA 130 1295 NC NC
Milton MA 181 NA 26% 27%
Oregon Episc 62 1317 3% 29%
Park MD 69 NA 8% 16%
Penn Charter PA 101 1309 11% 55%
Peddie NJ ~130 NA 14% 11%
Pine Crest FLA 126 1327 19% 34%
Poly Prep NY 97 NA 9% 30%
Potomac VA ~75 NA NC NC
San Francisco Univ HS 113 1337 19% 47%
Saint Andrews FLA ~145 1225 2% 43%
Shipley PA 78 NA 15% 29%
St Andrews DE 67 1321 14% 6%
St Christophers VA 75 ~1200-1300 1% 67%
St Pauls NH ~133 NA 42% 8%
Thacher CA ~53 1300 21% 34%
Thayer MA 106 NA 0% 43%
University School Nashville TN 77 NA 6% 28%
Webb CA ~90 NA 14% 52%
Westtown PA 95 NA 4% 32%</p>
<p>I apologize for not formatting too well, but hopefully you'll get the jist........also, I didn't get to the calcs for Menlo or Castilleja.</p>