True, college admission is much more related to the student, but what is “the student”? Is it a just a numerical or alphabetic GPA? Perhaps not. It is everything about the student. And when high school comes into play, it’s about what school it is and how the student has done in the school. In choatiemom’s analysis of L’will’s high rates of graduates getting in Princeton. While it’s a valid question, I’d also ask if Princeton faculty kids could attend Princeton from any high school why would they send their kids to L’ville? And, I actually personally know several non athlete and non P associated kids who did get in P on their “merits”.
And what about Exeter vs MIT, Andover vs Yale? Faculty kids too?
What exactly is the trade-off?
Have you ever considered that every BS Senior Class ( at every so-called “tier”- including the “top” ) has it’s own personality and maybe some kids didn’t want to apply or go to Princeton?
Either way- it’s hardly a poor reflection on future classmates or a school.
FWIW- I have two kids at Ivy League schools right now and another kid at a really nice LAC. All of them went to BS for six years ( JBS-SS ). Maybe I’m wired differently but I never thought about college admissions until I had to or was told to . I was just hoping my kids would have a great BS experience, ( maybe learn a little bit about themselves ) and come out in one piece.
All I’m saying is to think carefully about statistics and matriculation lists. The top BS are self-selecting (cherry-picked high-caliber students); these are the kids who will do well no matter where they go to HS. The boarding schools are not “getting them in.” As has been said repeatedly on this board, it may actually be tougher to get into super selective colleges from the BS pools due to the extremely high level of competition. Most kids at every BS do not go to HYPSM.
To PhotoMom’s point about not every BS student wanting to go to one of the usual suspects: If a particular BS traditionally attracts top-caliber students who don’t tend to favor those colleges, does that downgrade the BS is any way? Or course not, yet people will look at the matriculation lists of those schools and incorrectly assume the BS is not as rigorous/competitive/.
As for faculty kids, all I’m saying there is that there is another “hook” that you have to realize your child may be competing against at certain boarding schools with close ties to certain colleges.
@ChoatieMom I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I have a different take on “hooks” as explained in post #6.
For OP, I think you get all (or a few) sides of opinions and you’ll just have to decide on your own what makes sense to you. Hope you have found some of the discussion useful. Good luck!
Can I just add that each student can matriculate at only one school and the personal choices around that are not reflected in the stats. A BS that has a very large percentage of students who receive FA may have college matriculation lists that look very different from one in which most of the graduates can afford to be “tuition-blind”. The former may see kids choosing the Honors College at UNC over Duke or Dickinson over Middlebury because of the financial considerations. And if the school is very racially diverse, you may find that there are parents who strongly encourage their kids to go to a place where they will not be in a small minority, which rules out a lot of those smaller LACs. While none of these situations may be relevant to you, they will impact what that list looks like.
So besides the “hooks” for getting in, there are simply other factors at play which a list can’t reveal. I too would counsel that the matriculation lists should be used carefully.
And here’s one I’ve never seen discussed here, but happens frequently – reapplication to first-choice colleges that a student did not get into from BS possibly due to the pool competition. UConn, for example, seems to be a one-year stepping stone for some Choate students on their way to Yale. Several of our son’s senior friends from his junior year ended up at the usual suspects after applying/transferring from other colleges after freshman year. So where a BS student eventually ends up is not captured in those lists either.
@ChoatieMom and @gardenstategal We are talking about differences among boarding schools. The demographics of most of these schools are very similar, with a few with robust FA programs having a more diversified student body which happen to be the ones with most impressive college attendance lists. IMHO, what you have mentioned in the previous posts are meaningful differences between individuals but at the school level all things considered these “noises” can be considered constants that’d be washed out over time.
@panpacific, I was thinking about a school in our area that is if often compared to others in our area. It gives considerably more FA than the other schools in the area (and is ranked in the top 10% for aid in the country) yet does NOT have the most impressive matriculation list. In this case, the result is not noise, but a meaningful difference. The issue comes up every year as parents are considering where to enroll their kids (if they have a choice) and are trying to figure out why the general consensus is that the school that offers the FA is considered to have the best, most rigourous academics but “fails” its students in terms of college placement when compared with the schools.
I think that if you’re looking at very similar schools, it will be noise, but when you’re looking at schools that have vastly different demographics, particularly in family income (which is generally not disclosed), you’ll see some very different patterns. Having been a party to this conversation numerous times over the last half dozen years, I’ve come to understand data about matriculation very differently.
For families that may not qualify for financial aid, choosing a less prestigious school that offers significant merit and perhaps athletic scholarship may not be a reflection of the failure of the college placement office but rather a reflection of the success of the family and student to be fiscally responsible. These difficult choices can be seen on some matriculation lists that appear to be less impressive than the academic rigor of the school would suggest.
Are we still talking about boarding schools that cost 50k/year? Not that there cannot be “poor people” in these schools, but as pointed out earlier, if the ones with the highest percentage of students on FA are the ones with best college matriculation stats (eg GLADCHEMMS) then how is finance such a determining factor for other schools as a whole year after year?
If you keep reaching like that you’re going to hurt yourself.
– this thread is devolving into a re-hash of many similar threads. Nothing will solved here. In addition, matriculation lists are just one POSSIBLE component you can use to judge the strength of the school. But, because we are dealing with human beings, there are far too many other components at work here. For example, how are you going to judge a school where a kid is admitted to one or more Ivies, but chooses a different university for art, or engineering, or any number of reasons. Does a kid’s choice for himself really determine how good that school is for another kid? Ridiculous.
Just want to point out that there are non GLADCHEMMS schools that offer more FA than GLADCHEMMS schools. And yes, if you were FP, you’d be paying 50K/year at those too. While most of the folks on these boards are focused on those (top) schools, the universe of BS is much larger than that. My comments were meant for the benefit of folks who may be considering options beyond the “household names” and who may be having a harder time getting info (and who may be thinking those matriculation lists are a valuable source of that). We were in that position 4 years ago, and I suspect we weren’t alone.
And yes, @Atyraulove, we are a family that fits your description – we don’t quality for FA but aren’t super-wealthy. DS is currently making his college decision and is debating whether a “more prestigious” school is actually worth $100,000 – which he thinks he may need for graduate school and is what the schools the next step down have offered.
@gardenstategirl I hear you. I do appreciate that college decision to each individual and their family is a personal decision that involves many factors to consider. And I apologize for being possibly insensitive to posters who are going through it right now in this debate which I thought was about organizations instead of individuals. I’m “resting the case”, and wish you good luck in finding your child a great college thst works out for him and for your family!
@wheretwogo Without knowing what you mean by “Top 10” school and “lesser-known” it is very difficult to make a judgement call. It’s often said that the only two boarding schools any randos know about are Andover and Exeter, and that is true. If you live in New England, the chances go way up that you have a school somewhat nearby, and that will increase the awareness. If you work in admissions at a competitive college, your awareness of boarding schools is pretty high, and you make judgement calls about them all the time–judgement calls about the strength of the school, the reputation of the school, the grading, the success of students coming from the school, and so on. That said, if your “lesser-known” school requires the average college admissions officer to google that school, that’s not good.
Certain classes of people do make judgements about boarding schools all the time, and your “Top 10” and “lesser known” might not be the majority opinion. Or it might. But a kid that gets good grades at one school is likely to get good grades at another, and it is not a sure thing that any given student is guaranteed to do very much better at a lesser-known school than they would have at one of the Big-6 or anywhere else due to competition or anything else.
Gotta do good no matter where you are.
Top 30 “Lesser Known” BSs ( BSs outside the “Big Five” ) have been around forever ( 100+ years ) and have excellent reputations. No one in a College Admissions Office has to google anyone unless they’re completely clueless.
I think OP (and others unfamiliar with the scene ) would be very surprised at which colleges send Reps for College Day/ Nights… or travel to these schools for on- campus interviews.
@GnarWhail Many colleges rely on regional AOs for the first round selection. These regional AOs for obvious reason know about many schools in their region. However, just knowing there is such a school and knowing it for its reputation and/or intimate knowledge about the school are different things.
I think everyone can agree that individual schools have special relationships with certain AOs. There is often a history to these relationships, friendships, etc. that do play a small role and can help individual students get noticed, but I think these relationships exist at both top 10 and hidden gem BS schools. The main advantage of a “2nd tier” school may be that individual students have an opportunity to stand out more easily to faculty which definitely impacts college decisions. But I feel it is impossible to predict before you enroll what your child’s experience at any school is ultimately going to be. I am not sure I would go with the 2nd tier school in hopes that my child would stand out more there or have a higher GPA. I would go with the school I felt was the best fit based on how classes are structured, what the school’s stated goals and values are, etc. It is true that most of the kids admitted to many of these schools could likely hold their own at all of them, in my opinion any way.
I never knew before this thread that Lawrenceville counted as a “hidden gem” or “lesser-known” or “2nd tier”! 