Washington DC Private Schools

<p>Actually, boarding schools are more diverse than other private and public schools. While those schools attract students from one area (the town which the private/public school is in), boarding schools recruit students from all over the world and many different states. You can't argue it isn't geographically diverse, and the percentage of students of color is higher than it is at other private schools. Many kids from BS laud their school's diversity, so stereotypes such as BS is just a privileged, WASP environment, are not justified.</p>

<p>"certainly not in the inner city."</p>

<p>you serious? we take kids from inner city all the time through different organizations...and you know what? one of my best friends is a homeless kid from afghanistan and he wont be going home any vacation becoz he dosent even know where his family is as of now</p>

<p>Yes, and yet Hotchkiss also gives financial aid to people making more than 120,000 a year. Don't you think that since Hotchkiss is such a great, non prestigious, open, environment that the money helping a middle class child attend Hotchkiss should instead be helping more inner city kids like your friend? How many inner city kids does Hotchkiss help?</p>

<p>(I didn't realize that diverse meant "geographically diverse;" I suppose that covers the royalties from abroad.)It is, however, very laudable that all you kids, who attend some of the most elitist schools in the country, place so much emphasis on whose school provides you with more "diversity", "socially disadvantaged classmates", "real-life exposure." And, of course, these schools will be great stepping preparation to HYP, Wall Street, big law firms, public office, etc. which we all know are 'the real world.' In the meantime, I assume that you're not wasting your summers by having silly jobs like flipping burgers or being life guards but rather doing important volunteer work or summer programs in exotic places, which, judging from their price tags (5000/4 weeks or 39000 for school year abroad) provide such a "valuable" experience.</p>

<p>Woah my school's on that list haha, i knew it was good. However we're better then the school listed a couple spots above us. :)</p>

<p>On the other hand, if that list is the determinant of what is good, my school is neither competitive nor respected. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>"How many inner city kids does Hotchkiss help?"</p>

<p>why would you expect hotchkiss to "help"? the main purpose of accepting inner city school kids not to "help", the main purpose of accepting a kid from afghanistan is not to "help", but merely to create a community that includes as many people from different background as possible. Schools do what's good for them, not what's good for you. all you need is have as many cultures, backgrounds, states and countries represented as possible........</p>

<p>thanks to bearcats and olivia for backing me up here! First off, Choate has waaay more socioeconomic and ethnic diversity than STA can ever hope to have. Because it is in Connecticut does not mean that it is populated entirely by wealthy kids from Greenwich by any means. While there are kids like that here and at all boarding schools, they are certainly not a majority at Choate. To answer gobulldogs' questions, STA upper school academics are pretty bad. At Choate, for example, one has to earn a B+ or higher in REGULAR, not honors, Algebra 2 to proceed to regular Precalc the next year...add to this the fact that the regular alg 2 class uses the same book as honors, and it makes for a very hard time getting into precalc. At STA, "advanced" classes are not actually so..Most people go to precalc, without any consideration of their math abilities. In additon, getting into AP science after sophmore year chem is a breeze...99 percent of my friends SAILED into AP chem or bio, whereas at choate to get into AP chem, you must get an A in Honors Chemistry or an A with a department rec in regular to move to AP chem. Also, if you are looking for a bunch of kids who enjoy driving to each others' houses and having their parties broken up by the cops, then STA is for you, because that is basically the social scene. As for Sidwell, I liked it a lot, the only reason I didn't go was b/c I wanted to go to Choate...also, my sister HATES GDS and is leaving after this year...a lot of the kids are jerks. Hope this helps.</p>

<p>Oh, I didn't even see tryingtorelax's post. The stereotype you just described is represented by maybe .02 of the boarding school population, or at least at Choate. I am not applying to Princeton or Harvard next year for those very reasons, as I want a global environment with people comitted to changing the world (I realize that is very idealistic), so Brown is my first choice. Trying, that is a really jaded perspective you have there and I wonder if you have ever had contact with real boarding school type instead of those portrayed in inaccurate Gossip girls type books.</p>

<p>stewie and brian had a great time at brown.no grades...woohooo.</p>

<p>Thanks a lot for answering my question CRH, but again your logic seems to be way off. Although you have had experience with St. Albans in middle school, the only knowledge that you have now is second-hand. What your post makes no mention of, and what you have no way of knowing, is how the student body at Choate stacks up to that at STA and the differences in grading and difficulties of the courses that you mentioned. I think that the generalizations that you make have little basis in reality, regardless of what you have heard from one or two people. The same can be said for the social scene that you have described. While some of the students do probably party and drink a lot, just like virtually any high school that you go to in this country, I have a hard time believing that all students partake in such activities. I am also sure that Sidwell is not much different from STA in that respect. What I really wanted to see were some hard facts, but the only one that I can seem to find is that St. Albans consistently sends a higher percentage of their students to top-tier schools than either Choate or Sidwell, so they must be doing something right.</p>

<p>i will stand on CRH's side.
St Alban's acceptance rate, according to petersons, is 50%..
while choate is at 32% (that surprises me actually i thought it's supposed to be much lower around the hotchkiss level (20%), maybe petersons got it wrong) </p>

<p>Student teacher ratio is 7:1 for STA.
Choate is at 6:1</p>

<p>endownment: STA =35 M
Choate = 213M</p>

<p>you talk about college matriculation in terms of percentage</p>

<p>remember, STA's graduating class was 76 accroding to their website,
while choate's was 241....
it's easier for small schools to get a higher percentage simply becoz..
brown wouldnt mind 5 kids from STA, but to get the same percentage, choate has to send 18 kids, and yes, that would be an overrepresentation..and brown probably wont want that...it's economics, law of diminishing return...so it's totally unfair for a big school to be compared with a small schools in terms of percentages...</p>

<p>and where do you find the statistics? if you are talking about the wall street journal thing with ivies and 3 top colleges, that doesnt help arguing for your cause...remember, at least i know at hotchkiss, and probably more so at choate (since they are bigger), our college office constantly encourages us to look past the rankings for 2 reasons:
1) rankings really mean nothing
2) They gotta spread out the applicants...we got way too many kids applying to the obvious ones....imagine...35 kids applying to wharton ED this year...ridiculous... they constantly try to spread everyone out.....this is not as crucial as a small school like STA..simply becoz...you dont have as many applicants, and schools wont mind taking a few from STA, it's a decent school afterall....</p>

<p>so there you go</p>

<p>oh and i dont mean to spark another which school's better debate... those are pointless..different schools for different people</p>

<p>Bearcats the acceptance number Petersons gave is misleading becuase St Albans starts in 4th grade. The elementary school to NCS and St Albans is Beauvoir, and pretty much every child from Beauvoir gets in. However, to get into Beauvoir is very difficult and has admission acceptance rates equal to some of the best pre schools in NYC. Everyone knows that getting into 9th grade is much harder than getting into 4th. Therefore, the 95 percent admission rate for 4th graders and the sub 20 percent admission rate for 9-12 grades, make for a relatively high admission rate. If you want to compare Choate/Hotchkisses admission rates to St. Albans, you can only use 9-12 grade admission rates. </p>

<p>Also your explanation for why big schools have a less percentage of matriculation compared to small schools contradicts Wall Street Journal. National Cathedral School, 75 girls in a graduating class, has the same matriculation rate (30) as Andover with 300 people in a graduating class. Clearly, some of the ivies ARE willing to take 15 kids to a certain Ivy.</p>

<p>Be true to your school...</p>

<p>This thread is even more inane than the "What are my chances?" and "If you can choose" threads because everyone is so uptight and defensive and disproportionately serious about comparisons that, in this case, they think they're actually qualified to make...and in universal terms no less.</p>

<p>I'm holding out for the YouTube clips of the post-game rumble after Choate and St. Albans meet in the College Counselors' Cup, where students prove that their schools' matriculation reports are better than anyone else's. With tempers flaring from some message board smack-talking, security for this year's CCC will be particularly tight: "Whoa! You can't bring your slide-rule in here, Dexter! That's a demerit!"</p>

<p>National Cathedral School, 75 girls in a graduating class, has the same matriculation rate (30) as Andover with 300 people in a graduating class. Clearly, some of the ivies ARE willing to take 15 kids to a certain Ivy.</p>

<p>then i will go on and say andover has a more amazing college admissions stats than NCS becoz of the bigger graduating class</p>

<p>I don't get your logistics but okay. gobulldogs, are you applying to St Albans?</p>

<p>um...that's basic logic.... assuming a top notch high school has 10000 kids, do you think it's as easy to have a 30% ivy matriculation (3000 kids) as a high school of 10 kids , 30% = 3 kids to ivies ?
this is an extreme case...but it's true. size matters.. colleges dont like overrepresentation from one school unless there's extra incentive for them to let that happen....</p>

<p>therefore it's easier for a small school to have a higher matriculation percentage than a big school...</p>

<p>thx for sticking w/ me bearcats...really appreciate it...ok so soccerprep is right, Beauvoir is a feeder to STA and the admit rate is very high from there, I came from Beauvoir too...BUT bearcats' other numbers are right...the ivy thing especially...it is a blessing at Choate/Hotchkiss, etc when 10 kids out of a pool of 46 applicants got into Brown last year at Choate...I highly doubt that 46 kids out of STA's graduating class are applying to brown, and if they did, the number admitted would be much lower than if 10 apply and 4 or 5 get in...also, STA has a TON of recruited athletes, esp. lacrosse, so you need to consider that when looking at college matriculation...a lot are going to Ivy X because that ivy happened to need a good lacrosse player...gobulldogs are you applying to STA? and soccerprep, are you in my grade? (08)</p>

<p>Oh, and to soccerprep's thing about STA's "lower" admit rate...they must let in about 18 new kids in 9th grade as most stay from lower school into upper...so that is why it is so low...and add to that that their pool is probably no more than 100 apps for 9th, whereas choate gets close to 2000 apps for ninth to fill a class of 200...</p>