I’ve yet to see a peer reviewed publication in the American Journal of Boarding School GPAs, but I’ll be sure to include that when it is released.
Of course it’s hearsay! That’s 99% of what we share here. It’s perhaps in our collective hearsay and counter-hearsay that facts may emerge.
For a community that rightly eschews prep school and college rankings and the like, there seems to be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth regarding GPAs and their impact on college matriculation.
There are empty 4.0s and incredibly impressive 3.5s out there. College admissions officers will never be able to completely eliminate the noise for the signal, but my guess is that they are better at this than we give them credit for.
As has been said several times: do not go to prep school if your only goal is to get a 4.0 and get into Harvard. That’s not how this works.
I suppose this is anecdotal so may not be representative, but I recently saw the graduation program of a very large, fairly diverse public school in a pretty nice area of a medium-sized midwestern city. A third of the graduates had a GPA of 4.0 or better. That’s grade inflation!
It occurs to me that there’s probably some survivor bias in any published grade distribution at some boarding schools. Probably many of the kids getting lower grades their first semester or year leave before year 2, for example.
Also, if the teachers are doing a good job, the performance of the students should improve as the years go by, and their grades will likely reflect this. My own child entered his BS with some work to do on his writing, had a wonderful “English” teacher and has improved significantly in this area. This should serve him well next year and beyond.
This is verging on off topic, but it is something I never knew, or looked into in the least before boarding school.
At the Blue Ribbon public HS my kiddo was at pre-BS, this year there was ONE Ivy. U Penn. There are usually none. The valedictorian is going to UVA, and one to Carnegie Mellon. None of the other schools listed are even on the matriculation list for Deerfield. And 30% of that public school class has a 4.0 or higher. Many are community college bound, many undecided and many not going to college. I do believe the better known and East Coast schools know the boarding schools and their rigor.
The Deerfield matriculation list for a graduating class of half the size includes multiple kids to every single Ivy. Little Ivy, top 20…. That can’t just be due to legacies and sports. Our local high school boys lacrosse team won the state championship and none of them were recruited to big name colleges. Their valedictorian’s resume is absolutely amazing and she’s not going to an Ivy.
We have yet to see where my kiddo ends up, and will never know if the grade deflation at DA hurts or the reputation helps. Or if she gets in somewhere because of her 36 ACT and EC’s and essays despite not being in the top 10. Will never know if her lower A’s in non-AP’s vs her high A’s in AP’s at public matters. The interesting thing having a repeat Junior with a year under her belt at DA is that we CAN see the difference, it’s not assuming things. She has 3 years of report cards at the local public school and will have 2 at DA that illustrate the difference. What it doesn’t show is how much harder she has worked at DA for those grades, and how much more she has learned and grown in confidence as a person.
Ok, well my family has been in the boarding school world for 22 years in various capacities, and having very close ties to heads of college admissions offices (as boarding school administrators moved into college admissions) and I can strongly say that your thought that colleges give no weight to boarding schools gpas vs public schools’ is way off base.
Have you had a kid, or ideally more than one kid, go through college admissions from boarding school? I get the feeling that a lot of the anxiety I’m picking up in this thread comes from parents who haven’t gone through the process yet, and are worried.
It is also possible that high school students are self-selecting. In our local school system, there are few Ivy bound because almost no one applies, even the 4.0s. Just not what they target given that high GPAs here are guaranteed close to a free education at our state Unis. Generally, those who head to BS are high achievers, and the boarding schools cherry pick from that lot–the lot that would do as well or better in the college game had they stayed home. How many times we’ve beaten the drum here: Colleges admit students not high schools.
Several of the parents on this thread went through the college admissions process this year, myself included. Covid upended the college admissions process significantly, and made this year a very competitive year all around due to many factors. Since many / most schools were test optional this year, it did feel to me that my kid was competing against high GPAs from public school kids. In the end he ended up at the right school for him, and we have no regrets, but the college admissions process is different than it was even 5 years ago.
This. The international community kiddo has built by age 18 is amazing. Nicest group of kids, some super wealthy but not snobby in the least, and he has an open invite to stay with families throughout Asia. And the United States. What a gift!
Kiddo had two over the other day, he made them dinner, and DH and I got to listen to them playing piano, guitar, singing, laughing and being themselves. If that’s how they are at school together, wow.
The one thing I regretted about bs was not having the opportunity to see kiddo with his friends and getting to know them like “normal” parents get to do. I feel like I am getting that opportunity now. Another friend is staying with us for a few days next week, and then another is going on a family vacation with us in August. We missed out on time getting to know his bs friends as much because of the pandemic, but what a blessing they are.
Dumb little thing, but telling: kiddo wanted to make a dish for dinner last night that required a specific Korean ingredient. We googled and went to a local Korean grocery store, and he couldn’t find the ingredient on his own. But he was excitedly snagging other things off the shelves that he recognized as the best dorm snacks. He stepped up to the shopkeeper and politely asked for the elusive ingredient, who showed us where it was. When he was ringing us up he asked kiddo how he knew about the things he was buying. When he answered “from my roommate”, the man got a big smile, made sure he knew how to microwave the rice bowls perfectly, and comped him a little gift. I would have been so intimidated to do any of that when I was 18. BS gave him that - the confidence, the respect, the exposure, the willingness to try new things.
My youngest also went through the process during covid, when virtually all schools were test optional. You felt your child was compared – but based on what?
Since you have no regrets and your child ended up at a great school for them, what would your advice be to bs parents that haven’t gone through the process? Should they worry?
Overwhelmingly I have seen (and for more than 2 decades, including the past several years) boarding school kids end up at great schools for them, and families are pleased with the experience.
Do you think that families with the level of wealth and sophistication that attend boarding school would continue to do so if they felt their kids were harmed regarding college matriculation?
This is not a “dumb little thing.” This is EVERYTHING!
I worked in this particular HS guidance office for a year and could see where kids applied. Our state has some of the highest public college tuition and I don’t believe great aid. Most high achievers go out of state.
Another thing I wish I knew….
I wish I knew how important it was to make connections with other parents at BS and get involved in the parents’ organization from the start. As an out-of-region parent, there was nobody else from our area at school. Many of the parents at the boarding school knew each other from JBS, their hometowns, club teams, or their local private schools, etc.
You may find that you can learn more about the school culture and also get supportive information from the parents organization if you get involved.
At graduation, several of us mentioned that we had not seen each other or even spoken with each other since our kids were Freshman - because, due to COVID, several family/parent events/PO meetings had been cancelled or postponed. Pick up and drop offs were staggered. Not the same socializing.
Based on the fact that even the college counselors felt more uncertain about where kids would land this year. This was vocalized and they adjusted application strategies as a result. My kid is going to a great school, but it was not his first choice. Even so, it’s a great fit and is the place he belongs. Overall, there were a lot of surprises among his class between waitlists, rejections and unexpected acceptances. Many high tier colleges reported record applications and the lowest acceptance rates in history. It was a challenging year.
What I noticed comparing my freshman year (precovid) to now is that the high-achievers still get into the top schools they want to, but those who essentially received that “prep school boost” no longer really exist unless they’re otherwise “hooked” (athlete, legacy, etc).
I do have to say, though, some of the seniors I know acted quite entitled this year. One friend of mine was accepted to multiple colleges and LACs in the USNews top 10, yet told me that “Lawrenceville failed me” and “we’re no longer a top school” because he didn’t get into a HYPSM. If this is a common attitude among students who were getting in pre-Covid thanks to the “Lville boost,” I’m honestly glad it’s gone.
This is a bit like the “there’s drinking/drugs at boarding school” posts. Yes there is, just as there is at public schools, and is in fact at pretty much every school.
Yes, this year was not like other years for the reasons you mention at boarding schools. And at every other high school, public and private. It’s not an issue limited to boarding schools.
What I wish I knew before entering boarding school?
OK - call us naive (again), but we had no idea how many students were repeats and had already taken certain classes at their JBS, overseas school, or school back home….but were taking the same course again at BS.
Next (call me stupid thing) - I had no idea how many kids/parents use a private counselors for BS placement advice and then use private college counselors. Guess that is not as big a thing back home. The school offered private college counseling to each student that was adequate enough. Do they write your application essays for you? No. Do they hand hold you every step in completing the application? No. I believe our counselor had @ 35 students. We found the counseling services to be within our expectations in terms of help. Did we agree on the college list they gave us? NO. But, we didn’t need a private college counselor for that….but it was more common than we had realized and it costs a lot of$$$.
While I agree with this, it’s the fact that there is much less supervision at BS compared to most homes in America. (at least where I live)
Way back in the olden days of the ‘80’s, there was a party with drinking probably every weekend at someone’s house whose parents were out of town. And I went to a small Catholic school.
It’s not so much what I wish I knew, but one that parents of future boarding school students should: the behavioral standards and what happens if a student is caught not reaching them even once in his or her boarding school life. A parent who wants very strict oversight and punishment on drugs and alcohol should look for schools that provide them. Alternatively, a parent who wants kids to have second and third chances for transgressions in these areas should consider other schools.
Yes. Definitely read the student handbook. Know if a school is a “first strike” school or not.
No matter how sure you are that your child will stay out of trouble, remember they will be in a new environment with new situations and may even be a step removed (a roommate) from an issue and become caught up in it (or even worse, a scape goat).