<p>Anticatalyst,
I heard a similar story. Certainly the schools were color-coded feeders, and in the 1930's, 95% of the Ivy students came from private schools. Of course, so few people applied to college in those days, that it was a lot easier for any college to make decisions.
At Exeter, someone told me that you used to (probably as late as the 60's) just fill out a form and put it in your P.O. box, checking off the colleges to which you wanted to apply. That was how you filled out all your "college applications". I guess the college counselors would talk to the admissions counselors, and that was it. I think this is similar to the way British schools operated. Instead of each secondary school trying to win advantages for its students and market them to universities, there was a kind of old boys' network of headmasters of secondary schools and deans of universities. In that situation, complete honesty (rather than marketing) was the interaction between the two. Thus, the headmaster wrote a very concise summary of your entire academic career to the dean of the university, e.g. "Though he is gifted with a natural brilliance, squeezing work out of Portland-Smythe is as difficult as producing blood from a stone." and that was that.
So much simpler, but of course not possible these days, what with O-levels, A-levels, and S-levels.</p>
<p>collegein07,
There's this myth that the boarding schools and Ivies are only for the rich. That has not been the case for a long time, though of course it used to be. See, the Ivies have large endowments that allow them to attract whatever students they can, regardless of income. It's called "need-blind admissions". That means that the admissions folks do not look at your financial status until after they've made the decision to admit you or not. I think the exception is international students, who are in a slightly more competitive situation therefore. After you are admitted, then they determine what kind of financial aid you will get; loans, scholarships, work-study, etc. But only schools that have a lot of money can afford to do this.</p>
<p>montrose:</p>
<p>My kid attends a boarding prpe school on full financail aid. However, many parenst told me that IVY colleges are differrent than prep school as more asian kids apply for IVY leauge schools thus they are able to achieve the necessary diversity with full freight paying asians. The IVy schools tends to ignore the poor asians despite having good stats and ECs.</p>
<p>From the schools' own websites:</p>
<p>Groton:
enrollment: 358
matriculations at the Ivies - 2001-05: 108</p>
<p>Andover:
enrollment: 1,102
matriculations at the Ivies - 2001-05: 424</p>
<p>If we assume that the class size has not changed much in the past few years, that means that even though Andover is much bigger, it's still enrolling 40% at Ivies, whereas Groton is at around 30% (of course we assume that admit and matriculation rates are pretty close, too--I seem to remember that most folks really wanted to go to Ivies, and the ones that didn't get in from high school tended to get 4.0's at their college and then transfer to Ivies).
What I would be interested in is knowing the percent admit rate at these boarding schools and then their admit rates to Ivies. If a high school is really selective in the first place, then you'd perhaps expect it to have a higher admit rate at Ivies, but I would be curious to know if that is really the case.
I conduct admissions interviews for Exeter and the School Year Abroad program (Italy, China, France, Spain jr. or sr. year abroad in hs with a host family). I know that SYA admits about 2/3, because not too many people are keen to go abroad for a year in the first place. Anyone have a source for both sets of statistics?</p>
<p>There is a higher admit rate - albeit not as much higher as it was back in the "old days."</p>
<p>See: <a href="http://www.phillipian.net/article.php?ID=2214%5B/url%5D">http://www.phillipian.net/article.php?ID=2214</a></p>
<p>I remember that the year I got out of high school, almost nobody from Exeter, Andover, or a few other boarding schools got into Brown, though folks did really well at the other Ivies. It almost seems like certain colleges' admissions committees have a new mix of flavors they try every year, which lines up with what I always tell kids: if you don't get in, it has to do with what that college is looking for--it's about them, not you. If you do get in, the same is true.</p>
<p>Collegein07. </p>
<p>Check out the posts from Chinaman in the archives. His son attended a top prep school on full aid; he got a full ride from Princeton. Tchiem got into ALL the Ivies. I believe he will be going to Harvard on a full ride (did not attend prep school). He's Vietnamese-American. There are certainly fullfare Asians at top schools; but there are also full-ride ones, and everything in between.</p>
<p>There has always been a bit of "Tufts Syndrome" at work, since it kills a school's yield rate to be seen a a "back-up".</p>
<p>A staggering fraction of common admits to both Harvard and Brown opt for Harvard.</p>
<p>There was a time when 25-30 Andover students would get into Amherst, but few would go there - preferring the Ivies. Then Amherst started rejecting or waitlisting Andover applicants on general principles, and now the app numbers are far smaller as its no longer a viable a backup school.</p>
<p>Places like B.U. and Michigan don't seem to mind - accepting dozens of Andover apps although few matriculate; these schools don't play the yield game, and are happy to get even a small number of Andover matruculants.</p>
<p>To combat "Tufts Syndrome" or the fear that it will be applied against you (ie, the school assuming you'll go somewhere higher up the academic food chain if you have the option, and rejecting you before you can reject them) prep school kids are increasingly applying EA, ED or SCEA, strategically, whether they really have a "clear first choice" or not.</p>
<p>That's true, of course, especially since all the Ivies share their info. Thanks for the Phillippian article--very informative. I was shocked to see the number of colleges to which students are applying. At Exeter in my era, you were encouraged to apply to 4 to 6; 1-3 reach, 1 safety, 1-2 mid-range. Perhaps this was to combat the Tufts Syndrome. After all, every college wants to be wanted (one of the cool things about ED/EA applications). The college counseling office would not <em>allow</em> you to apply to more than 6. I remember that some folks I knew in the good public high school in my hometown applied to 9, and that was considered an extremely insane version of the "shotgun" approach.
But 15 colleges? 25? That's nuts.</p>
<p>kellyconn,</p>
<p>If your friend was a girl graduating from Roxbury Latin, that would truly make her unique.</p>
<p>rlatin is all boys? really?</p>
<p>"Matriculations - Groton and Andover
From the schools' own websites:</p>
<p>Groton:
enrollment: 358
matriculations at the Ivies - 2001-05: 108</p>
<p>Andover:
enrollment: 1,102
matriculations at the Ivies - 2001-05: 424"</p>
<p>Groton starts with grade 8 and has about ~80 graduates. Andover starts with grade 9 and has > 300 graduating seniors.</p>
<p>How can Andover have 424 matriculants at the Ivies with only 300 graduating seniors? Do so many graduate early?</p>
<p>It's Ivy Matriculants over a 5 year period.</p>
<p>"It's Ivy Matriculants over a 5 year period."</p>
<p>right.
Andover sent ~ 28% of 1500~1600 graduates to ives over 5 years.</p>
<p>OOPs. Thanks. I failed to take that into account.</p>
<p>"bottom line though, Stuy is the best high school in the world, in my opinion, and numbers really dont matter, as a lot of kids who get in from hunter, stuy and especially bronx sci have dual legacy and wealthy jewish parents."</p>
<p>this is a ridiculous statement. stuyvesant is really not that great of a school compared to ones talked about in this thread. it is on the weak end of the top 5 nyc schools.</p>
<p>What is the hiearchy of the best prep schools? Which schools are commonly considered the best, as in HYPS are considered the best, while P has the lowest cross-admit yield among those 4.</p>
<p>A public high school, free education == > beats all your private schools....</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson High School (TJ), Virginia. </p>
<p>Enrollment 420, According to partial report (333 reporting):</p>
<p>This Year they at least send 11 to Harvard, 21 to Princeton, 37 Duke, 10 MIT,
8 Yale and 9 Standford.</p>
<p>If includes all ivys, Mit, duke and stanford, then they send approx 100 each year consistantly in past 10 years.
<a href="http://www.tjhsst.edu/%7Elouyang/college/destinations%5B/url%5D">http://www.tjhsst.edu/~louyang/college/destinations</a></p>
<p>Average senior SAT score 1500, high number and % of national merit finalists in past 15 out 16 years in the nation, this year 165. It also fielded more USAMO qualifiers than any other high school in America.
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_High_School_For_Science_and_Technology%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_High_School_For_Science_and_Technology</a></p>