I would imagine that many of the kids who get into elite schools from prep schools have some pretty amazing parental connections. Not only are they legacies of top colleges but their parents have solid connections into the schools by way of donations and other access. Also, I don’t know the answer to this but perhaps parents who are alumni of the prep school and/or have made sizable contributions to the the school get special treatment for kids when applying for colleges. After all, many top colleges rely on the recommendations and judgement of the prep schools themselves to help them select the mandatory X amount of students they take from the school. Just my opinion, would love to be educated otherwise.
Which is better prep school (not graduating top 10%) or public ( top 10%) for competitive admission?
Pretty sure >25% of my high school’s class still ends up at ivy league schools (it was more like 45% when I graduated >10 years ago).
It’s actually not so much donations and connections from parents as the above says. There is definitely a connection between the guidance counselor and the schools and the faculty are much more skilled at writing LORs than your average public school faculty. More importantly the schools are simply better at preparing students (hence the name). More than 50% of my class scored in the 1500s on their SATs, every student in my AP chem class got a 5, even kids who got Bs or Cs in the class. Alumni from my high school would routinely talk about how freshman year of college was easier than high school (and remember, almost half of them were at ivies and almost everyone in the top 25)
Without knowing what private/public schools specifically it’s impossible to know what the differences between them are, but the local public schools definitely didn’t have anywhere near this level of performance.
This sounds really high. Andover reports SAT mean scores of 690 in reading and 710 in math, so Andover has a mean of 1400 composite. If the distribution is anywhere close to normal, the median shouldn’t be too far off from that. Was your high school really that much better than Andover?
I’m just basing my comments on what I’ve seen of some of the kids I met at Harvard who were from prep schools. Many of them were legacies and almost all of them were wealthy. Lots had recognizable last names. But then again, this was Harvard so maybe at a non HYP Ivy, my theory doesn’t hold true.
@calvinethobbes , one more thought for you. Right now, because your son is in 6th grade, the long commute to the magnet school may seem overwhelming. In my public district, many kids have at least 45 minutes on the bus to LPS. Many families will drive an hour to get to their school of choice. Kids figure out how to work this into their day. Some sleep. Others do homework. Others listen to music or socialize to decompress. It could well be worth it for what it offers, so don’t rule it out. There would be time on the bus to get to your normal public school. The incremental time may be a small price to pay for a vastly more engaging academic experience.
Akqj10, I wish you and your daughter luck and hope you get the results you want in three weeks. I see what you and Infinityprep1234 are saying about the influence of peer group, there other bright kids in his grade but unfortunately some are already spending too much time on social media. I will have to learn a lot about the admissions process as time goes on like you have,at the moment I am clueless. It is a shame that public schools can’t afford a lower counselor student ratio.
Steglitz90 your sons’ prep school sounds like a dream. I don’t think there is a substitute for having a motivated guidance counselor who knows you well and knows how to sell you to the college admission staff,write a recommendation for you.
Multiverse7… interesting observation.
gardenstategal, we don’t have an option of a magnet school where we live (in the suburbs). He can either go to the local public or go to a private school (day or boarding), he will prefer a day school which limits his options.
Just want to say some here have painted a tough picture of pubic schools and a rosy one of preps. OP really needs to get her own idea of what she’s dealing with locally. They may have fine guidance, fine teachers, wiling to work with a bright kid.
This isn’t a matter of some disadvantage to limiting some APs to 11th and 12th (that’s not so uncommon- as is limiting how many a 9th or 10th grader can take, or which.) Elite colleges aren’t really looking for “anatomy and physiology, organic chemistry or genetics/biotechnology.” Those, on the hs level, can’t really compare with the college experience. And yes, he could get those through Dual Enrollment (DE) or the challenging summer programs. Realize also that, when it comes to tippy top colleges, all kids need to also excel in the rest of the courses offered, meet the expectations for rigor in those, too. In other words, this isn’t just about stem.
One thing about the top preps and the elite colleges is, indeed, the counseling. But realize those GCs will do their own filtering of the kid’s and his family’s college expectations, temper and rework those, if needed. It’s not a free for all. One reason they do have success in getting their best into tippy top colleges is that they identify those best, based on what they do know about what top colleges look for, in total. And that, again, is more than stats in one arena.
But OP said her son is disappointed, so far. I agree with the comments to look into enrichment. Also, if he’s able to do, say, a higher level math or sci class in summer, will the local hs let him then advance ahead of the usual schedule.
And if the local hs balks at giving DE credit for courses at a local college, he can still take, say, anatomy or a tech course, etc, then report that on his college apps. There’s space for that.
OP - keep in mind a LOT can happen / change in the next 2+ years before your son hits HS. I’ve seen schools significantly improve or decline in that amount of time and a student’s interests / grades / motivation do a 180 at about this time in their maturation. I’m not at all criticizing you for being proactive (and think you’re asking the right questions) but would caution you to not make hard and fast characterizations at this point. Middle school is where my son changed the most as far as his academic preferences and interests. What I thought I knew about him in 5th-6th grade turned out to be off in many ways - not bad but different.
Good luck and keep us posted
ivy leagues are not a crapshoot, this is a common misconception
From this thread, http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1971287-perspectives-from-an-admissions-office-at-a-selective-school-part-1.html#latest
Yes
This is simply not true. Maybe if you lump all boarding and private schools together but the truly elite schools do not have admit rates lower than average. As I said,
~45% of my class went to Ivy League schools, 9/47 got into Brown alone.
@iwannabe_Brown
Care to say where you went?
@roethlisburger , @iwannabe_Brown
It does depend on the school. At my D’s private school, and some others in the area, the acceptance rates to many of the top schools (not all) are indeed much higher than avg.
@wisteria100 @iwannabe_Brown
What’s the Ivy admit rate for un-hooked applicants(not legacy, not recruited athlete, not development admit, no famous or celebrity parents)? I’ll take a stab and guess iwannabe_brown went to the Trinity School. It’s an anomaly even among the rarefied world of the elite private schools and boarding schools. If the OP wanted his son to go there, he should have started posting when his kid was 2.
In favor of BS, the top BS have student-teacher ratios of 5:1 and average class sizes of 12. Is there a public school in the country which duplicates that?
There seem to be a few districts in Massachusetts with average class size of 12 or lower:
http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/state_report/classsizebygenderpopulation.aspx
No, I do not feel comfortable explicitly saying what school I went to. As someone who has been posting for nearly 12 years if you really want to know you can figure out exactly who I am and you’ll see where I went to high school. If you do piece it together, please don’t post (pretty sure it’s a TOS violation anyway) but feel free to revel in your internet sleuthing skills.
We have better college placement than Trinity (or at least, we certainly did when I was in high school).