<p>And by the way, prostudent, when you say there are lots of underprivileged students at your school, what does that mean? If your parents could in ANY way shape or form shell out tuition at prep school, you are NOT underprivileged. I highly doubt more than .1% of prep school kids are TRULY underprivledged.</p>
<p>You're way off there alum, top preps have huge endowments and are as commited to diversity as top colleges. That isn't saying much as both are highly populated with the very privileged (60% plus). Like top colleges much of the aid goes to poor URMs and athletes, which are a big part of the schools.</p>
<p>Were there "poor" kids at my alma mater? Yes. Were there TRULY "poor" kids? Not really. Some? I am sure. Going to an expensive school out of state has a LOT of associated costs. Travel, for one. My school, for example, knowing damn well that most of the kids were wealthy charged a lot for EVERYTHING--and many things that would NOT be covered in fin. aid. They knew they could. Didn't pay that $175 parking ticket after we closed off all the lots on a whim? Sucks for you, you get no diploma. My point? Was there economic diversity? Yes, some, but to say there were people who were truly underprivileged? Maybe some, but NOT a significant amount. Just because you can't pay 45K a year does NOT make you or your family underprivileged.</p>
<p>Hmmm. And the average Andover or Exeter kid probably hasn't had the opportunity to go as far into their passions as a determined homeschooler left to his or her own devices, who would probably be more mature and self-reliant to boot anyway. (See, we all think our form of schooling is best, op ;p) It doesn't really matter though. Not everyone can homeschool. Not everyone can go to Andover.</p>
<p>I certainly feel that one's potential to take advantage of one's opportunities is much more telling than whether or not one is smart and capable of a heavy work load. A heavy work load does not = taking advantage of all possible opportunities.</p>
<p>:) I don't think my form of schooling is best. I'm just arguing that it's not as inferior as the OP thought because there are kids here who are just as driven as the kids there and who deserve to go to a top school just as much as the kids at BS do. And, if only a small percentage of these driven students will get into HYPS, only a fairly small percentage of BS students will too.</p>
<p>prostudent,</p>
<p>You asked, "shawbridge</p>
<p>So should I drop out of AED? I mean.. the benefits of AED are endless for sure but if its going to handicap me in the college arena.. What is your advice?"</p>
<p>I think the answer is complicated. I've had the virtue of education at 3 top 5 schools and was a professor at one for a few years and am still teach there a bit here and there. I'm not an expert in college admissions. But, let me hlep you clarify the choice.</p>
<p>First, what's the goal? Is HYP or Ivy admission or Top 10 admission the goal? To me, that is a means to an end. The goal is a successful, satisfying adult life. For some, success is only about money (and I am fond of money as a means for security but not as the goal in itself). For me, success is being positioned in the world so that I can get up most mornings and genuinely want to do what I am going to do that day. My educational background is a big contributer to my ability to have that kind of success, but there are certainly ways to achieve similar things without a hint of Ivy.</p>
<p>Second, if your goal is Ivy admission or HYP admission and you are not a URM/legacy/high class athlete, my logic suggests that going to Andover does not help your chances unless you are at or very close to the very top of your class. Colleges know that at this point Andover and its close competitors have sensational students and being at the top of one's class says a lot about top students' capabilities. Being in the middle of your class at Andover likely disadvantages you in HYP admission relative to being one of the top kids in a public school, taking a bunch of AP classes and getting 5's on the exams, and having a much more coherent and profound set of ECs than you probably have time for at Andover.</p>
<p>I have two high school aged children. One attends our very good public high school and due to his giftedness and his learning disabilities partially homeschools. He finds many of the Honors and AP courses too easy and too slow, but he also needs to devote more work to the skills of reading and writing than a normal curriculum gives him time for. So, he does advanced work outside of the school and focused work on writing outside of the school, but does lab science, art and social studies at the school. My other child attends a very good private school, which is pretty hard to get into. On average, the teachers are probably better at her school than the public high school. She has an advisor who meets with her weekly and will talk to the parents if things are not going well. Teachers will not wait until they give grades to let you know things are going wrong. We got a message from her previous school that "XXX is getting a B+ at this point so I feel odd sending out an academic warning, but I know that she can be an A student in this class as she was last year. It was a little too easy for her last year and she is used to more casual working habits. She needs to tighten things up...." You'd never get that message from even the best public schools. Her private school does a much, much better job of teaching writing than our public school. They will work with kids on study habits.</p>
<p>So, there are lots of independent benefits to attending the private school. But, I suspect that the right, self-motivated non-URM kid would be more likely to be at the very top of his public high school than the private one because of the intense competition to get into the private school. If that is the case, I think the probability of getting in from a good high school, like Lexington, MA or Millburn, NJ is higher than from Andover. It would likely be higher still from Bozeman, MT. But, not all kids are that self-motivated and I think my daughter will draw on her peers' motivation at the private school but if she attended the public school, she could have fallen into a crowd outside the top 20% who cares more about clothes and relationships than about academics. </p>
<p>Anyway, I don't think I'm necessarily optimizing my daughter's chances of Ivy admission, but I am trying to make sure she has the right tools and attitude to be successful in college and especially in life. I think that my son, given his situation, is in fact maximizing his chances of HYP or Ivy admission by going to public school and supplementing that with homeschooling to get what he wants and needs.</p>
<p>If you are a protected minority, for which a university gives itself diversity points, and are identified to the universities as such, I suspect that middling to good performance at Andover will provide the highest likelihood of admission to the Ivies.</p>
<p>So, unless you are a protected, coveted minority or at the top of your Andover class, I don't think the choice is necessarily obvious. You need to think about your goals and how best to achieve them. Unless you go to a really rare public high school, the Andover education is going to be superior unless you customize it like my son is doing. I also don't have a sense about how colleges would view a kid leaving Andover and going to a public high school. I think they'd view favorably the fact that you were able to get into Andover and then give you a lot of credit for a higher class rank. I hope this helps.</p>
<p>Andover Financial Aid:
Financial Aid (scholarships and/or loans):
Recipients, 449 students (41%)</p>
<p>Student scholarship grants:
Room, board and tuition - $11,123,300
Grants for travel, fees, expenses - $569,700
Student loans - $500,000
(Additional financial arrangements are available for middle-income families through The Andover Plan.)</p>
<p>Total financial assistance - $12,193,000</p>
<p>The comment about .1% of prep school students being truly underprivledged is way off.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>How is this even CLOSE to being a real argument!?</p>
<ol>
<li>pro, you CHOSE to go to Andover. If you think it'll hurt you and you can't afford it, there are most likely decent private/prep schools around you.</li>
<li>In general, average AED student >>> average public school student. But just because one is a top BS student DOES NOT mean that by virtue of their secondary schooling alone they are obviously a thousand times more qualified than hard-working, talented public school students.</li>
<li>Let's be realistic here. The average public school MIGHT send 1-2 top graduates to Ivy/top-25 schools. Granted, though AED students are competing against one another for those top spots, they still have fantastic chances (because of their top education/resources) when compared to their public school counterparts (and this, in my opinion, is not an advantage only reserved for the legacies, URMs, and top 1%).</li>
</ol>
<p>Truth be told, it's hard for me to have sympathy.</p>
<p>Why drop out now?
You're halfway through, and unless there's some serious financial reason (which you yourself have claimed you're getting assistance now), there's no reason to.
Stop worrying about comparing yourself to others when you can only help ::your:: application packet.</p>
<p>pro,</p>
<p>if you are complaining about prep's being hard, why go there? stay $ for HYPSC. also, why go to ivy? why? you are not worth any more or less if you go or don't go.</p>