<p>Ah - but if they are not even involved in the annual fund drive, what’s the chance they’d donate? Interesting. Do they receive the solicitations in the mail, or are they not involved at all?</p>
<p>At my d’s school, SPS, a letter is sent to everyone with a suggested contribution amount. The parent’s fund strives for 100% participation, no matter what the amount of the contribution is, this seems a better practice than what alex describes.</p>
<p>I remember a cc discussion about contributions to the annual fund and recall that most parents received a solicitation and that most schools expect all parents to contribute, FP and FA.</p>
<p>I never “studied” but what emdee described is more reasonable to me and sounds like something that should be implemented in most schools. With or without a suggested amount, all families should be given a chance to participate. The participation and awareness are important. Today’s FA kids may go on with their lives financially successful and become major donors tomorrow. It is to no one’s benifit to differentiate FP and FA students or families while they are still in school.</p>
<p>How often do families donate the amount as suggested by school? How does the school come up with the “suggested amount”? A little more each year? Thanks for any insights.</p>
<p>Wow. We are on FA and do get called. Regularly. That’s because the percent participation rate matters to these schools, and every small donation matters a lot to those stats. I wonder which school takes the FA families off of the call list? That seems like a breach of confidentiality to me.</p>
<p>It’s disappointing when childish ■■■■■■ seem to purposely introduce false information, apparently for no reason other than to bring attention to themselves.</p>
<p>In a study whose results were released earlier this year comparing mid-career salaries vs undergraduate college, graduates of the Ivies were found to be earning approximately 40% more than graduates from the Top 500 (out of 4400) colleges. MIT and Stanford graduates did even better than the Ivies average.</p>
<p>The data from which this was based is available at [Top</a> US Colleges ? Graduate Salary Statistics](<a href=“2021 College Rankings by Salary Potential | Payscale”>2021 College Rankings by Salary Potential | Payscale)</p>
<p>P.S. - I was referring to the blatantly spurious post #33 above.</p>
<p>duh, my post doesn’t say compare ivy to top 500 colleges. If you look at ivy and tier 1 schools the difference is negligible and it won’t even pay for a year of BS expense unless you get a free ride from BS. :D</p>
<p>Earning potential put aside, the key difference here is actually the different perceptions of schools vs individuals. Some people believe that 1) Some schools (universities or high schools) are significantly better than others. The measurables in differentating good/bad, tier 1/tier2/… schools are a school’s philosophy/missions, quality of teachers, financial strengths, facilities, quality of students (peers), sports and extracurricular opportunities, colleges/jobs/graduate schols the students go on to after graduation, etc. and 2) a student can benifit from a great school environment SIGNIFICANTLY, which may shape his future in a meaningful way. Others believe that 1) There is not that much of difference among schools in “absolute terms” (i.e. quality of education delivered); that the difference of public schools and private schools, day and boarding schools, or tier 1 and tier 2 schools are overrated; that every school has its strengths (including public schools) and that all is needed is to find a personal “fit”. Or 2) It doesn’t matter how great or how bad a school is. It’s the student that matters. If he is motivated and capable he can succeed whereever he goes. </p>
<p>I believe that both are valid approaches, and we should agree to disagree. The reason why there have been so many “conflicts” here I think is that sometimes people tend to argue for their convinience. For example, when it comes to the discussion of ps vs. bs, one would say there is an absolute difference in quality, but when discussing BS’s, they’d argue they are all the same in terms of quality. On the other hand, to make the point of “BS is not better than PS”, one may pick every “evidence” that says one can succeed from a PS just as well as from BS, which is right without a doubt but the argument clearly misses the point of “choosing” when one does have real options.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, I think we should all consider ourselves lucky to even consider boarding schools for our children, whether it is a financial struggle or not (it would be a struggle for my family). What a glorious, lucky game we get to play! Is it a stressful, worrisome, fearful, exciting, buyer’s remorse, feeling lucky and thankful for getting in, etc kind of experience for families and students? Yes, but in the end what an incredible game we get to consider “playing.” We all have such cool wonderful children! And we should let them know 
Whether, day school, boarding school, day student, five day boarding, or remaining at public school…in the end, it is nice to be able to know about these resources and have the skills to “play.”</p>
<p>hear hear GTBH!! I work in an environment where kids are struggling just to get by.
Just to have kids who are thriving is a blessing.</p>
<p>“suggested contribution amount
How often do families donate the amount as suggested by school? How does the school come up with the “suggested amount”? A little more each year? Thanks for any insights.”</p>
<p>The school’s development office sets the suggested ask. The amount is based on the donor’s history of giving and will usually be a bit more than what they’ve given in the past. The theory is that it doesn’t hurt to ask for more and by not doing so you may be leaving money on the table. The worst that can happen is that the donor will say no. A donor with a past history of making a $10 contribution to the annual fund might be asked for $50, a $1000 contributor might be asked for $1,500. The calls would usually be made by the class agent, someone in the development office, or a member of a leadership fundraising group made up of parents, trustees and/or alums. Those making the calls often have information about the donor and what matters to them. The parents of a kid who loves chemistry might be given information about the new science facility, an athlete’s family might be told about an effort to resurface the playing fields.</p>
<p>As to parents who are new to the school, figuring out how much to ask for is a bit of voodoo science. The development office makes a guess based on the family income (if known), parents’ job(s), and any information they can get on past philanthropic giving. If Exover does a search and finds you gave $500 to the St. Grottlesex school your other child attends they know the basic range to expect from you.</p>
<p>In my experience FA families are never left off the lists, although I can’t speak for every school. Emdee is right that participation is very important, not only because it helps to show enthusiasm and support for the school (“We have over 95% support from our parents!”) but because it’s essential to get donors accustomed to giving to the school. The idea is to make contributing to the annual fund a habit.</p>
<p>I remember my prep school pushing to get recent grads to donate $5 their first year out. Some of those same grads.-former poor college students-are now pulling in big buck and making 5 or 6 figure donations. Some of the most generous donors are adults who are grateful to the school for giving them scholarships without which they would not have been able to attend.</p>
<p>Alextwooffour said:</p>
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<p>I’d guess that the schools involved chose not to put the FA families in the position of potentially declining to donate in response to a call from another parent.</p>
<p>I agree with Periwinkle.
However, FA or FP is not the point of this thread. Let’s discuss the real issues such as advantages and disadvantages of BS vs. public. The high school education is not just for college matriculation. However, it is one of the major objective in going to BS. If we think about just college admission, are BS worthwhile to go to at the expense of about $45K. If it isn’t, then let’s think about other advanatages of going to BS. Let’s continue the discussion. Of course please stop talking about fund raising.</p>
<p>The main point to me (not sure my kid would agree) is the challenge. Adolescent boys (my current area of specialty) have a LOT of energy, and I like seeing it channeled positively into difficult academics and athletics. </p>
<p>I love that–in an era where every smart kids seems to have an A+++ GPA–a B+ is a good grade and an A- a cause for celebration. </p>
<p>Ditto for athletics–love a school where kids on the team push each other to do their best–back home, sports teams,with rare exceptions, are more about social status and hanging out than playing hard. </p>
<p>Add like-minded peers and music and amazing guest speakers every week and a real commitment to social service and making a difference in the world that seems to be ingrained in the school’s culture…and where he goes to college seems a minor reason to send my kid to bs.</p>
<p>Erkybk. O.K. Why are we doing this? </p>
<p>The school committee of a well regarded, suburban public school just agreed, in principle, that class sizes could be permitted to reach 35. That’s the maximum class size allowed by our state constitution. I could rant and rave about such huge class sizes, but the flip side of limiting class size is a shortage of seats in necessary courses, if the town can’t (or won’t) hire enough teachers to meet the need.</p>
<p>How can you compare the attention a student sitting in a class of 35 will receive, to the attention a student sitting in a class of 10 to 16 will receive? I attended public schools, if they were anything like the schools I attended, my children would be attending those schools. They have changed. </p>
<p>I’m not concerned about college admissions. Apart from a few, very famous colleges, I doubt most parents know very much about most colleges. If your family can afford college tuition, and your SAT scores are respectable (not stellar, but respectable), you can find a good college. But, will you know what to do at college? My husband and I are witnessing friends’ children flunk out of high school and college in another country. These boys never needed to work in their rigorous national system. Now, things are falling apart. At some point, you must learn how to work. It does really smart children no favors if they win admission to elite colleges, but have never learned good study habits.</p>
<p>Thank you Sue22 for your excellent, informative response. Very much appreciated!</p>
<p>Relating to why sending kids to BS-
Some mentioned that many PS are good enough and can send kids to IVYs. PS/IVY graduates, on the other hand, learned from their college experience that they wish they had a BS education. Consequently, they want to send their children to BS. The BS educated parents continue to send their kids to BS because they had good experiences at BS. Consequently, it is getting more and more competitive to find a slot at BS. This becomes a crisis for many PS/IVY parents, who in turn want to know if they indeed want to expose their kids to such tough competitions, especially if BS does not guarantee IVY.</p>
<p>If BS ONLY does not gurantee IVY, then choosing BS over PS should still be a “no brainer” because of the added value of BS. It’s the prospect that a top student at his PS who has a good chance for a top college may lose that chance if he attends BS that “scares” some families. Is it myth or truth that BS actually hurts one’s chances of getting into top colleges?</p>
<p>That is the question I like to ask. Thanks, DAndre!</p>
<p>We could debate that day and night, but really, who knows whether bs helps or hurts a kid’s chance to go to a top school? </p>
<p>So I’ll go out on a limb here and say this… I think that it’s a lousy reason to send a kid away to school, if it’s your only or main reason. I don’t get the constant reaching for the next big achievement. </p>
<p>It makes more sense to me to pay attention to the immediate reasons to stay or go. Where will your child be happier? More intellectually stimulated? Have more friends? Have better options for sports and other activities? Don’t underestimate, either, how hard it is on parents and kids who love each other to be apart.</p>
<p>Make the choice based on what the kid needs now–and the future will sort itself out as it should.</p>