Why it's so hard to get into an under 15% acceptance rate school

Why? Because it’s qualitative and possible that, for several reasons, they’d like him if a spot turns up. But not enough to bump someone else to make that spot.

There are lots of reasons for WL. Sometimes, it’s a legit “wait and see.” Other times, it’s more just an endorsement of the kid’s effort, some sort of Attaboy. Or the high school’s efforts. Maybe we don’t care so much about some head pat that doesn’t turn into an admit. But it happens. And as it’s not a clear cut end/rejection, many kids do feel a wee bit better.

I saw the disparity of private vs public HS access to elite schools first hand a few years ago. S attended a small public charter. Was the first “full class” in the schools 10 yr history. Was established to provide low income, inner city kids an alternative to the unfortunatley poor perfoming public neighborhood schools. Really provided a great education and everyone (teachers, admin, staff) wanted to be there and make a difference. And they succeeded their mission by placing 100% of the student body in college.

Although this was/ is an exceptional outcome, the guidance department had NO experience working with selective schools (other than our state flagship UF). Very few kids went out of state and likely most had never heard of many of the schools mentioned on CC. (full disclosure - we’re not low income or inner city and we know quite abit about many of the top schools which was quite helpful in S’ search). He attended simply because we felt this school was far superior to the neighborhood HS (drugs, crime, gangs, overcrowded, etc.)

S’ neighborhood friends attended the “ekite” private schools in the area and the difference in college prep was astouding. Talk about a pipeline to several elite LACs and universities. Many of the top 20 came on campus. Their regional admin folks didn’t even know of S’ school but had deep relationships with the privates. In fact, we attended several info sessions at the private HS to get an initial feel for the colleges.
Year after year these HS send kids to the top schools when the traditional public and charters typically send their kids to our state university system. That’s not bad, but you wonder where these kids would attend if they knew more and received actual guidance (college prep) compared to the private kids. Their GCs acted more like college coaches / consultants. For S, his GC actually told me that working with S was great as it was the first time they ever applied to any of these schools.

You can draw your own conclusions about disparity.

I think Gardenstatelegal nails it.

I have observed a LOT of the private school/boarding school advising and I think the “magic” is NOT that the Princeton kids get steered to Princeton, and the Harvard kids get “slotted” into Harvard-- as if it were 1953 all over again.

I think the “magic” (and it is magic, because both parents and student are ecstatic come April) is in getting the kid who THINKS he belongs at Princeton to fall in love with Middlebury, and the kid who THINKS he belongs at Middlebury to fall in love with Franklin and Marshall, and the kid who THINKS she belongs at Franklin and Marshall to fall in love with Muhlenberg. And so it goes- all the way down the food chain in terms of selectivity. The top tier kids don’t need much. It’s the middle and bottom of the class who really reap the benefit of the college adviser’s wisdom.

Spoke with an acquaintance this weekend- this was someone who four year ago was convinced their kid was destined for Harvard or Chicago (was legacy at one of them) who announced with a thrill that the kid got into Emory early. Early! And acted as if the god’s of higher ed had descended on the kids private HS and performed a miracle by plucking the kid out of the entire senior class and now the kid is going to the absolutely perfect fit college. Which of course is fantastic- kid happy, parent happy, private school happy, Emory adcom happy. But here’s where the magic lies. Not in getting a nice, BWRK kid with high scores and a mean tennis serve (club level) into Harvard or Yale. It’s convincing the BWRK tennis player with the high scores that Vanderbilt or Lehigh or Trinity or Denison or Lawrence is a much better choice (AND leaves the field clear for the true superstars in the class who will be applying to Harvard and Yale).

My own local HS has some competent GC’s. But they have neither the time, nor the knowledge, to know that the Denison’s or Lawrences or Franklin and Marshalls exist. Kid did the research and wants to apply? Sure kid. But nobody is trying to steer away- with grace and finesse and subtle hinting- that the “hail mary pass” applications are a waste of time and money. So every year the local parents are up in arms- Princeton took one! MIT took zero! Harvard only took 1! And then it turns out that every single senior who likes computer games applied to MIT, and every single senior with at least one AP applied to Harvard and Princeton. And a huge chunk of the class trundles off to “least beloved safety school”, feeling as though the game is rigged. A prep school counselor would have had ALL of these kids at their first or second choice college… the mathy kids at WPI or RPI or Case; the Harvard/Princeton at a wide range of terrific schools that really, really want the kids who can’t get into HYP but have really nice transcripts.

Colleges like Wittenberg? Don’t think our local GC’s can spell it. Earlham? Rhodes, Beloit, being a BWRK from the crowded Northeast is not a disqualifier at these places.

@minimickey Using the USNWR rankings, The “average” PA-A student goes to USC. 20% go to Ivy League schools. 25% go to t10 schools. They are not disadvantaged.

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Regarding public vs private disparity and the over representation of private school kids at top colleges- someone mentioned that private school kids are just 10% of all high school kids in the US, but may make up 50% of the class at an elite private college.
Part of the reason is that a very very high percentage of private school kids are prepared for a 4 yr college- would guess 98%+, whereas that number for public high schools will be significantly lower. Yes, the very good public high schools do a very good job at preparing kids for college, but there are lots with a dismal record as well.

This is all rather tea leafy.

If you are willing to assume that the spots the hooked applicants take roughly cancels out the completely unqualified applicants who don’t make the first cut, you end up with about the overall odds the colleges report.

The simplest answer is that the odds are low because, well, the odds are low.

In addition to having superior guidance counselors, elite private schools and boarding schools have a lot of kids from connected families - much more so than the typical public HS. Having the right last name can go a long way towards getting you into an elite college.

I think it’s important with prep, super affluent public hs and BS to remember there are many legacies, high impact ec funding, peer pressure and a (smaller but important) pool of super talented, culturally diverse candidates etc in the mix.

However a big difference is athletics mixed with the strong academics and counseling - squash, lax, fencing, crew etc. literally sports with no such program available at the vast majority of schools outside of this cohort. These also require funds to pay for the significant training and clubs off season to practice and receive personalized coaching. These all need to be filled at a wide array of ivies, top 50 private’s and top LACs.

Just a personal view of things. Imho.

Lots of truth in these posts, but don’t we all know kids who got into ultra selective schools with no hooks? As long as that is the case kids will continue to apply because even though the odds are tough, it does happen with regularity.

The post on downselling kids college expectations at big prep schools hit the nail on the head. They have been playing a game of diminishing expectations for two generations.

From an admissions standpoint the unhooked middle of the pack kids look better at the top of their public school class (where there is also less competition for ecs like varsity athletics, class president etc). That is rule, but of course there are exceptions.

The decision to attend a name prep school involves a lot of factors. But going because you think these schools offer a magical pipeline to ivy admissions is just plain wrong. For some kids, the myth of magical admissions will lead to stress and disillusionment. These kids would be better off at home.

I agree with everyone. My particular post went beyond just the Ivy chase. There are middle of the pack students at many of the top schools across the country.

I went to public hs personally.

It’s funny. My Deerfield family members and their friends seem to cherish and talk about that more than their colleges. Just an anecdotal observation.

When i was at school a generation ago there were certainly kids who were pretty average, gentlemen’s b types, though the quotas were already down a lot at prep schools and these kids were feeling the squeeze at admissions time. Now there are prob still gentlemens b types at ivys but these kids are likely athlete and legacy hooks. (I think that one of the reasons colleges like these kids is that they prevent the culture from descending into a hobbesian morass). But the there really arent any unhooked kids with anything like average backgrounds at ivys now.

I don’t think you will find many athletes or legacies like that at Ivies any more, either. Just too competitive to get in. Most legacy applicants are rejected, and coaches can scour the nation, and even world, for smart athletes too.

The referenced private high schools with a large number are acceptances to HYPSM… tend to be highly selective ones. For example, middle of the pack students may have SAT scores in the high 1400s which is 96+ percentile score. In contrast middle of the pack students at typical public HSs tend to have middling SAT scores, such as 1100. Students attending selective private HSs are also far more likely to apply to selective private colleges than students attending public HSs. If you instead compared students with similar stats, similar hook status, and similar set of applications to those middle of the pack students; I expect the results would like far more similar.

Reread my “Disparity” post and realized I never go to my point. Sorry about that.

My point regarding disparity is it’s an unknown, non-quantifiable, ambigous factor to admissions to elite schools. I would guess heavily that a student from a known entity gets an admission push when compared to an equal candidate from a school without a track record with that college. If they already have a pattern of success (kids from school A tend to do well here) vs. an unknown with limited spots available, pretty sure who wins that race.

Just making it more difficult for truly unhooked kids to gain admissions. That said, at least in our personal experience, if the student does great work (total body of work) in HS, s/he can certianly gain admissions to great schools. Likely have to go that extra (or several extra) mile but, hey, who said life was fair?

Everything is tougher, certainly. But leg kids accept at much higher rates - about 6x others at harvard, for example. And if you’re good enough to get on coach’s list you can practically take it to the bank

The boarding schools pound this drum all the time – their mission is to provide a stellar high school education, not produce any particular college result. During their own admission cycles, these schools try to weed out the families who think otherwise as those parents/students are the ones who tend to become royal PITAs and disillusioned come college admissions time. These schools prepare their students to hit the ground running at whichever colleges they attend. THAT is their product, and that is all they commit to delivering. Anyone who looks at these schools thinking otherwise is misinformed.

@gardenstategal’s post (#52) sums it up nicely.

Yes. The boarding schools woke up to the new world long ago. They are downselling college admission beginning in their own admissions process.

Is it any surprise that kids who attend elite private high schools will also be applying to elite private colleges in disproportionate numbers vs. the general student HS population?

Elite prep school Harvard-Westlake by us sent 10 kids to Harvard last year but this is a self selecting group of highly accomplished and groomed to attend elite colleges. In general, you are not going to HW (and paying 40K a year) to apply to a bunch of in-state colleges.

This may be the norm among CC posters, but it’s an extreme outlier compared to the general population. ~4 million students in the US graduate from HS each year. ~40k apply to Harvard and ~20k to MIT. So only ~1% of US HS graduates apply to Harvard and 0.5% for MIT. If you divide in by HSs, an average of only 1-2 students per HS apply to Harvard, and <1 per HS applies to MIT. If only ~1 kid applies from a particular HS, that HS isn’t a going to send a lot of kids to the college. For example, one of my relatives was the first student in the history of her high school to apply to a highly selective college. She got in. Other high schools in that rural, not wealthy, not in northeast area also had extremely few applications to selective private colleges in the northeast.

At typical public HSs, high achieving students apply to their in state public and sometimes other near by colleges, when they apply to college. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s a different mind set from the forum. Students attending selective private HSs often have a different mind set and are more focused on attending HYPSM… rather than their in state public. Some of this is self selection. Parents/students who already have that mind set apply to the selective private HS; and some of it is influence from the other students/GCs/teachers/parents connected to the HS. Again this isn’t an inherently good or bad thing, but it’s a key factor in why certain HSs have a multiple admits to HYPSM… each year and others have near 0 each year.