I have heard that private high school seniors in my area had been admitted to Ivies, UC Berkeley, and the likes. There are some public high school in my area have been admitted to Yale though only handful. Some say that certain elite college alumni gave out large endowment only when the college committed to admit x number of y private high school graduates. If you are high school senior of some country in Africa, you may have advantage over some child of Chicago’s poor single mom family simply because the African high school senior’s parent is rich. When you apply to elite colleges that are within 5-hour driving distance, your chance to get admitted is lower that those applicants that are 2000-mile away. If the high school senior is child of some distinguished professors, there is some advantage in play. Current Trump’s administration policy that “dislike” refugee put some weight to the refugee’s children of which they are preferred by the college admission.
A lot of factors seemed to play in admitting prospective students at elite colleges. Unfortunately none of these colleges are transparent in regards to the process, so I cannot show direct evidence; only hearsay to say the least. There is however some DoJ investigation of why certain group of applicant is preferred. To say that elite college undergraduate admissions prefer private school graduates to public high school has been true at minimum.
What I have heard that elite colleges prefer to admit prospective students with money background; i.e. alumni endowment amount or some bank statement if you are foreign high school applicant. One indication is that if a high school senior is currently or has been going to private schools, there is high chance that either the student’s parent is rich or the student is trained enough to fit in. Many of private high school seniors in my area have been admitted to these elite colleges and they all seem to fit into the category. I know one parent decided to transfer her child to private school hoping to be admitted to Harvard, and yes the child was admitted.
Go to HS for HS and not for where it will/won’t get you into college. Which school is a better fit for you class size, financially and course offerings? There is honestly no predictor of where you will get into college and in four years things won’t look the same as they do now. Just like 4 years ago don’t look the same in college admissions as today.
Good Luck!!
“The mother lode of all affirmative-action programs for the wealthy, of course, remains the private school. Only 2.2 percent of the nation’s students graduate from nonsectarian private high schools, and yet these graduates account for 26 percent of students at Harvard and 28 percent of students at Princeton.”
@NoKillli that is probably because their parents/grandparents are legacy, involved alumni and donors. My DS went to a rigorous private hs and they get a high number of kids into very selective schools but as you look closer a lot of them have hooks. Class size is about 145 students, last year almost a third got into highly selective schools, Ivy’s, Stanford and others out of that third only 7 kids didn’t have some sort of hook. I am not saying they aren’t qualified but it gets them a closer look and lets be honest some aren’t on profile but sadly that is the way to world works.
@lbf
So you has 7 out of 145. We would kill for that rate.
My good suburban public HS has about 400 in the graduating class and only 2 girls this year got into an IVY (both URM or pretend URM). I don’t think we ever had a Stanford admit. In the past 4 years we have only had 2 boys get into an IVY and 1 MIT(he was Val plus a recruited athlete so no complaints here). Our guidance counselors are overloaded and dont have the time for good students. I knew more about top colleges from here than the GC knows.
The top two non-religious private schools in the area seem to have a parade of IVY admits. Are they legacys or do these schools have “reserved” spots? Someone I know was pissed his kid only got into Penn. The HYP spot went to an athlete.
Don’t forget that lot of these top private schools are admitting about 15% of the applicants. That is a pretty tough pre-screen!
And many have close to half on FA, so it’s not all rich kids. And yes, when you look at the matriculation results, you can assume that almost everyone has “story”.
However, not all private schools are the elite ones with favored admissions connections or the better college prep advising and counseling that confers a substantial advantage to students compared to other (private or public) schools.
Of course, don’t forget the financial considerations. If your family is not in the financial elite who can easily pay for both private school and elite university (or you receive a full ride at the private school making the cost essentially zero), then you need to consider whether the cost of the private school will limit your ability to pay for an elite university.
When it comes to elite college admissions people tend to under appreciate the importance of LoRs, and that’s where private schools advantage can really come into play in a big way. Generally speaking, private school teachers are more motivated and better trained to write more effective LoRs. And with private school GCs overseeing only 40 kids vs public ones overseeing 900 kids, I have to believe there is difference in GC’s effectiveness as well.
I choose not to believe much of what is said by the CC regulars about IVY admissions. I just showed with real numbers about the massive advantage of private schools but it gets denied.
You can claim whatever you want but, as Bill Parcells might say about holistic admissions:
OP has not indicated whether the private school is an elite well connected one that will give a substantial advantage in admission to the desired colleges.
“Generally speaking, private school teachers are more motivated and better trained to write more effective LoRs”
Oh please. Nonsense.
You guys act like all private schools are alike. They’re not. There is a world of mediocre privates out there that cater to rich mediocre kids.
There are also highly selective, elite, highly academic privates that ARE Ivy feeder schools. If you’ve got the academic mojo (and hopefully money) to get into Andover, St Pauls, Groton, Choate, etc. odds are you will get into a selective college/university.
But that has very little to do with better trained teachers who write more effective LoRs.
@GMC2918 Only for the exceptional student whose test scores & accomplishments land her/him a scholarship. For the rest, it’s still about money. Those schools – and the Ivies – have a mission which in part is to cater to the elites, whether it’s the academic elites or the financial kind. And as the chasm between middle and upper class grows, it will be even more about the money.
“Generally speaking, private school teachers are more motivated and better trained to write more effective LoRs”
I specifically asked this question at my kid’s GLADCHEMMS private school. Per the school there is no teacher training and no tracking of outcomes to motivate effective LoRs. Other schools may do this but I doubt they do…
However, the class size and the number of students asking for recommendations will definitely affect their quality. Many private schools have smaller classes, teachers as dorm faculty, teachers as coaches, etc. This allows the teachers to get to know their students more holistically, which may help strengthen the recommendation. In addition, a teacher writing 10 recommendations will likely do a better job than a teacher asked to write 40.
Correct usage of affect/effect in your writing will have a greater impact than whether you attend a public school or one that’s private. I am referring to your usage of “effect” in the heading of this thread.
Correlation may not = causation but there there is too much here to dismiss. You can’t prove smoking causes cancer either with stats, but there is a pretty strong case if I recall my epidemiology.
The beauty of being a hack in higher ed , who would ever know until you really screw up.
Last year when we had the opportunity to talk to a Harvard admission rep and my kid asked about Math 55 trying to engage her in a discussion. She had no idea what we were talking about. How is that even possible? She was a H alumna.