Then Phillips Academy seems like a great option. But, Andover has a high pressure academic environment. It would be helpful to know if Andover offers any transitional counseling for incoming freshmen / third formers / first year students.
Academic competition at PA will almost certainly be more intense than at his current school or at his local public high school.
Any additional pressure from parents might push a student too much as PA is already a high pressure environment with respect to academics.
Hard to make a recommendation without knowing your sonâs other option or options.
P.S. Will your son be a boarding student or a day student at Andover ?
At high schools like these, they have a dedicated college counseling staff that has considerable knowledge from past history and probably insider knowledge from connections to many of the desired private colleges. That means that they can encourage students to apply to the colleges that are most likely to see the students as good fits (from the collegeâs point of view, not the studentâs point of view; hooks matter, but so do other non-stats things) and help them craft the best applications to those colleges (including use of ED or REA, but also in choosing the optimal teachers for recommendations and tailoring essays to those colleges). This also likely spreads out the applications across various super-selective colleges, rather than concentrating them among a few.
This does not mean that the college that they steer a student to was initially the studentâs (or his/her parentsâ) top choice. For example, a top-end stats student and/or his/her parents may initially have eyes on HYPSM, but the counseling staff may realize that those colleges are unlikely to admit the student (based on characteristics beyond the top-end stats), so they may steer the student to apply ED to some other college that is much more likely to admit (based on characteristics beyond the top-end stats).
In contrast, students at typical high schools with overworked counselors (dealing with other things besides college) may just get replies that âHYPSM are reaches for everyoneâ, with less help in finding more realistic targets (beyond a first look at stats), ED strategy, choosing optimal teachers for recommendations, and tailoring essays for the specific target colleges.
I would not attend a super elite prep boarding school for the expected benefits of a college counseling office. Many who do so set themselves & their child up for disappointment.
If youâre interested in the colleges a prep school sends the graduating class to you can look at the schoolâs profile, usually found on the college advising page. Hereâs PAâs. As you can see, even the bottom half of the class ends up at great schools. https://www.andover.edu/files/CCOProfile2019-2020.pdf
@mothere , itâs really hard to know how to filter the comments your neighbors are making. I think itâs easy to fall into the trap of thinking, when your kid is slaving at a very competitive school, that the rest of the world is slacking and that heâd easily be the top of the heap if only he were among them. (Often, this isnât so.) I also think that parents who send their kids to BS thinking that theyâll be on the expressway to Harvard need to find some excuse for why their kid somehow took the exit for Haverford. (Note that the âwrongâ exit is hardly a terrible choice. In my mind, probablya better one!)
The reality is that plenty of top students from good public schools do not get admitted to super selective schools. Plenty of kids at both decide not to engage in a rat race, and your son sounds like he might be one of those.
My own experience is that my kid was probably near the middle of his BS class (not PA), had definitely challenged himself, and ended up with only one college rejection. He applied to LACS with acceptance rates from 10-25%. For him, the academics were better at BS (although our LPS is well regarded) but the bigger difference was that he could be more involved and more engaged at BS. So the person who applied was more interesting, more thoughtful, more risk-taking and self-accepting than the person he would likely have been had he stayed in our local system. (We werenât thrilled with the path we saw for him in our public district.) His GPA was lower from BS but he was definitely a better version of himself as a result.
I could say I hurt my sonâs GPA by sending him to BS but I seriously doubt he would have been as attractive an applicant coming from LPS. And I am certain he would have been less well prepared for college - not just academics but having the willingness to try new things and engage in the opportunities college gave him.
This may not be your case, but it was ours. My son had a good friend freshman year who followed his sister to BS and decided he was happier at his LPS and returned there sophomore year. There is no single right answer.
In the instant case, however, OP is targeting Ivies &, maybe, Ivy equivalents for her son. The competition at PA is real & has resulted in the need for counseling for many students as a result of many incidents.
The primary issue that I see is how will OPâs son handle the pressure at Andoverâespecially if a parent is focused on Ivy League admission.
OP has an inside track as OP has several friends & neighbors whose children have attended, and, apparently, suffered at, Andover.
If OPâs son was admitted to PA, he probably has other private school options in addition to his LPS.
P.S. I think that OP has a very good understanding of Andoverâs environment and of the nuances of college placement from elite prep boarding schools.
My understanding is that PA does not rank the students in the class. Therefore you donât need to focus on how your child will get into the top xx% of the PA class. Instead just confirm he will thrive in an academically challenging atmosphere and pursue some interests that will make his eventual college app stand out.
He will probably get a better HS education at PA than elsewhere, and will probably land at a great college.
Yes, but as OP says, many of those students are hooked: URM and/or recruited athletes and/or legacies and/or significant donorsâŠall in higher proportions than at many public HSs.
What OP needs is the number of white, unhooked applicants from Andover that were accepted to top tier schools. I doubt it is many.
^ Nor is it many from the likely alternatives. Many of the hooks, especially athletics and legacy, favor white kids. Itâs hard for me to see how an unhooked white kid from an excellent district in MA is going to fare a whole lot better.
I agree that the OP is savvier than many who come here seeking advice.
The big issue imo is that, for an unhooked white upper middle class student, his primary means of distinguishing himself in the college rat race is going to be through academics.
Now, contrary to popular opinion, the median PA student is not an extraordinary academic talent in the context of elite high schools and universities (you can confirm this is part by looking at the scores on the PA school profile).
However, the top end students at PA were chosen for their brilliance. There may not be that many of them - certainly fewer as a percentage of the class than at, say, one of the famous public magnet high schools like TJ or Stuyvesant - but they are there. I imagine that competing against them would be a tall order for any kid who does not want to kill himself academically. Especially if he also must implicitly compete against all the hooked students for the limited spots that are going to be available at Ivy+ universities.
Sure, elite holistic universities look at individuals, and do not have explicit quotas for any particular high school, but to believe that intra-school competition does not influence a studentâs admissions chances strains credulity. At the very least, GPA and teacher recommendations will sort themselves out based on intra-school dynamics.
What is interesting in that document is the SAT subject test scores do not seem to be particularly high for an âeliteâ high school. For example, the math level 2 mean is only 735. Given that testâs reputation as an âeasy 800â for any student who did well in math up to precalculus in a good high school, that brings up questions about who at Andover is scoring poorly on that test. (The College Board lists the median at 720 and 22% of takers scoring 800, but median is not directly comparable to mean.)
Just like college selection, BS is also about fit. The decision should be driven by whether Andover is a good fit for your son, academically and socially (assuming finance isnât an issue). If itâs a good fit, Andover will probably give your son an education and experience few high schools, or even colleges, can match. In that case, he may be able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by Andover. However, youâre correct that heâd also be competing with many hooked students, and some really talented unhooked students, for limited number of spots at each of the top colleges (especially the tippy tops). The bottom line: donât go to Andover as an average unhooked student for the sole purpose of top college matriculation.
âI just donât want to actually hurt his likelihood of attending the college of his choice later because I do strongly feel that college is more important than high school.â
Again, unless youâve actually attended a HS and college at the same level, I donât see how you can justify your feeling.
While this is true, this could be at least partly if not mostly or fully offset by hiring a good private college counselor. If the budget extends to private school, then public school plus private counselor is definitely well within financial reach.
It will hurt your childâs chances if you are strictly focused on Ivy. But what he will become as a result of PA ( or any top BS) will stay with him for life.
We had a hard time realizing that the point of high school isnât matriculation at college. Itâs the high school experience. We chose top BS for our kids ( not PA) based on their experiences.
What you may be seeking is a neat and tidy package that no longer exists. The idea of a âpipelineâ to an Ivy. Yes, it used to exist but today it doesnât. The Ivies have made room for diversity, lower SES and many other factors.
At a school like PA, your child will be with peers who are national and international in multiple skillsets, those who have amazing experiences and some who have parents who are household names. You child will be âcompetingâ for lack of a better word with those kids when he graduates. We found that attending any BS is actually a much harder experience and will likely result in a tougher time going to the top school vs. being the top % kid in a large public school. It is VERY very hard to excel at BS. But not impossible.
I think Iâd weigh with my child: How badly he wants this experience? How hard is he willing to work ( 4-6 hours a night?)?Is he likely to be outstanding in some aspect like leadership? Analytical thinking or something like being a really hard-working kid? The kids who do end up in the top tier at BSâs are naturally very bright AND hard-working.
What would PA provide that the other choices available to him would not? For my kids, the other options were very good academically but the depth of learning wasnât the same. Also the BS options for sports and arts were pretty outstanding.
I would highly recommend BS to many ( PA only to very few-not because it isnât a great school, it is. Mainly because I personally think itâs too competitive and burns young kids out vs. a more balanced approach). But some kids just absolutely love it.
But the numbers arenât telling the whole story. How many of the 77 ( above) have parents who are in the top 1/2 of 1%/ are famous, are legacies at an Ivy, are the kids URM? Div I athletes? Play the tin drum? Ride a unicycle while promoting world peace? You wonât believe some of the stuff weâve heard kids do at BS. Itâs unbelievable.
What are your kidâs other options for high school? How does he feel about them? And, given that there is a fair chance that next year will be disrupted and heâll be spending at least part of it doing his homework on a laptop in your kitchen, does that issue affect anyoneâs decision-making?
College is four years away for your son. Many (if not all) of the assumptions that we had last year about college admission and college life wonât even be factors then. Higher education in the US has already begun transforming itself in response to the pandemic and what has thus far been learned (and will continue to be learned) about online life and online education. Please donât reject PA for your child based on your fears that PA might limit his options at one particular subset of US higher education four years in the future. Accept or reject it based on your and his sense that it is or isnât a good match for him right now.
" I do strongly feel that college is more important than high school."
More important for what though? For grad school admissions? for career? for your adult friend cohort? for connections? It can be true - to varying degrees- for any of them, though irl so much less than it used to be. The âbandsâ of opportunity associated with different levels of colleges are wildly different than they were in our generation. And, the range of colleges and universities offering top level of academics and super talented students has expanded exponentially in the last 40 years.
In other ways- and this is the root of the OPâs original question- high school is arguably more important than college: how we grow from 14 to 18 shapes a lot of the person we become, the foundation that our adult selves are built on.
The OP clearly loves the happy, well-rounded child in front of her, and wants to keep and protect all the strengths he already has- but also wants to do as much as possible to put a thumb on the scale in favour of a specific college outcome. Because that is what good parents do, right? try and help our children get as a good a start in life as possible. But imo, the focus on a specific college outcome is unhelpful- not least because that specific outcome is no longer the magic button that it might once have been- there are a lot more comparable paths now, not just one ârightâ one
Iâm not slagging off PA- I have known a fair few people who had great experiences, and have a couple of close pals who will say it was the making of them (interestingly, more so than their equally fancy colleges). I also know that one of those pals pulled her kid- who having grown up on PA stories couldnât wait to go- after 1 semester because it became apparent really fast that it was not a good place for the kid.
Nor am I slagging off boarding school- I went and loved it. Always assumed that my children would go. But when the time came it was not the right choice for them or for our family.
If a kid who has grown up in a family where PA is a normal type of expectation is ambivalent about going I suggest listening really carefully to what isnât being said.
âhave a couple of close pals who will say it was the making of them (interestingly, more so than their equally fancy colleges)â
I think many who have experienced essentially an Ivy/equivalent education at the HS level would agree with this, @collegemom3717. Iâve been saying the same thing, though Iâm not sure the OP is willing to hear it.
Perhaps more important: high school (the choice (if any) of which is the result of parental circumstances and choices for the most part) is a major component in determining your choices of college (though often still subsidiary to parental circumstances and choices beyond which high school one attends). Your own personal achievement may be a factor in determining choice of high school and later college only within whatever constraints are imposed by your parentsâ circumstances and choices.
I sent my kids to a mediocre high school where the workload was light and few ever went to Ivies. I myself went to a high pressure private and burned out. I didnât want that for my kids. I did get a great education, but at what cost. Ironically, the freedom from imposed work meant my kids were free to pursue interests in a deep way in and out of school, and a couple of them got into the top schools you seem to want for your son.
There are so many great colleges out there. The Ivies are problematic for some, particularly with large lectures and grad TAâs. The pressure from being surrounded by high achievers and phenomenal talent can take its toll unless you can handle it. I would think long and hard before basing college goals solely on the prestige in academic medicine. In fact, when I look at the schools some of our best personal doctors went to, they did not go to prestigious schools. More likely affordability guided them.
Maybe your son would be happier at a liberal arts college. I know families who are focused so much on Ivy admissions, but you have a chance to rethink this.
High school is an experience to be valued in and of itself. If there are good public schools in your area and your son would be happy there, I would seriously consider the public high school. Instead of focusing on the college results of PA, maybe try to focus on pros and cons for public versus PA for the high school years. . From what you write about your son, he might thrive at a public.