<p>tokenadult, I guess you could term it a "joke methodology" although they are choosing "elite" schools. I can substitute 3 schools which are "ranked" higher than three that WSJ uses, and can then bump the high school I am most familiar with from the bottom area of the list to the top.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl - - a lot of the admits are legacy admits, but that can be true among the "lesser" day/prep schools and at public schools as well (every suburban public school kid I know is applying to his/her parents' name-brand alma mater).</p>
<p>I think the general rule is that the very top of the class does well regardless, but</p>
<ul>
<li><p>there's no gaurantee a student will end up at the top of the class (and "top" is defined more strictly for public schools)</p></li>
<li><p>the entire class - - especially the mid third and bottom third - - does much better at private schools</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Check out the Brearley, SPS, St. Ann's, Trinity and Deerfield college matriculation lists - - in a "bad" year, the bottom 20% (could be as few as 10 students at Brearley/Trinity) enroll at Conn College and College of Wooster. Even more impressive are the admit rates, since maticulaiton can be influenced by finances (ie: student admitted to an Ivy, but opting to for non-Ivy that offered merit money).</p>
<p>But I think the real story is the fact that the entire graduating class at even the "lesser" day/prep schools does shockingly well (check out the Calhoun matriculation list).</p>
<p>One other thing to keep in mind is a lot of the preppies admitted to top colleges are athletes. If the top colleges dropped their squash, hockey,fencing, water polo,sailing, golf, field hockey, and equestrian teams, the # of students admitted from the boarding/prep schools would plummet.</p>
<p>Before I get flamed, yes, I do know that there are some public schools that offer these sports and some public/parochial school students who play outside school. However, the rosters of the teams in these sports are heavily weighted towards top private schools, especially boarding schools. If your child is not athletic, you don't have to just discount the legacy factor, you have to discount the athletic factor.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's still a joke methodology because of the colleges they choose as destination colleges.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Careful, TA. This is similar methodology that WSJ used for its 'feeder' school survey, which is highly commended here on cc. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I agree with the folks commenting on Lower Merion, hard to believe it is ahead of The Haverford School, The Baldwin School, and several others which have relatively small graduating classes (but above 50). For exampe Baldwin sent 4 to Princeton alone last year out of a class of 55 and a number of other girls went to other top schools including the 8. So I think the method is suspect like others do.</p>
<p>Woohoo, my school made the list and the list doesn’t even include the top schools my HS feeds most to (Yale, Columbia, Cornell)</p>
<p>Woohoo, my regular public school is on the list!</p>