<p>@classicalmama</p>
<p>What a great list. Being an excellent student is just the first step. This is an excellent summary of what type of DC is usually happy at a highly selective BS (better than acronym?). I will use it when people ask me about their DC attending my DDs’ school.</p>
<p>Leanid and 1012 are right on target. </p>
<p>The acronym HADES was no doubt devilishly coined to ironically suggest that certain top prep schools have less than a heavenly environment. However, referring to HADES schools as Acronym schools merely adds an additional layer of irony, since Acronym school alludes to HADES and thereby repeats the very acronym people find objectionable. </p>
<p>I thoroughly enjoy these ironies. Nevertheless, I do think it would be better to recognize the excellence of the most selective prep schools by simply referring to them as top prep schools. However, if everyone insists on an acronym, we could always call them the TP schools.</p>
<p>Hmm…TP goes on my grocery list – toilet paper – otherwise, thanks for the vote of confidence, jmilton.</p>
<p>I like GLADCHEMMS.</p>
<p>@leanid: You may want to read the “Ban the term HADES” thread in the Prep School Parents forum where we discussed chucking acros for simply saying what we mean which, in most instances, is “highly-selective”. GLADCHEMMS is guilty of the same offense as HADES–it continues to promote a very small circle of schools as the brass ring when most folks here spend a lot of time trying to encourge other parents and prospective students to look at other schools which may be better choices for many reasons. These acronymns work against that effort.</p>
<p>Funny, I’ve always thought ACRONYM was short for “to take the [vulgar word for urine] out of something”.</p>
<p>This is a very good thread. You see my son announced this fall that he wants to attend a boarding school and I am not sure if he could gain admittance let alone do the work.</p>
<p>He might be better off at the public HS. I just do not know but this thread has given me some good insight to ponder.</p>
<p>To get back to the OP’s questions…</p>
<p>Would most kids be better off at a non-ACRONYM school? </p>
<p>I am of the opinion, that yes, most kids would be. And that even some who would be in the top 1/3rd of the super selective schools would be better off elsewhere. And not because I believe in the “smaller pond=chance to be a bigger fish” strategy.</p>
<p>Are kids hurting their chances of getting into an elite college by going to an ACRONYM school?</p>
<p>I think the answer is the wholly unsatisfying “It depends.” Some kids are going to get into a selective college no matter where they go to high school and other will never be able to get regardless of their high school.</p>
<p>The typical boarding school is more academically competitive than the typical public high school. Hence, attending ANY typical boarding school may lower a students chances of getting into a good college if he or she does not attain a certain class rank. That class rank varies from school to school. As previously noted, at Andover the top 60% attend top 25 universities and top 15 liberal arts colleges, and the next 20% matriculate to top 50 universities and top 25 liberal arts colleges. At another boarding school, only the top 20% may attend good colleges. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, attending prep school can have positive benefits in college admission unrelated to class rank. For example, prep school increases a childs ability to engage in meaningful extracurricular activities not available at most public high schools; it promotes close relationships between students and teachers in small classroom settings that may result in good recommendations; it provides students ready access to review courses that may increase SAT scores; it enables students to take rigorous courses; and it provides often superior college counseling.</p>
<p>In short, one should look at all college admission factors, not just class rank, when judging whether prep school is a net plus or a net minus in college admission.</p>
<p>So, 7D, “most” kids would be better off in NMH than in Deefield? “Most” kids would be better off in SAS than in SPS? No matter what pool you pull those “most” from? But then you said it’s “of your opinion” of course. :)</p>
<p>@DA: Touch</p>
<p>I have a question about this concept of “top 1/3” of class or JMilton you state that the “top 60%” of Andover students attend certain schools. How are you defining top? </p>
<p>I have not yet been through the college application process as a parent but from what I have seen at a distance there are as many variables to getting into college as there are BS. I have seen some “not top” academic students who are “top athletes” get accepted to schools I never would have believed they could handle and seen “top” academic students rejected at schools they would have been a shoe-in for in my day. I would love to understand whether people think students at the “top” of these schools academically really have a stronger chance of going where they want to for college?</p>
<p>That’s a good question: there is a substantial overlap, but not necessarily a one to one correspondence, between class rank and college matriculation because class rank is one factor among many in the college admission process. Hence, a top 30% class rank at Andover does not necessarily guarantee admission to an Ivy, Stanford or MIT even though 30%, or more, of the graduating seniors at Andover typically matriculate to those schools.</p>
<p>7D, it just occurs to me - what about you? Did you cast a wide net when your child applied? I’m sure the wide net talk came up then. I know your daughter was a strong candidate and might’ve had a good local option to fall back on, but don’t you believe many people on this board who are only applying to a few schools may be in your situation then? And is it possible that the few they see “fit” may just happen to be the ACRONYM schools? To be fair, you applied to two of those schools plus a very small “hidden gem” which is not so easy to get in if you ask me. (Do still exclude me from the ones who are here to pick fights please. You can’t see me, but I’m really quite relaxed and in a good mood. 
)</p>
<p>@DA: I see you are trained in the art of parry-riposte! ;-)</p>
<p>One big difference between the advice I dole out to anonymous posters and that which I give to my own daughter is I have the luxury of knowing a whole heck of a lot more about her and our family’s situation than I do about the kids and parents who post their stats and stories here…and proud parenting aside, I think she’s an outlier. At the very least, a top 1/3er even in a selective school’s applicant pool.</p>
<p>Also, you can’t minimize the fact that we had/have a very strong semi-local day school option…a school that all of the BS AOs we met were familiar with. So, if NONE of the 3 schools to which she applied had accepted her, we’d be enjoying the pleasure of each other’s company on my morning school runs. With some of the threads here, I definitely get a “Boarding School or bust” vibe…please correct me if that is an incorrect perception.</p>
<p>Had we not been 100% comfortable with the local option, the “apply to” net would most likely have been wider…despite her having 99th-ile stats, commensurate grades, and relatively good/balanced ECs.</p>
<p>Another thing I want to bring up is that we visited something like 8 schools in person. Had face to face discussions with AOs, on campus. My daughter had the full support of her parents, one of whom was a boarding student herself.</p>
<p>Would I advise anyone to cast as small a net as she did last year (a reminder that she was flat out rejected by one of the more selective schools on the list)? Yes, if I knew their situation was that similar to ours…in fact, I have done just that via PMs along the way. But in the general forum area, I err toward a more/wider = better approach. Believe it or not, I do want all the kids on the board to get at least one fat envelope on March 10th.</p>
<p>You are correct that for some kids, the right “fit” is going to be at an ACRONYM school. But I think that the percentage of kids who fall into that category is going to fairly small.</p>
<p>Now, what will be interesting to see is how we go about SevenDaughter2’s search and application process. A very different kid…different strengths and weaknesses. Check back with me in 2 years to see if I’ve changed my tune. </p>
<p>Exeunt.</p>
<p>I vote for a deeper rather than a wider net. What 7dad’s family did was very carefully choose schools that were a good fit for his daughter. My kid only applied to four schools as well–but one was a great fit AND less selective, so we were pretty certain he’d be accepted there (though much less certain about FA). And, as limited as our schools are, between January and March, we came up with lots of good reasons over dinner why staying home would be a great option. </p>
<p>The risk you run with applying to many schools–and this is just my speculation–is that the schools may think you’re applying just to get into boarding school, not because you find something particularly intriguing about their boarding school. So I think that applying to just a few schools can work fine–if one or two of those less competitive schools that the student is genuinely attracted to are in the mix.</p>
<p>My experience confirms D’Andrew’s suggestion that much depends on the local school option. </p>
<p>If your local school option is as good as most boarding schools and your child is highly qualified, applying only to the most competitive prep schools may be your only sensible choice.</p>
<p>The devil, however, is in the details. And as the details vary from one applicant to another, I doubt there is any universally applicable answer to the OP’s question.</p>
<p>I think there is also a regional difference in how to approach boarding school applications. For those who live in New England/Mid-Atlantic regions and are well aware of boarding schools, the tendancy might be to cast a wider net as long as they are better off than the local options. However for those who are far away in the rest of the country, the net might need to be narrower and focused on more selective schools. If the schools are not perceived as far better than the local options, it just doesn’t make too much sense to apply.</p>
<p>On CC, we rarely get a whole picture of an applicant’s qualifications. The judgement on whether an applicant is competitive for a top school is often based on self reported SSAT scores. While SSAT scores are important too for top school applications, when within certain range, they can hardly be used “for or against” an applicant’s chance of getting in. Whether to cast a “wider net” or a “deeper net” depends on one’s baseline or backup plans. If this was for college application, it’d be a different story, but I’m not surprised that people are a lot “pickier” when it comes to BS, which is not a “must” to many and almost always comes with some cons to the family.</p>
<p>Bump.</p>
<p>Interesting thread.</p>
<p>For us I expect that BS may well decrease my daughter’s HYP chances. She would likely graduate at the very tippy top of our LPS, and I have no idea where she will fall in her BS class.</p>
<p>I am confident that she will get a better, deeper, education at the school she will be attending in the fall. I HOPE she will be challenged but not overwhelmed.</p>
<p>I am not at all worried about college. She will go to one. It will almost certainly be a very, very good one. </p>
<p>Here’s an interesting twist to the question…</p>
<p>Would you be more likely to get into an Ivy if you graduated at the top of your LPS and donated the $200k to the Ivy of your choice?</p>