Best Boarding Schools

Parlabane
Sat, 21 Aug 2010 19:00:39 +0000

I’m not a fan of this whole gladchemms, hades nonsense. Groton is a truly fantastic school, among the very best. My daughter looked at it and loved it, as did we. Schools that are proud of yield and attrition will publicize them, less so for schools that aren’t where they’d like to be. Ask Groton, as we did and they should tell you. It’s usually a closely kept admission’s factoid, but most schools calculate SSAT and other stats on admitted students, not matriculating students (which is a whole different deal). Excellent yield and attrition rates tell me the school is especially good at admitting students who are well matched, which I think is also a community health marker. Too many of the “top ten” schools go for the US News and World Report results and use admitted students, not matriculated students to burnish their creds. Sometimes you’ll hear the really hard core hades types argue that substandard attrition stats are actually a healthy sign because, in the spirit of Darwin, it shows the school is ridding itself of defects. I think it’s best not to have the problem in the first place however, especially if its the result of overeager stats chasers.