We often talk about how many students schools like PEA sends to the Ivy League, but are schools like pomfret, Suffield, Williston, etc. at disadvantage compared to those? Are they seen as less academic?
Have you looked at matriculation lists, such as that for Pomfret?
Note, however, that this list is presented more loosely than those you may find from some other schools.
So for a little perspective, Niche ranks a total of 438 boarding high schools in the US. The three schools you named ranked #66, #40, and #69 respectively. They also rank a total of 5057 private high schools. Those schools ranked #213, #123, and #228 respectively.
It is, of course, always possible to look up from such rankings. But they are still far from the middle of boarding schools, let alone private high schools generally, or all high schools generally.
As for admissions to Ivies in particular, or other comparably selective colleges, as another poster suggested you could look for raw matriculation information. But since there are so many factors in highly selective college admission, it would be much more difficult to control for those other factors and isolate any value added from the secondary school itself.
Like, we know from the Harvard litigation data, the broader Chetty study that grew out of that litigation, and so on, that a variety of individual and family factors contribute to determining admissions rates to Ivy+ colleges. And we know from cross-admit data in fact not everyone who could attend an Ivy+ college actually chooses to do so (and even that does not do a good job capturing where people choose to apply at all).
So if you are looking at a consistently high Ivy matriculation rate for some secondary school, you have to ask first whether that is correlation or causation. In other words, if that secondary school has a reputation for placing well in Ivies, is it then attracting the sorts of individuals and families who already have the attributes that contribute to higher Ivy admission rates, and who are also more likely to select an Ivy when possible? And if so, how much actual value is the secondary school adding, versus what those same individuals and families would have gotten if they chose a different secondary school?
And presumably the answer to that question could depend on which alternative secondary school, and again in this case your alternative schools are still among the highest ranked secondary schools in the country.
So long story short, I don’t know the answer to your question whether there is actually any advantage when it comes to Ivy admissions for a given individual/family attending a school like PEA versus a boarding school like the ones you named. It would take a lot of work to really control for all the other possible factors, and I am not aware of any such study.
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I think the numbers are less disparate when you adjust for recruited athletes, super legacies, children of the rich and famous, Questbridge, all of which the name schools have in spades.
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There is a difference - and I say this as a parent of kids at non-GLADCHEMMS schools.
The top boarding schools are specifically admitting top students and then putting them through a very rigorous curriculum and work load. Most of the kids who attend are ambitious and gunning for the top colleges. While Exeter is not the pipeline to Harvard it once was, there are still a high proportion of students who go Ivy+ etc and even the lowest quartile of the class for the most part go on to very selective schools. The academic competition though is significant and there are only so many kids who can get into the best colleges.
Other boarding schools admit a wider range of students - a smaller proportion are top students who seek a more balanced experience and the rest are of a wider range of academic abilities. Some may mature into top students, others may be stronger in athletics or the arts, and others may simply be less academically ambitious. College matriculations reflect this broader range of student - with fewer shooting for or being admitted to Ivy+ and the least competitive students attending colleges that likely don’t appear on Exeter’s list.
IME, all the schools provide the resources for a top student to be a competitive applicant to an Ivy+ college - honors and advanced classes, opportunities for varied extracurriculars, leadership opportunities, strong college counseling, teachers who are invested in students and well-versed in how to write recommendations, etc. But for a student who thrives on high-level academic competition among peers, a mid-tier school may simply not offer that environment. OTOH, a strong ambitious student can shine and be the standout college applicant.
Not sure I did a good job simplifying what is ultimately a far more nuanced situation - and every school is a little different in terms of its student body.
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Colleges admit students, not schools. Highly rejective unis know that students from these schools, which are all excellent, are well-prepared. It is not a “disadvantage” to be coming from any of these schools.
The "advantage " is being your best self, having had the opportunities to grow and excel, etc. Not every student will be able to do that to their fullest at every school.
And as @NiceUnparticularMan points out above, it’s virtually impossible to adjust for the “value add” of any school and to apply that to your situation. If, for example (and it really is a hypothetical), the Harvard football coach has 10 recruits, some of whom need to get their academics up to snuff and some who need another year to get bigger and stronger, and he works with the coach at Exeter and those 10 young men all go there for a PG year, they’ll all show up as matriculating to Harvard the next year. But that means nothing to you as a non-football player applying to 9th.
Really just focus on fit for you.
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These schools have average SAT scores 100-150 points lower than GLADCHEMMS. Even adjusting for hook factors like legacy/athletic/$$, the academic characteristics of the student bodies are, on average, different. That having been said, one can obviously be an outstanding student with high SAT scores at Pomfret/Suffield/Williston, etc., and be admitted to elite colleges. But they send far fewer, even when adjusting for hook factors. We see kids from Berkshire and Kent getting “elite” college offers, but simply not at the same rate. Colleges do consider rigor (see their CDS), and GLADCHEMMS are considered rigorous, which is one of their biggest value-adds. But as @gardenstategal says, just focus on yourself and being the best you can be.
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When the OP asks about a disadvantage, though, the question is whether a student with the same profile from Pomfret will be viewed differently from the one from PEA --whether it’s the kid with the 1600 or the one with the 1250.
Test score ranges may suggest different body make-up, and that may suggest a different college target list.
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It is always risky to overgeneralize. However, when it comes to comparing rigor, it is a factor. This is the “disadvantage”. However, there may be many advantages that are more important, ie., fit, ECs, teaching, and so many more.
As an interviewer for a tippy-top university for New England which includes boarding schools, I have followed the progress of many interviewees in admissions - and one persistent variable is rigor (real or perceived) when adjusting for all other factors.
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I think rigor is definitely important, and I think a major reason why top private schools, and a few similar publics, do appear to place at the most selective colleges at higher rates than even very good publics, and even controlling for test scores.
Basically, the pitch is these schools are offering college-like classes that are significantly more rigorous in terms of pace and content than, say AP courses, let alone “normal” Honors HS-level courses. And I do think that can help provide assurances to these colleges that students who do well in those classes at their high school are good bets to do well in their college classes.
My question, though, is whether this is an effect with diminishing marginal returns. Like, I certainly get the difference between, say, a college-style writing-intensive literature or history course, and an AP course. But then do colleges care a lot if Private School A claims its college-style writing-intensive courses are even more rigorous than Private School B’s such courses?
Maybe, but it seems to me that starts intersecting with things like grading standards and norms, which gets complicated when looking for value-added. Like, maybe a college will buy this and think an A- from School A is worth an A from School B. But then if you are a given individual, if you can get an A- from School A, maybe you can get an A from School B?
In fact in a world with perfect information, colleges would always be able to see through the transcript to the individual’s true abilities and preparation. I understand they are not in that world, and therefore it is an advantage for the most competitive students seeking admission to the most competitive colleges to go to a secondary school with the most opportunities for them to distinguish themselves in ways the colleges can see. I just wonder again if just being a somewhat lower ranked school with a somewhat lower test average or such actually means you cannot provide a similar degree of information about your most competitive students.
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Yeah, my two cents is if you have a lot of high school choices (and many families do not, of course), you should be trying to pick a high school where your particular kid will be happy, but will also be challenged appropriately, and will develop well in all the important ways–intellectually, creatively, socially, physically, emotionally, ethically, and so on. And obviously where that ends up pointing depends on the kid. And also obviously, that sort of “holistic” approach is particularly important if you are picking a boarding school.
Then if in fact college makes sense for your kid, and if in fact you choose a college prep HS where your kid thrives in that holistic sense, they will then be well-prepared to do it all again in college, assuming you pick a college using similar (but updated in detail) criteria. Which is not really a different thing, it is two different benefits of the same thing, thinking about school choice holistically and individually.
And then I really believe if that is your consistent approach to all this, you have maximized the chances of college admissions going well too. Like, colleges want kids who have carefully chosen their college for individual reasons. And they want kids who are in fact well-prepared to thrive holistically at their college. So you have maximized your chances of a suitable college seeing you as just the sort of student they want to enroll.
And again, in my mind, that benefit in terms of college admissions is not some new consideration. It is now a third benefit of the same consistent approach.
Anyway, that’s just how I see this. But we really did spend very little time evaluating college placement when choosing a HS for our kid. We helped him identify a HS we thought he would thrive at in all the important ways, and that to us was checking the “good for college admissions” box at the same time.
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I don’t believe so. I think the best most competitive students shine and the schools advise them appropriately how to best position themselves. The caveat is that this is about a student who is driven and pursues this path - there aren’t going to be a huge number.
It’s far more likely IMO to be a strong student in the bottom third of a TT school - one who might well have shined at a midtier - and not have the college outcome that they anticipated.
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I work at a boarding school that is not in the top tier. Our college counseling office is most proud of the high percentage of last year’s graduating class who matriculated to their 1st or 2nd choice school. The schools represented a broad array of programs and institutions–and yes, there were ivies and T20s and highly selective LACs on that list but there were also state universities and other institutions that were the right fit for that particular student.
One advantage to attending a school like ours is that there are many ways to step into leadership, and build a resume that demonstrates those opportunities. Students aren’t competing with one another for opportunities to have the spotlight and that also allows the college counselors to help students craft a compelling narrative in their applications.
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This is very true and often overlooked.
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I go to a top 20 LAC, we have kids from like all the BS, top and mid tier (and lower).
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Completely agree.
I also tend to think this REALLY shows up when you are looking at the sorts of still very selective colleges where at least for these sorts of secondary schools, it appears to often be enough to have good grades they trust, good school-based ECs that go way past mere participation (or “Founder and President” stuff), and well-written, thoughtful, and personal essays and teacher recommendations.
At least in our school, there is a sort of conventional wisdom that to maximize your chances at specifically the Ivy+ (and the few equivalent LACs), you might need to go beyond what our school offers in terms of activities. I am not actually sure that is as true as they think, but at least there is a pretty observable correlation between outstanding school kids who also do some really interesting or impressive outside things and those admissions.
But pretty much right outside of the Ivy+ and maybe a few LACs, it seems like just really making use of the activities opportunities available in school is enough, again assuming everything else lines up too.
Again this is just one school, but I do sort of wonder what would happen if some of our kids went to a lot higher ranked privates. Like you are a smart, social, active kid who did well in our advanced classes, did some really meaningful school activities, and ended up at Vanderbilt, say. Now you imagine this kid instead attends a lot higher ranked private. Do they end up at Princeton? Or still Vanderbilt? Or maybe not Vanderbilt?
Because it would seem it could depend on exactly how much of all that in-school success they would reduplicate, and who really knows?
Of course that’s the million dollar question. It’s student dependent. Some will thrive in an uber competitive environment and it pushes them to do more and better. Others will get demoralized and feel mediocre in that environment. IME, a student in the top 1/3 of a TT school is well-positioned. And whether any given student would actually be in that top 1/3 is something one can’t know in advance.
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“more loosely” indeed
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