This student wants to know whether private schools provide students with an edge in the college admissions process. https://insights.collegeconfidential.com/do-private-school-students-have-college-admission-edge
“Yes.”
Anecdotal, but… our experience is yes. S attended a public school, did well and attends a private highly selective college. However, most of his class (and previous and future classes - like overwhelmingly most) attend state U. A few neighborhood kids attended prominent private schools. They and many many many of their peers attend quality private schools. Like almost all of them. All over the country too.
I recall when S was applying to schools, the really high end ones all had local info sessions at his friend’s private schools. They were open to basically anyone, but the fact that they were on the private school’s campus clearly shows their relationship. Typically these high schools send kids to top colleges each yr and there is a certain expectation on both parties as they have a known “product” and success factor. Colleges want to admit kids that will have success, graduate on time, do well, get a good job, contribute funding, etc. If there’s a long term track record in place, it makes it easy for the college to swim in that admission pond.
But as evidenced by my own kid, as long as you are a strong candidate, you can get into these great schools from anywhere.
AOs prefer kids who have been challenged by a rigorous curriculum and demanding courses, and who have done well under those conditions.
Not all public schools are created equal in this country. AOs know the difference. Some are equivalent to privates. Frankly, not all privates are created equal, and AOs know the differences among them too.
The school which they applicant attended will be factored in in terms of its ability to challenge students and its ability to provide advanced courses.
I did undergrad at a very highly ranked private university where the very large majority of the other students were from public high schools. It has occurred to me that the same might not necessarily be true at all highly ranked universities. MIT and Caltech might have different preferences compared to Harvard or Princeton. However, I do not think that any of us quite knew why we got accepted while a different strong student did not.
I have been a strong advocate of doing what makes sense for you, and then finding a university that is happy with what you have done. I never did anything to get accepted to a good university. I got accepted to a highly ranked university twice (once for a bachelor’s and once for a master’s) and I think that the issue was doing well at whatever you do. You are more likely to do well if you like what you are doing.
As such, getting accepted to a top university at least for me is definitely not the reason to attend a private high school.
@DadTwoGirls If you are attending a school now, you can request to see your admission file and all the comments made during admission process. Just request to see to the admission office.
Most private schools realize their their own applicant pool and, in the long term, their survival is largely dependent upon their success in University/College placement. I was called into the Headmaster’s office after announcing my intention to attend a University which was not high enough on their prestige list. The University admission was EA, I loved the University and wanted to get away from the admissions pressure.
As a private school student, the preppie environment had turned me off! A classmate actually walked into my dorm room to show me his, evidently mandatory, Bass Weejun loafers. He explained that my new, off-brand loafers did not “cut the mustard.” My mother had bought them at a basement discount store.
In defense of my “prep” school… the caliber of instruction was outstanding! They even corrected your grammar as they proctored the hallways. Athletics were not an option, but a respected and integral part of every student’s education. I am not sorry I went there, but I am also glad that I got away from it at a refreshing STEM university where many engineering students matriculated from “blue collar” backgrounds… it broadened my education.
University admissions offices are well aware of the preparation many private secondary schools offer. These schools often supply very complete, well written and personal recommendations. It really is not just test scores and GPA. They tell universities about their student in a knowing and personal prose… including the bad news!
I have many stories I will not repeat regarding extreme efforts on the field and in the classroom where faculty/coaches were clearly “giving their all.” They were very good instructors who lived with us…
Lessons taught in US history by an English educated US History teacher were fundamental to understanding the depth and complexity of a democracy. Also a professional actor, his orations were very memorable… I still hear him today! He would not qualify to teach in a public HS in our country as he did not have the mandatory credits in the field of education. His terminal degree was an MA in US history from a Canadian university and some years experience as an actor. He kept up acting his entire life… it made for a great teacher!
“In defense of my “prep” school… the caliber of instruction was outstanding! They even corrected your grammar as they proctored the hallways.”
That reminds me of the “Romani Ite Domum” scene in Life of Brian…
The very top public school students are very highly coveted. The well regarded private schools have a deeper bench and send more in terms of percentages of a class to selective schools.
So I think they love the top 3 and up to 10 at a big public school. They also love 1 to 30 at a great private.
The elite prep schools are more likely to have counselors with connections, inside knowledge, or at least sufficient historical knowledge to know which top-end students are good fits to which elite colleges from the colleges’ points of view, so that they can advise students which one would be more worth their effort applying to (rather than applying to HYPSM but perhaps not applying to some other highly selective colleges that would see them as better fits).
Students at other public or private high schools are much less likely to have this kind of information advantage when making their application lists, and will have to discover it themselves, if it is even findable by unconnected outsiders, and they know where to look.
The better way to approach this is to consider where that particular student will better thrive. Some kids do better in a more academically focused environment where there is more structure and hands on guidance. Others do better in a more diverse, often larger school atmosphere, where self starters can more easily distinguish themselves.
If you really want to play a gross odds of admissions game in comparing your local public HS vs a private school(s) you are considering, ask for admissions data for the past 5 years for each school and see on average (median) how many graduating seniors each year get admitted into a T20 (a kid who gets into multiple T20’s only counts as 1). So if the Pub S school number is 5 out of a class of 400 and the private is 20 out of 50, do you think you will more likely be a top 5 student in the Pub S or a top 20 in the private.
Given equally talented kids, a strong high school curriculum, and equally good advising, public school kids do just fine. The strong kids in our local public schools do extremely well.
But many public schools do not have either the curriculum or the advising that good private schools have. That’s their advantage.
Be sure to adjust for hooks though. For example, if you aren’t hooked, you really want to know how many unhooked students get in. That applies for public high schools as well. There are certain towns near Boston where a surprisingly large number of students from public high schools get into Harvard. Many are children of faculty or alumni.
Another big reasons why prep school students have a bigger edge: MONEY. The students, on average, are wealthier. So as a group they need less financial aid. And many have parents that can drop big donations.
Apart from academics, this is probably the main reason why so many colleges like prep schools.
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In the U.S. about 10% of the high school students attend private high schools but a disproportionate number of students at the top tier private colleges (about 35-40%) went to private high schools.
This is a very interesting and enlightening article on the subject:
https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2020/02/princetons-high-school-problem
No question the top private schools have much better counseling resources than most publics, but just looking at the number of students admitted from privates vs publics, as as a number or a percent, doesn’t necessarily tell you if and how large of an advantage going to a private is over a public.
We are looking at very different pools of potential applicants. The top privates (and magnet type publics) are themselves selective. There are just more high achieving students and ones that have proven that they can test well. If their families are already spending big bucks to send their kids to private school, we know those families already are willing and able to spend big bucks on education in general and they probably already are targeting the elite colleges. A good point that @hebegebe makes is that there is likely a high percentage of already hooked kids in private school. The fact is that top private schools have a proportionately greater number of qualified and advantaged applicants who are going to apply to T20 than your typical public school. It is primarily because of who their students are not because of the school itself that accounts for their relative success.
“The elite prep schools are more likely to have counselors with connections, inside knowledge, or at least sufficient historical knowledge to know which top-end students are good fits to which elite colleges from the colleges’ points of view, so that they can advise students which one would be more worth their effort applying to (rather than applying to HYPSM but perhaps not applying to some other highly selective colleges that would see them as better fits).”
GENERAL OBSERVATION:
Both college advisors and students seemed less stressed and better informed regarding the visiting college and its programs. Things may have changed, but I remember one State where their was one college advisor assigned for each county. They were well credentialed with PhD’s, but just overloaded. One public HS did such an outstanding job, I thought I was in a well heeled private school. It stood apart! The property values and taxes in Chappaqua NY are very high! The irony is that they could afford a private school!
Student orientation and post-secondary advising are particularly critical to first generation students who are generally not found in private secondary schools in large numbers. This includes all undeserved groups and should be a focal point URM advising.
An interesting thread relating to the URM issue can be found at “What can we do to support African American students and their families?”
Again, we cannot ignore the effects of legacies. Private prep schools serve the same demographic as the “elite” private colleges - the wealthy and powerful. That means that the percent of private prep schools students who are legacies in “elite” private colleges is extremely high. This alone would triple or more the percent of private high school students who are accepted to “elite” private colleges.
Add to that the advantages in personal treatment by GCs, the personal connections that GCs have to AOs at “elite” private colleges, and the fact that the AOs at the “elite” private colleges are often graduates of the same private prep schools, or similar ones, and are therefore more inclined to prefer graduates of high schools which are like the one they attended.
Time was that places like Yale or Harvard always made sure on a relatively high percent of their incoming class was from a number of private prep schools. While this is likely no longer explicit, I wouldn’t be surprised if they maintained this indirectly, by legacy preference, preference for athletes in sports that are common at prep schools, but not at private schools, etc.
Only part of this works to the benefit of students who are not wealthy and/or legacies, but some of those practices do, such as personal attention by counselors.
If one wants to know how legacy and wealth play a very large part in admissions from private prep schools, one just has to compare the number of admissions to “elite” private colleges from private prep schools to the number accepted from the top magnet schools. As a rule, the relative number of students accepted from a private prep school is triple or more the number accepted from an equivalent, or better public magnet school.
For a student who is not wealthy and/or a legacy, there is likely little benefit in admissions in attending a private prep school, compared to a public magnet school, all things being equal.
"For a student who is not wealthy and/or a legacy, there is likely little benefit in admissions in attending a private prep school, compared to a public magnet school, all things being equal. "
Actually there is one big example of a difference between the private and the public magnet, i.e., cost. The public taxes pay for the magnet! To me, this is a good thing! Government supporting this widely needed “merit” good is not a new idea, but often complained about by those paying the property taxes to their local governments.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_good (I have a problem with the 1998 entry here as undergraduates were studying “merit” goods in 1970). I know because I am so old, I was there!
Education is fundamental to the functioning of a democracy (that is with a small d). Some conservative economists have trouble with this concept. The collective example of today’s world economies seems to argue, by demonstrated capital development, in education’s favor. At the very least, an educated workforce helps all of us.
Please don"t argue with me about it… I retreated to farming! It’s a lot more fun!
@retiredfarmer I will not argue with you, since there is nothing in what you wrote with which I do not agree.
The benefits of attending a magnet high school to the parents are cost, and to the student because of the killer mix of diversity and super smart peers is immense. All the kids (and some adults) I know who attended IMSA, Whitney Young, Walter Payton, Lane Tech, and other Chicago magnet schools really valued their time at these schools, and really benefited from the education they got there.