Feeder Schools: Guaranteed to help for 9-12?

Prep School Admissions
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<p>I am an American parent living abroad and will return soon to the USA for my two sons education. They are now only ages 3 and 1, but I find myself only looking at areas of the country that have excellent Prep Schools. In some areas those schools do not start until the 7th or 9th Grades. It would better for me to live on the west coast, so some of the schools I am considering living near are Harvard Westlake, San Francisco University High, College Prep and Bishop’s School.</p>

<p>I would like to know if most of the top Private Day schools and boarding schools for that matter, have feeder schools, whereby if my sons go to that school and they do very well, then it would be much easier for them to get into the 9-12 program.</p>

<p>PS: I know I posted in another thread about NYC K-12 programs, but I am thinking if my sons get into those programs, then I will sacrifice the extra flying time to Asia for meetings for my children’s education.</p>

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<p>I want to help you out but I’m having difficulty getting my head around the notion of planning as far in advance as you are for your boys…not that it isn’t admirable but it is fraught with difficulties because so many things about a child’s education can’t be planned for. Which I suppose is my answer to your question about the guaranteed benefit of feeder programs for upper school placement: there are no guarantees. Even where a strong relationship exists, one can never be certain that it will work out in the case of a particular family/student (even when the student is otherwise a very strong candidate). It is a very unpredictable process overall.</p>

<p>However, that being said, I will tell you that what Burb said on your other thread is quite true: policies vary enormously regarding how schools look at children in their lower/middle schools when it comes to placement in the upper school. Some schools just pass them on through (uness ther’s a significant problem), others don’t. I think you would do best to pick out a school or 2 that you’re particularly interested in and speak with an administrator there about your question.</p>

<p>Regarding feeders for elite day schools, I’m sure they all have certain elementary/middle schools that they have long-term relationships with (“feeder” type relationships), but they may not all be openly stated. You will have to do some research with respect to the particular schools you’re interested in.</p>

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<p>I agree with everything that smile dog says above. It is entirely possible for plans to change, kids interests to be different, or simply for a child not to get in, even if they do everything right.
That being said, I can give a little advice on some feeder schools. I’m afraid I don’t know any for Harvard Westlake, it being in the LA area, but I know some about Bay Area private schools. If you will be in the Bay Area, I would strongly recomend Step One Preschool. I attended, and it was marvelous. Not super-academic, but great teachers and a wonderful environment. I was completely unaware of this when I attended (which I consider a good thing) that it is a pretty competitive preschool. It does have some ties to local private schools, like Head-Royce and Bentley. Both of those have high schools attached, but lots of kids go from there to CPS (The College Preparatory School) and San Franciso University High School. I believe some kids do end up attending prep schools like Thatcher and Stevenson. For a comprehensive look at Bay Area private schools, you can look on Berkeley Parents Network. <a href=“http://parents.berkeley.edu/recommend/schools/private.html[/url]”>http://parents.berkeley.edu/recommend/schools/private.html&lt;/a&gt;
For schools like AESDCH, however, more kids tend to go there from feeder schools on the East Coast, like Park School in Boston, or Greenwich Academy in Greenwich (that’s all-girls’, but I think there’s a boys’ equivalent), or one of the many schools in New York City, like Collegiate and Brearley.
None of these pre-prep schools are guarenteed to get your kids anywhere. They do, however, on the whole, give them good or great educations, and set up a foundation for learning that will help them, even if they don’t get into a top prep school.</p>

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<p>Greenwich Academy (GA) is not a pre-prep, neither is Brearley or Collegiate (in NY the best pre-preps are the boy’s schools St.Bernards and Buckley). GA
(which is closely alligned with all-boys Brunswick) does just as well as the the AESDCH schools for college admissions, maybe better. Same for Brearley and Collegiate.</p>

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<p>Yes, but the number of ivy legacies and the uber rich at those schools is just staggering. They don’t have much aid or diversity.</p>

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<p>RE: college admissions </p>

<p>1).GA no
2). Brearly+Collegiate yes</p>

<p>Unfortunately, feeder schools do exist and it leads to some problems of unqualification. Pike students inundate Andover yearly and junior boarding schools like Fessenden and Fay do very well also, although I have less gripes with kids from the latter two.</p>

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<p>What’s wrong with sending your kid to a top public or very good private?</p>

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<p>Brearley (k-12, not pre-prep) is the best at college and BS admissions. Brearley girls often transfer to AEDSCH b/c BS is less rigorous - - so one can have a life and stay at the top of the class.</p>

<p>But Brearley is out of the quest for OP, who has boys.</p>

<p>Collegekid -</p>

<p>Some fo the top NYC day schs tend to be very diverse (in our case far more so than local public gifted or magnet prgms). At D’s class fully 20% of the class was non-White (9% URM) in the lowere shc and that number increased as the class moved to middle- and upper-shc, when kids travel alone. When D transferred to BS, her 8th grade class was 15-20% URM. There was also signif econom diversity.</p>

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<p>Don’t know anything about west coast schools. But I do know a little about NYC and Boston “feeder schools”. In NYC there are definitely a number of elite schools that regularly send a large portion of their 8th and 9th grade classes to top boarding schools. Spence, Chapin, Brearly, Collegiate, Dalton, Buckley, St. Bernards, Horace Mann all come to mind. (Note many of these schools go through 12th grade and are very succesful at getting their students into top colleges. Also, Spence, Chapin and Brearly sp? are for girls only). That’s the good news. The bad news is that many of these schools are as competative, if not more competative than the top boarding schools. They are looking for the very bright children of successful, wealthy, socially connected parents.</p>

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<p>xGods – WADR you’re wrong about GA. And Brunswick is just as good.</p>

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<p>LosLobos: Actually, I was talking about a very good private. I think I misused the term Prep School as interchangeable with Private Day School, but perhaps Prep School refers mostly to Boarding Schools?</p>

<p>Smile Dog, I am thinking about things so early because after 12 years in Asia, I have had enough and I am ready to move back to the USA and I can basically live anywhere as I work from home, but I want to take my children into consideration when thinking about where to live.</p>

<p>Before, I was considering to live in Hawaii and they had a great school called Punahou, but not sure I want to live on Oahu. Punahou was K-12 so no worries about which high school to attend. However, when I started looking at Marin County, San Francisco downtown and maybe LA or San Diego, the top schools were mostly high school only and I was worried about how to make things easier for my children to get into those “neighborhood” high schools. Feeder schools, seems like the solution.</p>

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<p><a href=“http://www.electricprint.com/edu4/classes/readings/edu-eliteschools.htm[/url]”>http://www.electricprint.com/edu4/classes/readings/edu-eliteschools.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Hobart, my advice to you would be to take a deep breath and think long and hard before you decide to enter the fray and become involved in the NYC private school scene.</p>

<p>First, these schools are VERY competative to get into and place an awful lot of pressure on kids at a very young age. Do you want to put yourself and your boys through this when they are only 4-5? </p>

<p>Second, even if your kids are very bright and test well, there is no guarantee. These schools give preferences to alumni kids. They give preference to siblings. They reserve some spaces for URM. Being famous, extremely wealthy, socially connected, etc. certainly doesn’t hurt your chances. Not being famous, extremely wealthy, socially connected, etc. doesn’t help your chances.</p>

<p>Third, do you want your children to be going to school with the children of the rich and famous? Do you want your kids to feel deprived because for X-mas vacation they had to fly a commercial jet to Aspen (and fly coach no less) and stay in a hotel while a classmate took his families private jet and stayed at their 10,000 square foot ski chalet. You think I am kidding? I am not. Donald Trump, Henry Kravis, etc. also have children and guess what, they want to send them to the same NYC schools you’re interested in.</p>

<p>Also, to correct a couple of errors contained in other posts. Buckley is an all boys school. It starts in pre-first grade and goes through ninth grade (not 12th) - although a large percentage of the class leaves in 8th grade.</p>

<p>I’m pretty sure Allen Stevenson and St. Bernards are the same as Buckley (they used to be). All three are boys schools. If you are interested you need to apply to pre-first grade, as they don’t really enlarge the class size in later years, and therefore places only open up if an existing kid leaves. In my day, (I went to Buckley in the 70’s) is was very rare for a kid to “flunk out”. At worst, if your kid was really struggling they might be held back.</p>

<p>Chapin, Spence, and Brearley are for girls only.</p>

<p>Collegiate, Trinity, Dalton are all coed and go up through 12th grade and are all extremely good schools. Each has a pretty good record of sending kids to top colleges. But there are certainly no guarantees, and a number of kids will also end up and second or third tier schools. Also, remember that it is likely that many of the parents of these kids went Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc., so they’re kids are applying as legacies.</p>

<p>Finally, I happen to have my Buckley alumni magazine with me, so I can give you a rundown on where the 8th and 9th graders are going next year.</p>

<p>9th grade - Taft, Andover, Friends, Westminister, Hotchkiss, Deerfield.</p>

<p>8th grade - Trinity, Horace Mann, Taft, Thacher, Regis, Browning, Deerfield, Collegiate, Tabor, Columbia Grammer</p>

<p>Some very good schools on this list, but also some I’m not very familiar with and I suspect would be considered second or third tier schools. What’s surprising to me is how few kids are going away to BS. Back in my day literally every kid in my graduating class went to BS. And over half went to what would be considered top tier schools. For example out of 34 kids we had 4-5 at Exeter and 2-3 at Andover.</p>

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<p>Wait, no, Collegiate is all-boys’. Everything else that followed about it is correct, though.</p>

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<p>Anybody read the chick lit novel “Admissions” by Nancy Lieberman? Definitely literture light but the focus is on admissions to NYC private day schools and fairly spot on based on my conversations with folks familiar with the process.</p>

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<p>xGods – thanks for posting that, 'tho I can’t open it to get past the top 10. Also, it refers only to HYP and I thought we were talking about admissions in general. Any class that includes Vandy, Dartmouth and Georgetown etc. would have to be considered pretty good, wouldn’t you agree?</p>

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<p>mmm I do agree. You might be right in total since I really can’t stat back it any other way. I do believe though that someone posted some <a href=“http://www.prepreview.com%5B/url%5D”>www.prepreview.com</a> stats that said Andover does about 33% to Ivies+Stanford MIT, not sure about GA. Anyway, I’m posting Andover numbers in a couple minutes so we can number crunch if the need arises.</p>

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<p>Hey PRPDD: Great post. Really helped me to realize that maybe there just isn’t a chance, unless legacy or famous, even if my son scores very high on the ERB test.</p>

<p>However, I wonder why you would think the process would “place an awful lot of pressure on kids at a very young age”? The way I would do it they wouldn’t even know what was going on. I would simply take them to the test and take them to the interview. I might pay for a Consultant, but I wouldn’t let them coach my sons, only coach me and help me to fill out the application form. I wouldn’t want my children to be less confident if they fail to get in, so I wouldn’t even let them know what was going on. Understand? Getting into a top Private School just isn’t that important despite what you may think from my posts on this board. I am only seeking information and trying to decide where to live when I move back to the USA. It would be excellent for my son’s education, but never at the expense of his peace and happiness.</p>

<p>To be honest though, I was afraid if he tried and failed, even though he wouldn’t realize it, I would realize it and may be openly disappointed. Maybe even thinking differently of him. That would be worse than he being disappointed, so if as you show me there really isn’t much of a chance, then I think I will make other plans.</p>

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<p>Xgods: Andover 31% rate to Ivies plus MIT and Stanford, Greenwich Academy 33%, however, it appears that GA doesn’t place in the Top 20 Harvard, MIT, Yale or Princeton, but Andover does at all of the schools. Perhaps GA sends a lot to Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia and so on?</p>

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<p>Hobart- you have a small son, correct? Greenwich Academy is all girls.</p>