That’s pretty clarifying I think. Online is not necessarily the optimal experience, but that is definitely something I think you can trade off against other issues pretty freely.
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None of the schools’ calculus BC is set up to allow a strong in math student to got directly to calculus BC immediately after precalculus?
I was thinking the same thing. A kid this strong in math does not need AB before going to BC - they should be going straight to BC. My kid wasn’t nearly this strong in math but could have gone straight to BC (several of her friends did). Also in my experience (which is very limited but not non-existent) kids rarely enjoy online classes. I would steer clear of them if possible. Obviously there are reasons why you prefer schools B and C and that’s fine - if your kid wasn’t so obviously gifted in math I’d say it doesn’t matter in the slightest which you choose. But I’m not sure he’s going to be well-served by any of three options if he really cares about math (if he doesn’t really care then I wouldn’t worry about it either).
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To what degree can a high school’s composition of legacy kids or the children of donors or a college’s faculty and staff account for its “feeder” status? I have to believe the Harvard placement results of a public school like Lexington High or a private school like Buckingham Brown & Nichols have something to do with those factors. It would be a mistake for any “normie” family to assume their results won’t vary.
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By most accounts, legacy is not what it used to be at the highly selective colleges. For sure, it can be a contributing explanation to why a feeder HS might have a higher batting average among their very high numbers kids, but these days it is mostly not going to get in kids without sufficiently high numbers to begin with.
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Public universities typically report the breakdown of public vs private HS enrollment. They do NOT like the private to be too high. It’s not like the only days. Also, school informal quotas exist and don’t help.
What I am hearing from parents at schools like Exeter, BBN and Noble & Greenough is that it’s mostly the legacy kids that are getting into the most selective colleges that consider legacy (like Harvard and Princeton). The “average excellent” legacy kids at these prep schools are getting admitted in good numbers.
However, it’s extremely difficult for an unhooked child to get admitted to those places, possibly more difficult than from a “known” public school.
On the other hand, parents have also said that the schools seem to still have a good pipeline into slightly less selective colleges that works for non-legacy kids, with the particular college varying by school. Not in the Boston area, but Horace Mann famously had a pipeline into UChicago, and one year placed about 20 kids into UChicago.
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Many prep schools send high numbers to Chicago. Chicago welcomes them with open arms, unlike HYPSM, which, all things being equal, would prefer not to admit prep school kids.
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But BB&N and Lexington have a lot of fac brats, no?
This is what we are told as well.
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It can make a difference, as can having recruitable athletes. Not all legacies/fac brats get a leg-up but some do.
I would personally choose A. But don’t be surprised if your child reclasses in various ways if this school is more rigorous or uses a different sequence. One kid had a perfect 1520 on the PSAT, enrolled in Calculus as Sophomore, school no longer offered AP classes, also enrolled in AP Calc elsewhere. Changes to a more rigorous school mid year. Calc is great but does not have enough Trig to place into their Calc class. Enrolled into Pre-calc class. Can’t keep up with the trig because never have had any trig. Has to either give up Honors pathway the entire time at school or bump down to Algebra II/Trig Honors which the kid took in middle school. The trig issue is a serious issue for many kids because some schools don’t teach it all, some schools reserve it for honors students, some schools love it to death.
This disconnect can also apply to the sciences. Many schools ration AP classes or require a HS level class in the subject before you can take the AP class or require the various flavors of physics to be a dual enrollment.
How can both of the bolded phrases be true?
Also, what general or academically-oriented high schools do not teach trigonometry in either algebra 2 or precalculus, since that is standard part of the US high school math curriculum?
While remedial level math in college often splits trigonometry into a separate course from intermediate algebra (algebra 2) and college algebra (precalculus without trigonometry), that does not seem to be common in high schools.
rurci3 is a quiz that students can use to check whether they are familiar with all of the prerequisite math needed before calculus.
This is a kid still enrolled in high school switching between high schools.
It was explained to me that a lot of “high achieving schools” don’t actually ever teach the trig because it get compressed at the end of the year for one reason or another. And this seems to happen at a majority of schools. In the case of this specific kid, there was a suicide in the classroom, teacher went on leave, new teacher arrived right when they entered trig which she hadn’t taught since college so just did math games instead. But the kids were never told.
But I know several other kids with a serious trig weakness too. Some systems teach it early or late or only to some kids.
This matters, for sure. Obviously doesn’t account for all admits to schools by any means, but more than a marginal difference IMO.
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What I find so interesting is the difference in these 3 independent school in the same area? The independent schools in our city have similar curriculum with the catholics sticking to AP and the other independents not offering AP. The class offerings between the 2 different models are similar within each set - some may have 2 levels for subjects - but all have advanced oppty too. They tend to differ more in culture, size, same sex - but nothing as wide as what the OP is posting. Puzzled by a market with such difference in offerings ??? Maybe this is the norm and my area is odd?
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Good observation. The schools are all faith-based private schools and vary pretty considerably in size and resources which is reflected in available courses. The smaller schools have less ability to offer a plethora or AP courses and extracurriculars.
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My area has a very wide range of independent schools. There are those catering to families who want tons of sports (during the day, not just after school programming) and every kid is required to participate in at least one team sport; there are those with a heavy STEM focus; there are those which are traditional “prep school” type places even though there is no boarding option; there are those with very strong programs for kids with learning differences which provide both integrated support with the regular curriculum as well as enhanced “pull out” offerings. And two relatively new schools, one for kids with complex social/emotional challenges (often these are kids who have been homeschooled for a year or two since the local public schools weren’t working for them) and one for kids who have been flagged as “at risk”. And a few religious schools ranging from very academic to less so.
As you can appreciate, the curricula vary tremendously.
Unless you have concrete evidence, I would not rely on hearsay. Legacy is becoming generally unfavorable among colleges and many have already dropped it.
very similar here too - just didn’t go into all the different ones, as focusing on math. Agree the faith based schools curriculum differs the most here too - from very rigorous (all girls) and then all different with all boys coming in as deep in sports and less rigor = reflected very much in college placement.
it sounds like OP wants faith based, as imagine other schools would have a deeper math curriculum and maybe even the public option.
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