To me, these responses (fantastic by the way) highlight the fact that the “Top 15” college list actually contains about 30-35 schools. And boarding school college counselors are very well aware of that expanded list- and do their best to match every student with a college which meets their academic needs, preferences, profile, etc.
Does the OP’s “top 15” list include American? If a kid is interested in policy or government- it should. Does the OP’s “top 15” list include U Mass? For a kid interested in linguistics- it should. Etc. We could quickly develop a robust list of “top 15” which is much longer than the usual suspects of 15.
To me, this is part of the secret sauce of boarding school counseling (along with the other stuff of course). I see a kid heading off to Muhlenberg-- and it makes sense. Kid wants to major in literature or history but is a musician on multiple instruments with interests ranging from 17th century composers to jazz and contemporary. Yup, makes sense. Kid is passionate about foreign languages and loves to ski- Middlebury, maybe not on the radar of every public HS GC who thinks Dartmouth, UVM or Utah but doesn’t know the smaller schools. Kid is interested in creative writing-- yes, JHU has a well known program. But kid could find his/her peeps AND faculty at Skidmore, Denison, and a bunch of “top 15 schools if the top 15 list was bigger than 15 actual schools”.
I know angry and frustrated (and tapped out financially) boarding school parents who didn’t have a clear understanding of how the college system works. The days where the headmasters of 5 schools called the Adcom’s at Yale, Harvard, Princeton etc. and said 'you’re going to take the following 20 kids from our senior class are over". Of course, it was much easier when there were no women at Princeton or Yale to compete with, and every college had it’s four or six token “minorities” (always an even number so they could room together).
But there are lots and lots of “top 15” schools these days. And that’s a good thing!
And that same advice goes for anyone going through the process, not just boarding school parents and kids.
Parents would do well to re-educate themselves with the landscape before their kids start the process so that they’re not relying on a very dated formula. This site has been helpful for me in that regard.
I just looked it up, and at our feederish HS there were a little over 130 college-bound seniors, and in the end they spread out among 90(!) colleges. Some are the usual “T-whatever” research universities, but I love scanning the list and seeing colleges like Barnard, or the California Institute of the Arts, or Olin, or the Pratt Institute, or the US Air Force Academy, and on and on.
I am very confident each of these colleges represents a great outcome for the kid in question. And then I am also sure that is true of many more colleges on the list, even if the story is not so obvious.
Even at a school like Andover where a very significant portion of the student body goes to 15-20 schools, students applied to over 300 different schools. Here’s the link to the most recent matriculation data.
What I find surprising is that the top 7 deciles (or 70%) had the equivalent of a 4.0 by their grading scale. I mean, I know that these are very accomplished kids but it seems crazy to think that 70% of the class has an “A” average.
I don’t think it’s that crazy. These are all kids testing in the top 5% (and more likely top 2%), all achievement-oriented with drive, all valuing academics. It makes sense to me.
It also has to do with Andover’s unique 1-6 grading scale. 5s and 6s both convert to As. Back in the day, they very rarely gave out 6s. Apparently it is quite common now. Grade inflation is everywhere.
Also that 6.0 scale is being converted to a 4.3 scale. A 4.0-equivalent average typically does not mean the same thing on a 4.3 scale as it would on a 4.0 scale, and this is a good illustration of why.
But even more important, my guess is extremely few students, if any, actually get a 6.00. So colleges can “see” a difference even at the top ranks between different high 5.XX averages.
There was another thread on this topic recently where a current PA student said that 6s were now being given out quite liberally (maybe starting with Covid?).
In any case, yes - PA used to be a school that would call HYP and say “here’s who you’re taking” year to year. There was no real need to convert grades back then.
I think a fair number of students get straight 6s in any given semester, just as Exeter (1-11 scale) hands out straight 11s not infrequently. I know for a fact, for example, that the valedictorian at Exeter in recent years was almost all 11s.
Yes, that was admittedly speculation on my part, and perhaps a bit hasty.
Our HS uses a A+/4.33 system, and A+s are in fact given out, but not too liberally. So no one actually ends with a 4.33, and even above a 4.16 (so more A+ than A) is rare, like a handful a class sort of thing.
I guess their equivalent would be a 5.5+, and it looks like 40% averaged in that range. That’s a lot more, implying their 6s are a lot more common than our A+/4.33s.
At one competitive boarding school we are very familiar with:
20% of kids to Ivies
30% to Ivy & Ivy+
40% to Top 25s
50% to Top 30s (including NYU)
Another 15% to elite LACs
Another 5%+ to Army/Navy/AF/CG, Juilliard/Curtis, etc.)
Another 10% to USNWR schools ranked 30th-40th
These account for 80% of students.
Another 10% take a gap year. And a bunch successfully transfer after one year.
Have seen lower matriculation rates from somewhat less selective boarding schools, but it is also easier to rank higher in the class, so it can balance out.
Things will work out one way or the other if a kid is motivated.
(Also know and hear of BS kids at “non Top 15/50/etc.” that are happy but are under pressure from their parents to transfer. Sad.)
Sorry, I disagree with your list. Our child was at a strong private school and had she stayed there probably would have had her choice of any college being at the top of her class. We chose to send her to BS because she wanted more from her school, teachers and peers. She wanted to be around kids who valued learning and challenged her in ways she was not. She is now at one of those top BSs - loving life, school and everything in between. She is a high honors student, but not likely to be the best and we imagine that it will hinder her choices on the college front compared to having stayed at her good private school. But what she is getting will set her up for success at any school and for life. If everything is always easy, kids do not learn to overcome failure and work through challenges. I think the reason to send your child to BS comes down to the child and the lessons and gifts a family values. It is not a golden tix to college as the brightest are often not being accepted as the system is certainly broken, but rather a gift for life.
I do not read the comment to which you’re responding to mean “take advantage of living away from home” at all. Not specifically. I read it as talking about much, much more than that.