<p>If one has “connections” with an Ivy League or top 20 university, then the high cost but very excellent education provided by top private schools may be justified.</p>
<p>If you aren’t already “connected”, your child can be subjected to the experience of seeing classmates with lower test scores, lower GPA’s, and inferior extracurriculars admitted to top schools while they are denied. </p>
<p>The lesson for the child is that ancestry is more important than personal achievement.</p>
<p>Agreed. Our S did not get into a certain Ivy while two others at his HS with way fewer quals got in because of ancestry. We didn’t make the club.</p>
<p>I didn’t have time to go through this huge thread to see if this was addressed but why didn’t the school offer a pro-rated refund if they could add some other kid (I’m sure they have a waitlist of sorts) to take the spot?</p>
<p>In a small number of cases, maybe. Legacy admits are a minority at all Ivies. As an anecdotal example, there were two Harvard acceptances at my high school: myself and another kid. Both of us are from working-class backgrounds, and my parents have no “connections” to speak of.</p>
<p>You are confusing Ivies now with Ivies of half a century ago.</p>
<p>“You are confusing Ivies now with Ivies of half a century ago.”</p>
<p>Nope, a recent (2010) study indicates that with the same test scores and GPA, a legacy is more than three times as likely to be admitted to HYP than non-legacies. Now that still means that 3/4s are rejected, but chances are much, much, much better.</p>
<p>In reality, almost 2/3rds of entering classes at HYP are filled with legacies, athletic recruits, “developmental admits” (read: money), sons and daughters of faculty, and an occasional required bassoon player before ANY other admissions take place.</p>
<p>BigG: Since my husband interviews for an Ivy (volunteers) my two cents. Husband has interviewed lots of kids from the perfect scores to the on the cusp. He looks far deeper than scores: he looks for the something special that sets the kid apart.</p>
<p>For instance: One kid, perfect everything (including ecs…yearbook/newspaper) when asked why do you want to go to …? Answered: I want to leave the city. I want to go to school in the country where it is quiet. Husband: The school is in the middle of a major city. Kid became confused…no, it wasn’t stage fright. He didn’t know that Harvard was in the middle of Boston either. He was applying to names. Although husband is sure the kid got in somewhere “good” he wasn’t accepted here.</p>
<p>There were other examples where he solidly recommended kids with lesser grades because they were interesting/interested in the world or in a specialty. He felt that they would contribute something special.</p>
<p>And, as the parent who’s kid was accepted and who had more than one , “How did …get in there?” I would suggest that you tone down the bitterness. You don’t know why admissions decisions are made or how they were determined. </p>
<p>And no, none of our kids applied to my husband’s alma mater.</p>
<p>Calmom, I live in Washington Heights (the section which the realtors call “Hudson Heights” as a not-so-coded way of conveying to people that it’s not a Dominican neighborhood), and I love it. For my view of the Hudson River, I’d have to pay <em>at least</em> twice as much as if I were 100 blocks south. Not to mention that I wouldn’t be a 10-minute walk from the Cloisters.</p>
<p>And I’m speaking as someone who grew up on 67th and Lexington, and went to Hunter College Elementary School and then a private high school in Riverdale with the initials “HM.” So if it’s good enough for me, then it’s good enough for anyone!</p>
<p>But this thread makes me very pleased that my son didn’t grow up in Manhattan and didn’t have to deal with such nonsense. The mother in question is delusional if she believes even a small portion of what’s alleged in the lawsuit.</p>
<p>Fortunately, back in 1958 when I was 3 and took the Hunter Elementary School admissions test to get into their nursery school, things weren’t nearly so stressful. Although it’s true that one of the main reasons my family moved from the West Side to the East Side at that time was so I could go there. </p>
<p>As I recall, there were children as young as 2 and as old as 4 in my nursery school class, and it didn’t traumatize me to have to associate with any of them.</p>
<p>She will have the right to do so too if her child has to pay higher tuition to susidized others tuition (because of Financial Aid) at HMSPY or any other elite college.</p>
<p>^
POIH, I’m pretty sure there are kids that didn’t go to a $19,000 pre-school, or any pre-school for that matter that go to Harker. Nice that you managed to get the same article put into a parent thread, again. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I thought they were oboe players. I keep hearing about these oboe people.</p>
<p>BTW, the funny thing about legacy admissions is that I read a recent article which claimed that legacy preference may not improve donations to the school. In other words, it’s pointless.</p>
<p>Is that a relevant point because not all kids that go to HMSPY comes from a school like Harker too?
But for a parent who wants to have the best experiences for their kids would like the child to go to a $19000/yr pre-school so that the child is prepared for such a K-12 schools.
But if a school charges $19000/year and don’t provide a rigorous learning environment then a parent should have a right to complain.</p>
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<p>I waited 12 pages for the right comment to make a plug for it. (LOL)</p>
<p>What is interesting to me is that from what I have read (could be wrong?) Einstein had a language delay as a preschooler and would likely have flunked entrance exams to even relatively non-competitive modern-day preschools. Hmmmmm…</p>
<p>frazzled2thecore:#197: The mom in question actually don’t want her child to suffer the initial language delay and that is why she wanted to spend $19000/year.</p>
<p>Einstein didn’t go to pre-school and that might have been the reason for his language delay. His parents also worried about his intellectual development as a child due to his initial language delay and his lack of fluency until the age of nine, though he was one of the top students in his elementary school.</p>
<p>I know I am a bit cranky today, but PLEASE tell me you are joking. I’m sorry, but anybody who buys this is whacko. What has been the communication process up to the ripe ole age of 4, pointing, grunting, what? Granted it has been 17 years since my daughter was 4, but I can assure you her language skills were fine. You make it sound like any child that doesn’t attend pre-school is behind the eight ball. Bull.</p>
<p>GA2012MOM:#199
You’re unnecessary personalizing. Not every kid, who doesn’t go to pre-school, will suffer because there are families who can provide an equivalent enriching environment and there have been studies that students who don’t go to pre-school but have strong parent/families catches up by 3rd grade (which will be nine year or so).</p>