<p>st. ann’s in nyc has the highest non boarding ‘ivy’ placement in the country… basically the entire graduating class goes to top 25 uni or top 10 lac.</p>
<p>This has not always been the case, and may well have to do with the parent alumni connections in the current classes there.</p>
<p>Just before I left NYC, Brearly was sending about half their class to HYP.
Saint Ann’s was not nearly tops in placement among NYC private schools then. This was about ten years ago.</p>
<p>Saint Ann’s is a great school though.</p>
<p>From my recollection, some really good NY schools were:</p>
<p>Regis, Horace Mann, Collegiate, Brearly,Trinity, Fieldston, Spence and Dalton. Also Stuyvesant and Hunter, which are public but students are tested in.</p>
<p>I’m not talking about the current class, this has been the case for a number of years now.</p>
<p>That may be the case, but the number of years is less than 10. My kids attended Saint Ann’s for about 6 years prior to leaving NYC, and it was not true during this time. They did well, but there were other NYC schools that did better.</p>
<p>monydad, I recruit NYC as part of my territory; you mentioned the most prestigious NYC schools, but I’m sure the folks at Riverdale and Friends Seminary (which has come way up in recent years) would take umbrage to their omission from your list.</p>
<p>St. Ann’s got a lot of favorable publicity when the Wall Street Journal ranked them as the number one private school in the nation at sending their kids to, what they deemed, “a top 10 college”. There is a major problem with their methodology as Columbia and Stanford refused to participate in what they deemed as, another assinine attempt to rate schools. </p>
<p>The WSJ used Pomona in place of Stanford for a Western school, Duke in the south and Chicago (or was it Northwestern) in the midwest, to comprise the ten schools they look at. Based on 2003 data, St. Ann’s had the highest percentage of their class going to one of these ten schools.</p>
<p>Brearly in most years probably has the best IVY league placement, with Trinity being right in there; if Columbia would have been included, these schools may still have passed St. Ann’s, but once again, judging a HS as, “the place you want to be at” based on college list is sophmoric and shallow.</p>
<p>St. Ann’s culture could not be any different than Trinity, Dalton or Horace Mann. Brearly is an all girl’s school, which in and of itself, is a different experience. It’s all about what culture, value system, and type of kid that these school’s attact, is a match for your child.</p>
<p>Anyone who thinks that entrance into these schools is a fast track to HYP, or any IVY league school is in for a rude awakening, St. Ann’s is a school for gifted kids, but it is a very progressive school that doesn’t even give grades. Competition to get into Trinity or Brearly is so fierce that the kid who gets into these schools would almost assuredly be in the top 5% at a reputable public school and reputable public schools get a lot of respect from college admissions folks.</p>
<p>The culture of the Upper East side is different than the culture of the Upper West or the Downtown schools in NYC; this should be factored in as a family seeks a match.</p>
<p>The reason discussing Preps often focusses on boarding is because, any one who is reading this post can apply to the boarding schools, but few on this board will move to NYC or DC to attend one of the private day academies that have been listed.</p>
<p>In Washington DC, the top republican oriented families often look to Albans or National Cathedral, but the top democratic families look to Sidwell Friends. </p>
<p>Maret and Georgetown Day and Georgetown Prep, seem to have more political diversity.</p>
<p>okay as I’m sure you can tell I attended st. ann’s school so I have a fairly strong opinon of it. I also know many of students of the other NYC prep schools. I’am not actually going to try and claim that we’re the best or something silly like that, perticularly because I do think that all of the top tier NYC privates have “relationships” with different schools. Trinity generally sends a lot of kids to columbia, St. Ann’s sends a lot of kids to brown and yale. so what ever. It is totally different applying to college out of a school that has no grades, no ranking, no honors, no AP classes, no clubs, and when I look at how hard the kids on this site work compared to how hard myself and my classmates had to work it is kinda crazy. (Not to denigrate the education at SA, it is suberb) On the other hand, if you think its random and and unclear applying to college for normal kids, imagine how weird it is when you don’t have a GPA to base your list on.</p>
<p>Landon overall is a much better school. Better College Placement, better athletics and a greater sense of community.</p>
<p>GDS and MAret are not politically mixed. All are essentially Liberal.</p>
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<p>No, I couldn’t tell, but small world hanna1, if you were there from the beginning you probably know (knew) at least one of my kids. They loved it there; too bad we had to leave NY.</p>
<p>admissionsrep: I don’t agree that the culture at all these schools is the same. I believe Saint Ann’s is different in some ways from some of these other schools. In fact, just like colleges, they each have their own dominant (but overlapping) personalities. That’s in part how parents differentiate and select them.</p>
<p>Saint Ann’s is more artsy, for one thing. It gives far more leeway in selecting courses. And it does not give conventional grades.</p>
<p>The “school for gifted kids” is true, in that students take IQ tests as part of the admissions process. but the resulting student body is not materially more brilliant than that at some of these other schools. Or at least it wasn’t.</p>
<p>And yes, there is then Friends and Riverdale. And there is: Ramaz, Columbia Grammar, Chapin, Poly Prep, Nightingale-Bamford, Elizabeth Irwin, Packer Collegiate, Rudolph Steiner, UNIS. </p>
<p>And for public schools there is Bronx Science and Midwood HS, Forest Hills HS, Bayside HS, A. Phillip Randolph, Long Island City HS, Benjamin Cardozo, Francis Lewis, Evander Childs.</p>
<p>And in the surrounding suburbs there is: Delbarton, Lawrenceville, Frisch, Pingry, Hackley, Masters, Montclair Kimberly, Rye Country Day, Princeton Day, Greenwich Academy, Brunswick, Chaminade, Newark Academy, Morristown- Beard. And now there is the Pierrepont School in Connecticut, which is an offshoot of Saint Ann’s.</p>
<p>Hope I haven’t missed anything.</p>
<p>I would have to agree with admissions rep with the atmospheres being different at many of the NYC privates we are comparing. There is a <em>big</em> difference between Horace Mann and St Anns. I’m pretty sure everyone will agree with me on that one, lol. Honestly it’s really hard to say which school is ‘better’ than the other when you get to that level because they all have excellent faculty and hige course selections. I’m pretty sure that once you get down to deciding between Horace Mann Fieldston Dalton and St Anns it should just be a mtter of personal choice as opposed to which school will be ‘better’.</p>
<p>And Hanna, you might be surprised about how easy it is for admissions reps to read the appications of St Anns people; one of the college counselors at my school was formerly an admissions rep at Georgetown and he told us that they would go through the St Anns apps (which have no grades) reading the teachers comments and doing something like this: “Okay the teacher used the word preformed exceptionally, that means an A, and in math her teacher said she had an intial setback but then bounced back to the top of her class, that means she had a B and then went to an A” Etc etc. So basically they would be able to tell the grades and get a better picture of the student’s preformance in a more easily comparable way. He said it was very annoying that they didn’t grade, but that’s a whole other story… ;)</p>
<p>yeah, i know we always use to joke about the secret grading scale, like exceptional = A excellent= B good = C and okay = D. I wasn’t really refering to confusion on the part of the colleges, who generally either love or hate SA, thus leading to the fact that all students tend to go to the same relatively small group of schools, but on the part of the students themselves, who don’t ever have a concrete sense of where they stand in the class, or how they compare to others beyond sat scores. This makes it more difficult to generate a realistic college list. For example, in my graduating class of 84, easily 60 people applied to brown. A good 15-20 got accepted, but its seems likely that there were a number of students in that bunch that shouldn’t have been applying. It just makes everything appear to be even more of a crapshoot from the students point of view. On the other hand, nothing builds academic confidence like spenting the first 16 years of your schooling not having to compete with others and doing work solely for your own benefit.</p>
<p>Yeah there’s a girl at my school who came in 9th grade and used to go to St Anns. We’re all so amazed at how uncompetitive she is, but I guess it’s bc she never had grades at St Anns so they don’t mean much to her. ;)</p>
<p>The following is from another thread and is offered FYI:</p>
<p>The Ten Schools Admissions Organization (TSAO)</p>
<p>Founded more than 40 years ago, the heads of these ten leading prep schools meet every year to discuss issues of mutual interest (issues facing prep schools, college admissions, etc.)</p>
<ul>
<li>Choate Rosemary Hall </li>
<li>Deerfield Academy </li>
<li>The Hill School </li>
<li>The Lawrenceville School </li>
<li>Loomis Chaffee </li>
<li>Phillips Andover Academy </li>
<li>Phillips Exeter Academy </li>
<li>St. Pauls School </li>
<li>The Taft School </li>
</ul>
<p><a href=“http://www.hotchkiss.org/Admission/Appl_UsefulLink.asp[/url]”>http://www.hotchkiss.org/Admission/Appl_UsefulLink.asp</a></p>
<p>collegeparent,</p>
<p>thanks for that, i indeed put that post in the wrong thread (I was reading the WSJ ranking thread and this one at the same time)</p>
<p>Andover, enough said.</p>
<p>college parent, I am very aware of the ten school group and I know admissions reps at all of these schools, but anyone familiar with boarding school selectivity, knows that TAFT, Hill and Loomis are nowhere near as selective as:</p>
<p>Groton, St. Andrews, Milton, Thatcher and several others. These groups are often founded based on the friendships of the heads of schools. I will admit that the other seven schools on this list are seven of the ten most selective and prestigious boarding schools. </p>
<p>Prep 9 is an organization that claims to work with ten of the top boarding schools and they have St. Andrews, Milton and Middlesex in their group.</p>
<p>I have seen on many occasions where a kid gets into a school like St. Paul’s, but is turned down at Groton or St. Andrews.</p>
<p>However, like I said, there are another 25 or so great boarding schools that deserve to be considered as first choice schools over the ten most selective schools if one likes their culture, location and values.</p>
<p>The schools that overlap between the Ten School Group and Prep 9 are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Choate Rosemary Hall </li>
<li>Deerfield Academy </li>
<li>The Hotchkiss School</li>
<li>The Lawrenceville School </li>
<li>Phillips Andover Academy </li>
<li>Phillips Exeter Academy
+</li>
<li>St. Paul’s School (not in Prep 9)</li>
</ul>
<p>I’d say these schools are the nation’s elite / best prep schools.</p>
<p>You have named the seven most elite boarding schools that have over 500 students, but Groton definitely belongs on this list and St. Andrews is just as good, but it’s not in New England so it’s overlooked. Remember, there is a huge New England bias to this discussion. Also, Milton Academy which is in Prep 9 rounds out the 8th prestigious east coast boarding school with a population of over 500.</p>
<p>A person I highly respect, but can’t name because I was told this in confidence told me, that Milton has the third most rigorous academic program of any boarding school in the land.</p>
<p>One can argue that Cate and Thatcher should also be on any short list, but they are on the west coast, so it’s not convenient for them to be in the ten school group or Prep 9, which looks to place New York city kids within six hours of their home.</p>
<p>Also, elite does not equate to best; most selective yes, but that’s not best. There are some boarding schools that have as their mission, the development of character for a life of service and would anyone say that Quaker schools, such as Westtown School with their commitment to character development and a life of service are inferior to the schools that focus more on academics, but less on some of the other areas of character development. These schools accomplish this mission without neglecting, outstanding academics.</p>
<p>If you don’t believe me, go on the home page of the Westtown web site and look at all of the colleges that are sending professional members of their admissions staff to recruit students from the Quaker schools this year. </p>
<p>I work at Westtown and I tell you, we have families that turn down the schools you mentioned because of the values of a Quaker school. Also, many Swarthmore professors swear by our academics and they back it up by sending their kids to Westtown. </p>
<p>Both my kids go to Westtown and there is not a boarding school in the land I’d rather they attend. </p>
<p>This post is not meant to single out Westtown; the same thing could be said of many other excellent, character building schools. Likewise, there are character building colleges that are transformative institutions that are often not the ones that cascade of the average persons lips when they think of the “best colleges”.</p>
<p>You can’t say what the “best school” is because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To say that school X is the best is equivalent to saying, "such and such is the most beautiful woman in the world; in your opinion maybe, but mine may be different and neither one of us is wrong.</p>
<p>However, this thread started by discussing prestige and your post, coupled with the addition of the schools I mentioned comprise this list.</p>
<p>As I said before, Madiera and Miss Porters are the most prestigious all girls schools.</p>
<p>Prestige, elitism, selectivity, and wealth can be quantified, but too many people make the next leap and believe that prestige, elitism, selectivity and wealth, equate to best, but values, culture, philosophy and personal fit heavily influence best and that is going to vary from person to person.</p>
<p>I apologize for going on my little tirade, but US News and World Report’s fallacious defense of the fact that you quantify best (while giving all kinds of disclaimers that contradict their stance) is summarily dismissed as an exploitive attempt to make money by pandering to the public obsession with rankings. When I see prestige, elitism, selectivity and wealth (as paramount as all of those things are to quality education) equated to “best”, I have to wonder if this is once again another example of the corrosive impact of USNWR’s aggregate rankings. As good as their info is in each respective category, their overall rankings are as bogus as, the rankings that come out every year with a different city that is supposedly the best city to live in: beauty is in the eye of the beholder.</p>
<p>Forgive me for venting about one of my pet peeves. IVY_Grad, your post contributed very positively to this discussion, in my opinion and I enjoyed reading what you had to say.</p>
<p>Admissionsrep, I so agree with your statement that " elite does not equate to best; most selective yes, but that’s not best."<br>
I’ve seen the emotional toll that the academic pressure of our daughter’s elite boarding school takes on it’s students. They are physically and emotionally exhausted and more stressed than, I believe, teenagers should be. Our daughter loves her school and her friends are funny, intelligent and kind, but they suffer emotionally and physically from the academic pressure.
With our second daughter we have tried for a more balanced school. and though she will be going to school near you, and we are excited, I now wish we had looked at Westtown. The development of the child as a person of integrity, resourcefulness and compassion is as important as good academics.</p>
<p>seeker06, I was very encouraged by your post. Somehow the message that you articulated has got to get out there; there is a generation of kids who are going to grow up to be quite dysfunctional because their parents are, in many cases, living through them vicariously. Too many parents are looking to validate their own intelligence through their children excelling in the most rigorous of environs. A great book to read on this subject is, “The Hurried Child”.</p>