Sad to see DD prep high school didn't make the Forbes top 20 prep school!

Parents Forum
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<p>“You also come across as believing the students at such schools are better and that is so not the case.”</p>

<p>this is the crux of all this, isn’t it?</p>

<p>I have yet to meet a parent who thinks the school they are sending their kid to is lousy. whether rural, suburb or city I hear how the school has won some state award, or it matriculates more kids to ivy, or it’s french emersion…blah, blah and all great schools per the parents. Based on parents the school is good if johnny goes there.</p>

<p>So the question is do you believe kids from 1 school are “better” (better behavior, smarter, harder working, more talented) than kids from another school? </p>

<p>this is where things get dicey, because you can go from better school, because of better community, because of better families, because of better_ _ _…I think the Germans went down this path once.</p>

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<p>Based on your opinion of “fact” nychomie, how do you account for lowly unintelligent, immature and non-poised students from a hick rural public school like mine, ended up at elite colleges, won significant scholarships, were in several leadership positions at said colleges and won top awards at those elite colleges upon graduation? How ever did they manage to compete with their boarding school cohorts??? How do you explain that?</p>

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<p>pacheight, I would not call our HS a “great school.” There were some good things and there were some bad things. The kids managed just fine.</p>

<p>I think our MS sucked. </p>

<p>Our elementary school was a great school.</p>

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<p>^^one thing I well argue, the experience a kid has at a well run private school is safer and more welcoming. I remember commenting to the headmaster how nice the playground behavior of grade kids was. She said, “well that’s because we don’t tolerate bullying behavior, it’s three strikes and you’re out…we’re a private school, you’re not paying to have your kid bullied or feel scared at school…after three times we kick a bully out of this school, we’re not a public school, we can remove kids/families who have bad behavior”</p>

<p>Having been raised in a large middle class public where playground rules where essentially gladiator culture I was blown away to learn what a private school can provide to kids.</p>

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<p>pacheight, there are advantages and disadvantages in everything. I have nothing against private K-12 schools and there are many things better at them than at our public school and some things better here. </p>

<p>My disagreement with nychomie isn’t which schools are better (I guarantee ya that Exeter is lots better than our public school!!) but rather his contention that the prep school kids are smarter, more mature, or more poised and the myriad of other comments he has made such as about leadership, ECs, etc. I believe that the top academic students and leaders at our public rival such types at a prep school. The prep school has more of these types than our school, but such types of students exist everywhere. And then such students from no name public crappy high school (which is likely what some on this thread would consider our HS), somehow manage to get into the top colleges in the land and not only do well, but stand out at those colleges…taking on leadership roles and winning top awards at those schools, as well as getting high grades.</p>

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<p>I suggest that this above assessment be compared to post #30 on the Phillips Academy, Andover thread by a former student who graduated from there.</p>

<p>That poster related that students were asked to leave due to rule violations, particularly alcohol and drugs. The poster acknowleged that they exist on the Andover campus, like anywhere else, but they are more strictly regulated than in colleges. </p>

<p>Students feeling depressed were asked to leave because the school does not want a suicide on their hands, both from a legal standpoint and from the standpoint of the “psyche” of the students. The poster’s year lost several students to drug abuse during the senior year.</p>

<p>“Mature” and “poised?” Well, I see maturity as having a component of an ability to deal with issues not by having a controlled environment to protect the “psyche.”</p>

<p>I will concede that my S’s private prep provided a superior educational environment due to size of class, excellence of teachers, physical plant and enrichment opportunties. But, on issues of character such as maturity and poise, that seemed to run the gamut as it does in the less sheltered environment of public schools.</p>

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<p>07Dad…you’re right…prep or boarding schools don’t have a lock on poised or mature kids. Such kids exist everywhere and in fact, many kids at prep schools don’t fare well and are kicked out. I have worked with two students who had to leave their prep or boarding schools. One was over a serious matter.</p>

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<p>I gave GRE in 1988 and it had the Analytical section then. Everyone I know or work with had a GRE math score > 750, so it was normal to have a score of 780 on math but I rarely came across people with 780 on Analytical so naturally I was quite proud of that.</p>

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<p>My LAC used to have a posture class. Maybe it was offered to the non-blueblood public school plebeians who managed to slip into this institute of higher learning without benefit of being born with a stick up their a… oh, nevermind.</p>

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<p>soozievt, why do I have to keep repeating myself so many times? In post #121, I said:</p>

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<p>Nowhere did I say that prep schools have a lock on mature, confident, intelligent students.</p>

<p>I was also comparing the AVERAGE kid at an elite prep school and the AVERAGE kid at an average American high school. The AVERAGE kid at the elite prep school will be more mature, poised, and intelligent, period.</p>

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<p>pacheight:

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<p>You should ask DD about that but “HMSPY” was her priority list and that is why I’ve always used it as such.
I think she loved Cambridge and everything else she just added to convince DW.

  1. Oppertunity to take classes at Harvard (DW have a soft corner for H)
  2. EECS is best @ MIT and is unique with an oppertunity to get a 5 year combined M.E. which is not possible to get if you are not an undergraduate @ MIT EECS.
  3. MIT Sloan allow taking courses by undergraduate students, Stanford Buisness School doesn’t.</p>
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<p>A higher percentage of households with a prep school student have Grey Poupon, as compared with the percentage of households without a prep school student.</p>

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<p>Consolation I’d be happy to consort with you. I think my verbal score was the same. Both scores were slightly better than my SAT scores, so I guess I got value for my college education?</p>

<p>Prep school student more mature, poised and intelligent? I can’t believe you typed that seriously.</p>

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<p>ivyhope: interesting, so she was accepted to all 5 schools, HMSPY</p>

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<p>This is opinion, not fact. Oh…and “period.” :D</p>

<p>You made many other statements in this thread besides this one that exude an elitist attitude. I do not want to dredge 'em all up as they have been hashed out once already (remarks about leadership, ECs, and so on). </p>

<p>Further, I put MUCH LESS value in what you write, nychomie, because you post in a “cloaked” manner which gives your posts less validity than someone who has offered up some very basic background to allow readers to understand their perspective more clearly. Not asking you to divulge identifying information or things that would not allow you to maintain privacy, but you are unwilling to respond to some basic questions as to who you are…if you are a current college student, an alum, a parent, etc. and if you attend or attended an Ivy, and if you attended an elite boarding school or not, and if you currently are working, etc. So, I put very little stock in your posts as I have no clue who you are in life and there are inconsistencies in your posting history. Those who read the forum can opt to decide which posts lend some sense of validity based on one’s posting history and sharing of their selves to give a sense of their perspective. For example, I may disagree with POIH on many things, but I know he is a dad, an Asian immigrant, a parent of an only child who attends MIT who attended a private prep school, and so on and thus, I at least understand his posts and the perspective he brings.</p>

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<p>“Prep school student more mature, poised and intelligent? I can’t believe you typed that seriously.” I think the intelligent part is true, that’s no surprise.</p>

<p>maturity may be effected by dna, poise is most likely environment, but intelligence is primarily because of your dna. And it is true that more affluent communities have higher IQ people and therefore high IQ offspring…attributes of the parents, including intelligence, is passed on…that’s indisputable fact!</p>

<p>So, I think it’s a fairly safe statement to say that the IQ of kids at prep schools (majority from affluent communities) is higher than most publics.</p>

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<p>pacheight:

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<p>No, she was denied addmission at Harvard and didn’t apply to Yale (she got in EA @ MIT).</p>

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<p>pacheight, I do not believe that a prep school kid is smarter than his/her public school counterpart. What I believe is that there is a higher percentage of very strong academic students at an elite prep school than a typical public HS because the prep school requires one to be admitted based on having high academics in the first place. The public school has kids just like that whose parents do not wish to or can’t afford to send their kids to elite prep school, but the public school will have a smaller percentage of such students in the student body as they take all students. But the strong students in the public school are every bit as smart as those at the prep school. They could have been admitted to the prep school but did not attend.</p>

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<p>Breaking charachter - my son was a strong student in public school and recently transferred to a boarding school. Clearly the educational and athletic options available to him are vastly superior. Equally clearly, he’s the same kid. I think that is soozievt’s point and I concur.</p>

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<p>Am guessing the following rocket scientists ( top 10 Darwin Award winners, as we call them on another forum) are not the product of an elite prep or boarding school education:</p>

<ol>
<li>When his 38 caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked. </li>
</ol>

<p>And now, the honorable mentions:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and after a little shopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company, expecting negligence, sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and he also lost a finger. The chef’s claim was approved.</p></li>
<li><p>A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.</p></li>
<li><p>After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn’t discovered for 3 days.</p></li>
<li><p>An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.</p></li>
<li><p>A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer. $15. [If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?</p></li>
<li><p>Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he’d just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.</p></li>
<li><p>As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, “Yes, officer, that’s her. That’s the lady I stole the purse from”</p></li>
<li><p>The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 5 A.M., flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn’t open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren’t available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away. [*A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER]</p></li>
<li><p>When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street by sucking on a hose, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline, but he plugged his siphon hose into the motor home’s sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges saying that it was the best laugh he’d ever had.</p></li>
</ol>