<p>Perhaps it is because I am from the Northwest, that these almost exclusively northeastern prep schools don’t have much name recognition with me.</p>
<p>I have read ( in NYT) about parents who feel they have to get their kid into a good preschool ( before they are even born) and about the pressure to be differentiated from all the other wealthy bright kids- ( which is kind of funny, when all they had to do was move to one of those square flat states).</p>
<p>Frankly I have a really hard time believing that this isn’t a joke thread- I mean who really spends time obsessing about the latest angle a magazine fighting to retain market share is giving their newest article?</p>
<p>I can think of some advantages my kids had at their rural no name high school, after having read this thread and so many of this nature over my 8.5 years on CC.</p>
<p>For starters, when my kids went to HS, they never even heard of college rankings. They didn’t know where most of their HS friends were applying to college and others didn’t know where my kids were applying. It was not a heavily guarded secret, but simply not a typical topic of conversation among peers at their high school. Their friends did not up going to the colleges on my kids’ lists. There was no competitive atmosphere. My kids could not have ever imagined having some CC name of “IvyHopeful.” Both grew up with a goal of going to a “good college.” Leadership in their cases had nothing to do with popularity votes, but rather they led through initiating endeavors at their school by creating them and leading them. They were not voted into some office. They went to school with kids from a wide socio-economic range including kids whose parents never went to college and were blue collar workers, including some living in trailer parks or subsidized housing. A third of the students were not college bound. Unfortunately, their school had no racial diversity as we live in a very white state. But the top students at our high school, including my own kids, could rival those at the finest prep schools. The fine prep schools simply have way more kids of this type in the student body. Obviously top colleges are just as interested in finding such kids from any high school, even if they have to look deeper to find them. </p>
<p>I am sooooooooooooooo grateful my kids grew up where college admissions was not the talk of the town or school community and where they did activities because they wanted to and not with college admissions in mind and where they were not competing with peers, and yet ended up at the same sorts of colleges at which that those who attend top prep schools or top performing arts high schools end up landing.</p>
<p>* revisit why we all are here at CC. You want to get some information and then co-relate that to admissions at colleges to reach decisions about your own children schooling or college choices or majors or what ever you are interested in doing with that information.</p>
<p>Having the knowledge provides you some power and that is the reason you are here on this discussion board.*</p>
<p>Im here cause I am bossy & like to tell others what to do. ( Oh- I mean I like to help )</p>
<p>Soozievt, I’m glad your daughters had a fantastic educational experience, but it’s very provincial to dismiss the experiences of people who did look at and value college rankings. There’s a reason why HYP are consistently at the top, because they have unparalleled resources, instruction, and environment. Brown is a fine school but if perhaps if your daughter had tried a little harder (from exposure to these prep schools, for example), maybe she would’ve gained admission to those schools also for undergrad. You mentioned your story before numerous times, and I believe she was waitlisted or turned down at one of them? But if it didn’t matter in the end, then that’s fine. That’s her experience. However, others would prefer a different outcome.</p>
<p>Well, ya see, my D’s choice of school isn’t based on the same value you are assuming. You are assuming that if she got into a certain school ranked higher, she would have attended that school. But that is not the case with my D. For example, when she narrowed down all her acceptances to a smaller number to consider for revisits to make her final decision where to matriculate, she nixed her acceptance as a Presidential Scholar at Penn and preferred Tufts or Smith over Penn. She didn’t care that Penn was an Ivy League school. She cared about fit. My D didn’t apply to Harvard. Sure, it is a fine school (not knocking it, as I went there for grad school myself), but it did not fit what she was looking for. Yes, she got waitlisted at Princeton but she PREFERRED Brown over Princeton. Princeton was not on her pile of favorites on her list. Ya see, she had a favorites pile that was not based on rankings. Princeton was in her second pile of favorites. She would have picked to attend Brown over Princeton as it is a better fit. Sorry to burst your assumptions. </p>
<p>As far as trying a little harder, I am practically hysterically laughing!! You obviously don’t know this kid but she is someone who gives things her 110% effort. There was no harder to try. She was val, for example. She excelled in many ECs. Her GC wrote in her rec that she as the best student he had seen in his 25 years as a GC. I could go on but what’s the point. I haven’t seen anyone accepted to Princeton from our HS in the many years I have lived here. But her goal was NEVER HYP or even Ivy for that matter. She truly had a set of college selection criteria and was trying to find a selective school that met the things she was looking for in a college. Brown fit her to a T. It was never “oh, now i have to go to Brown,” but rather, “I got into one of my top choices!” By the way, Tufts was a favorite of hers over Princeton and Penn as well. Not everyone thinks like you do. Just saying. Not right or wrong but it is an individual decision process.</p>
<p>Like I said, it’s fine that she made the choices she did because those were the best for her. However, that decision-making process isn’t necessarily superior to other who do value rankings.</p>
<p>If Penn and Princeton were not a fit for her, why did she apply?</p>
<p>By the way, nychromie, I never said my kids had a “fantastic educational” experience at their HS. No, I would not characterize it that way. I was pointing out that they had some benefits from that type of educational environment that you don’t get at a prep school and while there ARE aspects of a prep school that I think would have been wonderful for them, there are attitudes and environmental things I just mentioned that go along with that prep school experience that I am glad they didn’t have and were able to have a different one here in our community. For example, you and another poster on this thread who have HYPSM on the brain as a “must have” and some elitist attitudes that you appear to have, are things I’m glad my D was not around as she cannot relate to it at all and she had goals that were defined much differently and was not in some race or competition with anyone either.</p>
<p>I never said that those two schools were not a fit for her. I said, like almost anyone I know, she had a small pile of favorites on her list of 8 total colleges, a pile of next favorites, and a pile of less favorites but still interested in and happy to attend. She liked all the schools on her list. But her piles of most favorite to least were not in the order of how they rank on USNews. These were her personal rankings of her own list into subsets (not even numerically ranked 1-8). Penn and Princeton met several of her selection criteria and that is why they were on her list! She liked Princeton more than Penn. She liked Tufts more than Princeton or Penn. She liked them all however. It terms of fit, I believe she went to the school on her list that truly fit her the best. But each school on her list had plusses in relation to her selection criteria.</p>
<p>Also, nychromie, besides your saying maybe my D could have worked harder to get into HYP (you assumption that was her goal which it wasn’t), you said perhaps if she had exposure to prep schools, she may have gotten into HYP. Do you realize that even if we wanted to send her away to boarding school, which we didn’t, we could not AFFORD private high school for our children? Do you understand this is not a choice for many people??? Be happy your parents afforded you that opportunity. Many have no such choice. It never came up in our thinking to send our kids anywhere but our local high school. That was their only option. They survived and did just fine in college and grad admissions and life so far.</p>
<p>Who cares what Forbes’ think? Why do Americans insist on having their educational options determined by magazines? It makes no sense whatsoever. And what every happened to <em>education</em> and <em>learning</em>…it seems like for too many, they care more about ranks, and scores and numbers rather than substance.</p>
<p>PS…nychromie…you don’t realize how elitist you sound. in posts on this thread, you put down public school kids as not as bright as prep school kids. You also assume that prep school is an option…as if. Then, you call the kind of thinking of my family as “provincial,”…we may live in the sticks but we ain’t hicks, ya know…I went to grad school at Harvard (which you obviously value) and my husband has “Dr.” in front of his name. Neither of us grew up here, though we also went to public schools K-12. I hardly think of my kids as provincial. In fact, they are very worldly.</p>
<p>My husband and I both attended a variety of schools, but went to prep school for high school. We are very cognizant of what our kids missed out on. OTOH, one reason we did choose to keep them in their public high school because we valued its diversity - not just racial diversity (which it had in spades), but also economic diversity. </p>
<p>They are much less apt to make the assumptions about the superiority of big name schools than some on this thread. As someone hinted at upthread my older son turned down Harvard for Carnegie Mellon. He’s got a job offer at one of the top firms for computer science geeks. At least from the point of view of job placement there was nothing wrong with the choices we made for him or the ones he made for himself.</p>
<p>I was going to post something here to defend nychomie- something about parents not ganging up on a college freshman. </p>
<p>But then I read some of the more aggravating things in the recent posts and I’d have to say she/he is asking for it. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, nychomie’s posts are playing into the stereotype of Princeton students as elitist kids. I have to wonder why a Princeton freshman is spending so much time posting on C.C., arguing with parents about public vs private prep high schools. </p>
<p>Reinforces the image of Princeton as a dull place with not much exciting happening on campus.</p>
<p>mathmom, yes, I am also glad our kids had a chance to attend school K-12 with those from a wide economic spectrum. They also are much less apt to have a sense of superiority that I see displayed by some who had a different background. In fact, I have been around my D in public where I have heard some ask where she went to college and she has said, “in Providence,” and doesn’t like to come off in a way that will elicit a “wow,” from those in our neck of the woods. I recall when attending one of her sports events in college, how a lot of the kids on her team were hanging out in college sweatshirts and she had on a sports sweatshirt from her high school and when I asked her why she chose to wear that, she remarked, “because I went to public school and am damn proud of it!” (everyone on her team had gone to private school for high school…some went to prep schools and some went to elite private sport specialty academy schools). :D</p>
<p>You said what I have been thinking all along but didn’t have the guts to write! My kids, both when in college and now out of college, are way way way too busy with endeavors to have the time to post online (not to mention no interest in CC, but that’s not really my point). I am amazed that nychomie has this kind of free time. Mine never did and still don’t.</p>
<p>lol, vicariousparent, thats a bit of a paradigm shift.</p>
<p>I have no idea where nychomie went to HS, though certainly he sure is of the opinion that the prep school is the be all and end all. This whole thread feels like a sorority rush or something. Wear the right clothes, have the right friends, do/say the right things and be accepted into the right clique.</p>
<p>Nowhere did I say prep schools are superior, even for those who have the means to go there. If you thought I said that, do point me to where I did. All I was trying to do was challenge the notion that these prep schools don’t confer an advantage when it comes to college admissions, and I pointed out colleges’ different weighting of the leadership positions at a prep school vs. regular HS as an example. Whereas kids from regular high schools have to go through a bunch of hoops to get into elite colleges (national award this, national leadership that), a leadership position at one of the elite prep schools can suffice as an EC as long as you have a distinguished academic record. That’s all I said, period.</p>
<p>I wasn’t dismissing the attitude that rankings don’t matter. If you feel that way, fine. But I was suggesting that people shouldn’t dismiss those who value rankings either. Clearly from this thread, you dislike rankings a great deal.</p>
)</p>