Scattergram from a Northern California Catholic school

Parents Forum
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<p>Xiggi, I added a link to University high school.
<a href=“http://sfuhs.org/[/url]”>http://sfuhs.org/&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://sfuhs.org/about/[/url]”>http://sfuhs.org/about/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The top three school are around $25,000 a year (I think Branson is $26,000). </p>

<p>Marin Catholic costs around $14,000.
<a href=“http://www.marincatholic.org/facts.html[/url]”>http://www.marincatholic.org/facts.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Wow, it must not be easy to live in San Francisco. Money wise, of course … I am not talking about the quality of life. </p>

<p>FWIW, the most expensive private school in El Paso is below $6,000. I do not think that a single private school in Dallas exceeds $18,200.**</p>

<p>Here are links to the three best schools in Dallas:</p>

<p>St Mark’s (boys only) <a href=“http://www.smtexas.org/about/headmaster/[/url]”>http://www.smtexas.org/about/headmaster/&lt;/a&gt;
Hockaday (girls only) <a href=“http://www.hockaday.org/Default.asp?bhcp=1[/url]”>http://www.hockaday.org/Default.asp?bhcp=1&lt;/a&gt;
Greenhill (coed) <a href=“http://www.greenhill.org/[/url]”>http://www.greenhill.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>** Edit, I was wrong St Mark’s charges $19,200 for seniors :(</p>

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<p>Tuition and Financial Aid</p>

<p>Boarding students $31,600</p>

<p>Day students $24,400</p>

<p>Financial aid awards range from $2,000 to $31,600 </p>

<p>Financial aid awarded. $8,200,000
Students 34%</p>

<p>Average financial aid grant $24, 604 (boarding)</p>

<p>Exeter in New Hampshire</p>

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<p>My daughter’s school - $7000 for grades 6-12
Record is 2 Ivy League admits in 2 years (out of no more than 10 that applied, and at least a few of those 10 were “just give Harvard a shot”),1 Duke, 1 Georgetown, 4 Vandy. No athletes (I think there was one athlete admitted to Harvard a year or 2 ago, but she didn’t go, so it was not well publicized).</p>

<p>It is not about money, or URM status it is all about geography - all these kids are Caucasian BWRKS.</p>

<p>SATs 990-1270, ACTs (taken by everyone) 21-26</p>

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<p>As a 2005 Branson grad, I can back dstark up in listing Branson, UHS, and MA as the top three high schools for Marin County kids. While I don’t know the stats for the other two schools, and my Branson class was especially strong, I can say that Branson sent 30% of the class of '05 to Ivies or Stanford. And currently Branson costs $26,825.<br>
The Branson School: <a href=“http://www.branson.org%5B/url%5D”>www.branson.org</a>
Marin Academy: <a href=“http://www.ma.org%5B/url%5D”>www.ma.org</a></p>

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<p>Xiggi, Quality of life…amazing.
Costs to get that quality of life…amazing</p>

<p>You should find a friend with a car and visit.</p>

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<p>jssballet, I’m sure we know many of the same people.</p>

<p>Where are you going to school next year?</p>

<p>Did you ever have Maura Vaughn for drama?</p>

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<p>Princeton, and I didn’t ever have her (I was in the dance dept), but I knew her pretty well.</p>

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<p>Xiggi…you in need of a back up driver? Ahhhh the bridge, the view, the food.</p>

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<p>jssballet, good luck at Princeton.</p>

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<p>man life here in AZ is cheap comparatively…you can get a nice 5,000 sq. ft. house in Scottsdale for less than 2 million and the three best schools here are:</p>

<p>-Phoenix Country Day School (smaller class - about 50-60 kids, ~25-30% go Ivy/MIT/Stanford, ~30% Natl Merit/Commended/Semifinalists/Finalists, SAT Avg. ~1250-1350 range)
Tuition: $16,000</p>

<p>-Brophy College Preparatory (All Male Private Jesuit School - SAT Avg. 1220, 26% of the class are Natl Merit Commended/Semifinalists/Finalists, etc.)
School Profile: <a href=“http://www.brophyprep.org/aca/profile/2004-05Profile.pdf[/url]”>http://www.brophyprep.org/aca/profile/2004-05Profile.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
Tuition: $9,600
Top School Choices: Stanford (3-10), Georgetown (5-15), USC (15-35), Notre Dame (10-15), Boston College (15-35), Santa Clara (25-40), Loyola Marymount (25-40), ASU Honors (20-40), UofA Honors (20-40), USD (5-20), UC-Berkeley (5-10), UCLA (5-10), usually 10-20 go Ivy/MIT</p>

<p>-Xavier College Preparatory (All Girl Private Diocesan Catholic School, stats very similar to BCP. 10% of class are Natl Merit Commended/Semifinalists/Finalists,etc)
Tuition: $9,990</p>

<p>I am more familiar with BCP as I went there…</p>

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<p>Well by the time we/they pay for primary/prep/undergrad…some of us are looking at brain fuel costs of:: $500,000. it is a big number isn’t it? Then you add grad school of some sort. It is a staggering number and we are still worrying about the price of petrol for our SUVs. I am worrying about how much i gotta make to send any kids I may have to do this again.</p>

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<p>bern700, when I think of inexpensive, Scottsdale doesn’t come to mind.</p>

<p>How did you like living there?</p>

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<p>There are at least 3 other S.F. schools besides UHS that regularly send students to top-tier schools; naturally, the numbers vary depending on the strength of any graduating class. All those 3 schools are pricey (above 20K). There’s at least one school in the East Bay, one on the upper Peninsula & one on the lower Peninsula that have similar strong admissions histories. These schools are similarly pricey.</p>

<p>High-rent publics often excel over moderately priced Catholic schools when it comes to college admissions. Some of the latter have better curriculum reputations than others; some are essentially not even on the map for East Coast schools, let alone Ivies. The vast majority of students in most of them apply either to West Coast colleges or to Jesuit or other Catholic U’s & colleges anywhere in the country. There is an occasional top-tier acceptance from these.</p>

<p>High-rent publics generally do not do quite as well as the pricey privates, but my sense is that it is more due to size of those publics & consequent schedule of the GC’s, etc., than it is due to quality of the curricula & students. The student bodies of the “exclusive” publics & the pricey privates are similar.</p>

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<p>The diagrams look interesting. But it does not prove that students with great stats will have the same chance as those with less stellar stats. I would guess that most of the students on the diagrams applied to the same selective colleges. If a good student was rejected by brown, he/she might be accepted by princeton. In my school, almost all of the students with great stats were rejected by some selective colleges but also accepted by some other selective colleges year after year. So the end of the day, they all went to selective colleges.</p>

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<p>Context and location includes the relationship of the school and the colleges. For example, someone mentioned Marin Academy. My son’s year there, it sent five kids to Brown. Yet, Yale, doesn’t even send a representative to visit the school. Brown sees this particular school as producing kids that are a great match – perhaps because of the high school’s generally liberal social values, and MA’s own policy of admitting many students with lower stats who are exceptionally strong in the arts, particularly visual arts. (And Brown’s relationship with RISD attracts these kids.) Yale isn’t particularly interested in yet another suburban private school, though typically a legacy kid gets in once in a while. Also, typically, from this school many of the top kids choose LACS rather than Ivies. I wouldn’t call it an Ivy feeder school. My own kid was definitely an exception in his choices.</p>

<p>Stats within a certain range just get kids seriously considered. As people have pointed out, we don’t know what the kids at the bottom of that range had going for them that made them special. Perhaps it was a true intellectual curiosity in some particular subject. Perhaps it was a special talent. But I think people often misconstrue the role of athletics. If you can be recruited for sports, sure. But if you’re just another varsity athlete, especially at a small school, it doesn’t mean anything in terms of college admissions.</p>

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<p>DS, I’ve visited San Francisco twice last year. It’s one of my favorite places and I plan to return as many times as I can this year. :)</p>

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<p>Xiggi, you are right about visiting, esp. at state schools. However, when you visit a very small private, one where the info session is conducted at a table rather than in an auditorium, one where you are not one of 50-100+ others looking, it may matter.</p>

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<p>and at some of those info sessions they make it very clear that it does matter.</p>

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<p>Sac, you’re right, you have to be a great athlete to be recruited. I have always wondered what Yale’s problem is.</p>

<p>Xiggi, have you been up to Marin yet? If you like hiking or mountain biking, you might enjoy the place. Have you been to Berkeley?</p>