I note with our D30, who is really driving this whole boarding school idea, we basically tried to make sure she was NOT applying to any boarding schools where the appeal was just selectivity, prestige, or so on. We were quite happy with the overall quality of the education, non-academic opportunities, and college counseling of our S24’s day school, so saw zero reason for her to look at boarding schools for just generic reasons along those lines. She had to work to identify special academic programs, special versions of activities, and most importantly an overall community feel that would justify not just going with that day school.
In the end this means she is not applying to many of the most famous/prestigious boarding schools, and that is quite fine with us. Not that she isn’t applying to great schools, again we basically wouldn’t let her apply to boarding schools that would be a major step down in any basic area from that day school. But when you focus on those sorts of individual fit things, and don’t specifically filter for maximum fame/prestige, not necessarily including a lot of the most famous/prestigious schools is a likely outcome.
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Actually being ranked 15th for a boarding school (or a college, for that matter) is not bad at all. If you look at the US News college rankings, #15 this year happens to be Columbia. Would you be upset if your child ends up at Columbia? The same goes for lower-ranked Ivies such as Dartmouth, Brown and Cornell. I think most parents would be very pleased if their child is accepted at those places.
Notwithstanding the latest rankings, Deerfield is still very well regarded among most BS families and holds a solid place among the so-called “HADES” which consists of Hotchkiss, Andover, Deerfield, Exeter and St. Paul’s.
Thanks to your curiosity, I have just looked into the methodology used for Niche.com rankings:
“Niche ranks boarding schools by analyzing public data (like US Dept of Ed data, test scores, college stats) and millions of user reviews/surveys from students and parents, focusing on factors like academics, college prep, diversity, teacher quality, and student life, then weighting these elements to create overall scores and grades. Specific weightings for private/boarding schools often emphasize SAT/ACT scores, Top Colleges Score, Student-Teacher Ratio, and Culture & Diversity, alongside user experiences.”
Everyone’s mileage may very with every school. Just by looking at your school list, I can tell you that there are boundless activities/academic offerings at Andover, yet a considerable number of students have mental health issues. And I do not need to remind you that Groton is filled with geniuses and super hardworking kids. Deerfield and Choate are probably the more balanced schools on your list, in terms of academics and athletics, but one has a bucolic setting and the other is part of a lovely small town. Deerfield has tons of Hong Kong and Korean kids (Eaglebrook and Fay are big feeders), while Choate has a large Chinese contingent. I strongly urge you to revisit the school(s) that accept your child, to see and feel the difference. Good luck!
That’s kind of strange, as these are standard boarding school performance measures, and Deerfield should rank near the top on most of them, especially given its very large endowment (restricted or not), only behind Andover and Exeter. One possible explanation is composition: Deerfield may be less diverse overall and may have a relatively more athletes. Even though, the ranking methodologies don’t really explain well.
On diversity, Choate’s most recent graduating class has like 40–50% Asian kids and most have Chinese surnames. I wonder whether boarding schools still recruit a lot of mainland Chinese students? I understand that many Chinese families want to get out of the country, but the sheer volume of applicants makes the process overly competitive.
Niche ratings (like USNWR) should be taken with a grain of salt. The rankings change to keep people looking but the schools do not.
But again, over-focusing on rankings is a bad way to play this.
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DA’s outsized endowment was built with a consistent pipeline of major gifts from business titans - such as the Koch brothers, Rudi Wachsman, Henry Kravis, etc. It certainly helps with FA and other capital campaigns, but it’s up to the school to spend it on recruiting jocks or cerebral kids who may not otherwise have an opportunity to attend.
Your observation of Asian students at US boarding schools is spot on. Not only are these families full-pay, but most of the students are also academic enough to raise the schools’ average SAT scores. If I were running a school, I would probably like to have both attributes, too. The end result? A of cannibalism when it comes to college placements. College AOs will read dozens of profiles that look almost identical from a school like Choate - Chinese, full-pay, near-perfect GPA and high SAT grades, play a string instrument but not much else… you get the idea.
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At our international school, we’ve seen a big influx of Chinese families over the past 2-3 years. The geopolitical tension has also made their situation much worse. We heard that last year there were zero ED admits to Harvard from mainland China. I’m curious about the trend in recent years (on BS admission), particularly in light of changes under the Trump administration.
You have to dig into the Niche weightings. There are huge fudge factors for self-reported feedback from site users.
All rankings should be taken with a grain of salt.
Niche rankings in particular should be used as nothing more than conversation starters.
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I’m not really a generic rankings guy anyway, but it was quite apparent to me that if you poked around looking at various lists, certain schools could be significantly higher or lower depending on the list.
This is often an indication that the generic ranking format is creating a false impression of the degree of objective distinction between what are in truth pretty comparable schools. Which doesn’t mean you can’t distinguish them, but you will need to turn to more personal/individual factors that can’t meaningfully be captured in generic rankings.
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It never fails to amaze me that some people view rankings as if God came down from Heaven and wrote the book Herself. Then these same people choose to believe that arguing about which school placed where on the list is a productive use of time. 
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Yeah, I thought having a 92 was really bad, but my interviewers told me that SSAT’s aren’t what decides who gets in or not
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