<p>BigMike-- Wealth is HUGELY correlated with academic success. Does this mean that wealthiest child in the room is the best student? Of course not. But it does mean that as a group, upper middle class children vastly out perform working class children.</p>
<p>Just wanted to observe that public-school workloads vary a lot from school to school. QMP attended a fairly good public school (US News Silver rating), and had a lot of homework. Few of the top students stopped doing homework before 1 am from sophomore to senior years; and during senior year, it was very common for QMP to be up, working, at 2 am. I think the difference from private school was probably largely in the quality of the assignmentsâI do not mean the quality of the work done by the students, but rather the nature of what they were being asked to do. In some cases, it was (<em>ahem</em>) stupid. There is probably much less of that in a typical private school! Hard to simply avoid doing it without taking a very considerable GPA/rank hit.</p>
<p>compmom:
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<p>Then things have changed from 10 years ago or so, when the outstanding son of friends of ours, when being interviewed by a well-known Ivy in Boston, was told âhe was a perfect matchâŠthe only negative was that he didnât attend a private HS.â</p>
<p>:confused:</p>
<p>He was actually at a extremely competitive public HS, where there were more opportunities for him. I think the interviewer was saying he needed to prove he was âtheir kind of people.â</p>
<p>Humph. Anyway, he got in and did very well. But I was shocked when his mother related this anecdote. And I am glad to hear things have changed, as well they should have.</p>
<p>I have something of a unique perspective on this, since my kids both attended, sequentially, both a top private school and a public academic magnet. They retained their ties to their former school, so I had a ringside seat on the college admissions results for several classes at both schools, in addition to friends with children at other well-known private and public schools.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The same kids go to the same colleges. When my kids moved to the public school, there was a small cohort of other kids from top private schools who started at the same time with them. These kids are almost all attending basically the same colleges they would have gone to if they had stayed in private school. (Yale, Brown, Chicago, Penn, Carleton, Smith, Hamilton, and Pitt-on-full-scholarship having turned down Penn.) An exception is discussed below. </p></li>
<li><p>The top students at the public school and the private school were essentially equivalent, except that the public school students tended to be much more math and science oriented. This held true for the top 50-60 kids at each school (60% of the private school class, 10% of the public school class). After that, there was a steeper dropoff at the public school. The weakest private school kids would have been comfortably in the top half of the public school class. But the stars at either school would have been stars at the other, and the non-stars at either school would have been non-stars at the other. </p></li>
<li><p>Culture and demographics had a lot to do with ambitions, and therefore results. The private school students tended to cast their nets much wider (and geographically farther) than the public school students. And they were far more interested in LACs â about half of the private school kids went to LACs. At the public school, you could count the LAC kids on your fingers, without using both hands, and those kids tended to be either (a) private school transfers, (b) demographic twins of private school transfers, (c) girlfriends or boyfriends of the foregoing, or (d) the children of GCs or administrators. 95% of the public school kids went to college within a circle whose radius was Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and probably 80% of them within a much smaller circle less than 100 miles from their homes. For the private school, those numbers would have been about 50% (since it includes a lot of New England) and 20%. A huge percentage of the private school kids were legacies somewhere interesting. A huge percentage of the public school kids were first-generation college students.</p></li>
<li><p>Both schools sent about the same number of kids (from vastly different-sized classes) to top-whatever universities. The difference was that at the public school almost all those kids went to Penn, with singletons at three or four other urban Ivies or equivalents, and at the private school a third of them went to Penn with 1-3 at a much wider variety of colleges. But with the private school sending almost an equivalent number of kids to comparable LACs, it felt like the private school had much better admissions results (and it did). Top students at the public school tended to apply to Harvard, Penn, maybe one or two other urban Ivies, and then a public safety (which was usually either Pitt or Temple, but sometimes Penn State), and it was not uncommon for them to wind up attending their safety.</p></li>
<li><p>At least half of the private school kids applied ED (or SCEA) somewhere, and about a third of them were accepted and never applied anywhere else. At the public school, 25 or so kids would apply ED to Penn, a few would apply SCEA (but mainly to Harvard â it was olden days), and that would be it.</p></li>
<li><p>Obviously, financial aid issues were much more salient at the public school, although experience taught people that Pennâs aid would be the best deal they could reasonably hope for unless they pursued merit scholarships many rungs down the prestige ladder (which some did). On average, the private school families were much, much richer.</p></li>
<li><p>The private school had exquisite, personal counseling. In a few cases where people had unexpectedly bad results, the counselors were very successful at rescuing the situation from a waitlist. The public school counselorsâ main job was to make certain that 500+ kids had applied to some college that would accept them. Apart from recommending that kids consider LACs, the GCs pretty much left the top students to counsel each other and take care of themselves. On occasion, someone did fall through the cracks.</p></li>
<li><p>There were a few categories of kids who got much better results at the private school: Any URM in the top half of the private school class was headed for a very selective college or university, whereas at the public school that was true only for kids in the top 5% or so. My son had two African-American classmates, one who came with him from the private school, who probably would have gone to Ivies had they been at the private school, and who instead are attending out-of-state urban publics. Kids in the bottom half of the private school class who had something strong and special about them got into very good LACs; the public school equivalents went to Temple or secondary state colleges. Many more private school kids used athletics to their advantage in admissions, although hardly any got D-I athletic scholarships. At the public school (which had fewer, but much better teams), a smattering of kids would get athletic scholarships at third-tier D-I institutions, and few others got any recruiting interest. In general, selective colleges seemed much more willing to take risks on students from the private school. That probably reflects the counselorsâ experience, skill, and ability to put a lot of effort into promoting individual students.</p></li>
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<p>But berryberry, that just proves my point. The school administration may feel that their mission statement is to provide a top-notch education, and incidentally find the best fitting college for each kid, but some (many?) parents who are writing tuition checks are looking for an edge in getting their kids into a few tip-top colleges. If your middle school head enthusiastically told those prospective parents that you had lots of very happy and thriving alums at, say, WUSTL or Rice or Carleton, those parents would get furrowed brows and quizzical looks. Just last year on CC someone posted about an LA Times article where a Marlborough student was saying that she was so happy to be at WUSTL, even though sheâd never heard of it before her senior year because sheâd been focusing on Ivys. Nobody else from her high school went to WUSTL, you seeâit wasnât regarded as being prestigious enough. CC posters excoriated this poor student for being so dismissive of WUSTL. But that was the culture of the high school, that the kids are supposed to get into a certain subset of schools.</p>
<p>I saw this quote in an article posted a few days ago:
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<p>I come to this issue from almost every possible perspectiveâI worked for years in an Ivy admissions office, ran the college guidance office of a small, highly selective East Coast independent school, and have a child in yet another Ivy. In the first place, I believe that attending a strong private school confers huge advantages in the college admissions process, at least in the general sense, meaning that over time, graduates of these schools will do âbetterâ in the process than those of the local public school. The first reason is the quality of the college counseling. I never worked with more than 60 students and I never did anything else but that, and I worked very, very hard. I had a generous budget for travel and I attended every professional meeting (NACAC, College Board) that came around. I personally knew the admissions officers from the top LACs, the Ivies, etc. If there were representatives at those meetings from the public schools, they were usually the head of some huge organization, perhaps the director of college guidance for the entire school district. This was not a person who ever had contact with individual students. I knew all my studentsâI went to their plays, watched their athletic events, enjoyed their musical performancesâfrom ninth grade on. The faculty was hugely supportive. Teachers were given paid time to write letters of recommendation and were available for help with essays. It was a horribly stressful job, however, because of parental expectation. Parents are not interested in results in the general senseâthey want results for their child. I cannot say that private education will âbenefitâ any one student in the college admissions process. I always felt that the greatest advantage accrued to those just below the top. Because we did not rank, these students easily gained admission to schools which might have denied them had they been out of the top 10% at a public school. Also, because I knew the students so well, I was able to present an in-depth, compelling picture of each. And I advocated on the phone. Sometimes, I even made trips to colleges where I was presenting several applicants. I assure you, this is the usual thing among highly academic independent schools. I chose such a school for my child, but not because of the college thing. I chose it so he would not take multiple choice tests, would not waste time preparing for state-mandated standardized tests, would begin a foreign language at a very early age, would learn to write well, and would have teachers who knew him and cared about him. All of those things are what really make independent schoolsâwhich are not without problemsâspecial places for learning.</p>
<p>Yes, yes, there is no doubt that elite private schooling has loads of advantages, but it is not at all clear that it translates into actual admissions that would not have otherwise occurred (though it certianly seems like it should). Stats like the ones opening this thread are useless in that they do not compare like groups of students. A motivated researcher COULD gather the data comparing students of similar background, income and parental involvement and admissions outcome, but it hasnât been shown here.</p>
<p>my school is a mediocre publicâŠyet the top 2% of students have it made.
They nearly always attend elite schools (last year it was Princeton, Oberlin, Pitt(on a full ride), Georgetown, UPenn and Colgate) And most of them have lots of need so they are paying very little. Our school is rather poor, most kids are putting themselves through college, and no one does SAT prep or summer programs. I think this helps. It shows a college this kid is self-determined-not made by a school</p>
<p>A comparable private does not do nearly as well</p>
<p>A good friend of mine went to a well-known NYC prep school and then onto an Ivy. This personâs kids now attend the same prep school he went to. </p>
<p>My friend frequently complains that in his day, all of his classmates ended up at Ivies or the LAC equivalents, while now the Ivies will only take a smattering of kids from his prep school. Heâs still dishing out the big bucks for his kids to attend, but is very worried that they wonât get into a prestigious school. The way he describes it, going to a prep school is held against the kids by the Ivies â their spots are now given to others for the sake of diversity.</p>
<p>Next time he starts complaining, Iâll throw the statistic in the original post at him. </p>
<p>Iâm not surprised by the statistic. The point of my anecdote is that the elite schools were even more top heavy with private school kids 30 years ago. Going to a prep school was a guaranteed admission to an Ivy or the like. While it may be easier to get into an Ivy from a prep school than a public, itâs no slam dunk the way it used to be. And the elite schools are constantly walking a fine line â they want to boost diversity, but they still want to accept from the old standbys.</p>
<p>This may have been said already, but another reason private school kids end up at those top schools â their parents went there. Legacy acceptance rates are higher than those of unhooked kids.</p>
<p>^my kidsâ public school was closer to louiseâs. Maybe 10-20 kids go to âeliteâ schools, but theyâre the ones who aimed to. Most likely, they would have faired the same at a top private, but, thankfully, they avoided things like the AP arms race described in the thread started by ClassicRockerDad. If I would have had to send my kids to a more elite high school to get into the ârightâ college, my assumption was that they didnât belong in that college, anyway. And the education they got in regular guy school would have been lost.</p>
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<p>Agreed. Those at the top who are aspiring for the top would probably do better at a top public high school, IMO.</p>
<p>In the last ten years or so, the top public schools in our area have also stopped ranking, and those just below the top in these public schools do very well in college admissions, as do athletes without tons of APâs or stellar test scores.</p>
<p>We ourselves chose to pay extra for a smaller house in an area with an excellent public school that most everyone attends, rather than attempt the private school route. One advantage to public school is that if a child enters with a learning disability, or a learning disability or behavioral issue such as ADHD becomes apparent at any time, they are entitled to an iep or 504 that will allow for supports or remediation. Quite a few very smart students, including many who end up doing well in AP classes and elite colleges, need this help at one time or another, and the private schools in our area do not seem to provide this. I know several parents who were pressured to withdraw their students from private school once an LD became evident, even as late as junior year of high school.</p>
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<p>Amen, brother. I deal with these contrasts every day in my work. One more M/C test and I think I will notify the CDC that thereâs a pandemic in the land more dangerous than H1N1. Any less emphasis on writing (if thatâs possible) and we are headed to Illiterate Nation.</p>
<p>End of hijack. Continue, all. (I agree with the seeming majority who has clearly enumerated the advantages of privates.) I had actually heard estimates as high as 45% private school graduates for many freshman classes at elite Uâs.</p>
<p>Edited to add that I hadnât seen the second paragraph of Post 33, which is exactly right and is the big caveat for anyone seriously suspecting LD in their child or who has known LD. Generally (with a few exceptions), the private schools are variously neglectful, hostile, or in denial about this. Certain highly-compensating LDâers can cope and excel at a rigorous private h.s., but even for these who are more successful at overcoming, it often comes at a price of great pain (efforts to hide it, pressure to perform regardless, etc.).</p>
<p>What is an independent school? Is it some kind of affiliation, or is it just a way to say that itâs a private school not affiliated with a church?</p>
<p>I think both, in a way. Not affiliated with a church or a school district (i.e., charter school). And, as a practical matter, a member of NAIS.</p>
<p>DeidreTours - several items</p>
<ol>
<li><p>No, I didnât misunderstand âself selectionâ as it is used here. Most people when they were referring to this were doing so in the realm of the selectivity of a private school admitting students</p></li>
<li><p>You say âWealth is HUGELY correlated with academic successâ. I disagree. While wealth may be one factor that can give a child an advantage (ie the ability to afford better private schools / tutors)I believe a far bigger factor is parental attitudes and involvement in their childâs education. And you will find involved parents in both the Private and Public School realm. All one has to do is look at CC here to see that.</p></li>
<li><p>You continually dismiss the stats in the original post as meaningless but you provide no alternative data or justification for doing so other than your belief that other data shoudl be also looked at. I would argue the stats are indeed valid within the context in which they are written. Furthermore, if you want a comparsion along your lines, lets try this one. I will compare stats from the independent school I am at and the well regarded public school a mile down the road. Note that this public school advertises that it is ranked in the top 2% of public schools nationwide and has been ranked by newsweek on their best public high school list the last 5 years- so based on that, we are comparing a top independent and top public school. Additionally, neither school ranks students</p></li>
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<p>As I previously noted, both are located in the same affluent community and over 50% of our students come from this school district. So the socio-economic factors for both student groups should be very similiar. Looking at last yearâs college stats, the independent school graduated 77 students and over 50% attended a Most Selective (per Barrons) college. The Public School graduated 160 students and about 10% attended a Most Selective college. Now, lets equalize the public numbers by assuming that we should look only at an equivalent number of students. Furthermore, lets only look at the top 77 students at Public School (ie the top half of their class). When you compare just this group of students, only 21% attended a Most Selective college as compared to over 50% at Independent school. this disparity can not be simply disregarded as the stats donât compare similiar groups (they due), or attributed to the wealth of the families (remember, same affluent community).</p>
<p>So delving deeper, what causes this difference?</p>
<p>Looking at the data available in this comparison, these factors jump out at me:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>College Guidance - this is probably the biggest difference between the independent and public school impacting college acceptances. As others have mentioned, the quality of the college counseling is usually much more intimate in a private school. College counselers work with fewer number of students (in our case about 37 each) They have a nice budget for travel and attend every major professional meeting such as NACAC as well as making visits to 10-20 colleges every summer. They know the admissions officers from the top LACs, the Ivies, etc. and they know all their students. They can more easliy advocate for their students which makes a big difference. </p></li>
<li><p>Academic Rigor - There are indeed differences in curriculum and the rigor of the courseload and many top colleges know a student coming from a top private school has had a rigorous workload and will be well equipped to handle college. They may or may not have that same feeling about students coming from a Public (unless they have had others who have been succesful in recent history). I believe in my comparison above, this plays out in the average SAT and SAT range at these 2 schools (the independent had a higher average SAT by 250 points)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Finally, I would also agree with JHS that the private school students tended to cast their nets much wider (and geographically farther) than the public school students. So they are willing to look further for top schools than their Public brethren who primarily stay more local. What causes this is subject to debate but I would be willing to bet a large part goes back to college counsleing and the cultur of the school. It seems natural to assume that counselers who are more involved, attend NACAC and visit colleges can provide students much better options than those who are dealing with many more students and who do not get out beyond their region</p>
<p>JHS - yes, you have it correct, an independent school is not affiliated with a church (parochial) or a school district (i.e., charter school). And, as a practical matter, a member of NAIS.</p>
<p>For the top independent schools and the good students at those schools, it is a benefit for most. However, a kid that is in the middle or closer to the bottom of his top prep school is not going to get into HYPS or other top 20 schools. One girl I know attended the top girls prep school in the area and is now at Yale. I doubt she would have gotten the same result from her local public school which, while a good school, only has an Ivy admit every other year or so. While she would have been one of the top students at the public, I just donât think she would have stood out in the admission pool to the same extent. No other hook, by the way, just a great student with decent, but not outstanding ECs.</p>
<p>OTOH, I know a couple of boys who graduated from equally prestigious prep schools and are at top 30 schools but were not admitted to the elite schools. </p>
<p>As others have noted, the admin officiers know that a top student from a highly regarded prep school is well equipped to excel at college. In addition, the college advisors have much more knowlege, connections and time for each student. </p>
<p>However, some independent schools have much less impressive college admission results, likely due in part to the fact that their own admission bar is set lower.</p>
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<p>This is much more useful data, but Iâd argue that this still isnât fully controlling for wealth. Many parents in the district may well have moved to the district for access to its highly ranked public schools. The family budget could afford the big mortgage, but not the big mortgage plus private school tuition. Families that live in the community and which can also afford to send their child to private school are generally going to be wealthier. </p>
<p>Admissions rates instead of matriculation rates to Most Selective schools would be interesting to compare. The wealth factor might affect matriculation: highly selective schools give less merit aid and use the Profile, which includes house equity.</p>