<p>DS attends one of the schools on the list, which is a great school btw - my other two went as well. Great for all the expected reasons - low class size- he has two classes with only 6; other DS was the only person in his math class for 2 years; exceptional teachers. The only negative I see for my DS now is that his gpa is 87 with the highest being 94. That puts him in the middle of the pack with decent psat scores. I have no idea what kinds of schools he can get into, although based upon âthe listâ from the GC, not incredibly selective. The other issue is that a lot of the merit is based upon gpa and rank. So, we are out of luck there. But I would be speculating that he would have done as well at a public, which is probably not true and is the reason we didnât send him there in the first place. It will be an interesting exercise. Iâm sure heâll have some great schools to choose from, but Iâm sure merit will be a problem.</p>
<p>This discussion has been all over the place but I just had to make one point; All else being equal, if a selective (or highly selective) college has to choose between a private school kid and a public school kid, they do and should choose the private. They simply know that the private school kid has received a better quality education and is more likely to be better prepared to do well at the college. The claim that they choose the public school kid for âsocioeconomic diversityâ is just affirmative action wrapped up in a different bow, and while Iâm sure it does happen, it shouldnât. Students should be judged on merit just the same as they shouldnât necessarily be judged on whether or not they are full pay. Money does make the world go round, in every stage of life how much money you have drastically affects what opportunities you will have in life right down to when and what you will die of, thatâs just the way our capitalist society works. Private school kids (the vast majority who are not on scholarship) have been given these extra resources from birth that public school kids are less likely to have and that will affect their trajectory forever. If that bothers anyone then there are plenty of other countries to move to where this is less of a factor, or you can just continue to stick your head in the sand and pretend that life is fair.</p>
<p>^ Ah, the comforting shibboleths of the entitled class. But the point is well taken that no one should care if HYP et al choose to reserve seats for wealth over talent.</p>
<p>Thanks for your ignorance, but I am very much a working-class person who has just been educated enough to see what is really going on. I appreciate it though, someday I hope to give my children what I never had, including a private school education.</p>
<p>âThose of us who with a specialty in Gifted Education understand that the gifted child is not just a high performer, but is himself out-of-the-mainstream, and in that context, is also Special Needs. You cannot use the same approach with a patently Gifted child as with other children. Doesnât work. They have a psychological profile that differs from the mainstream child, and often that profile is problematic for standard classroom teachingâ</p>
<p>My wife says we need to do away with the word âgiftedâ âChallenged by having too many IQ points to not be weirdâ maybe? :)</p>
<p>â71) Thomas Jefferson H.S. for Science and Tech., Alexandria, VA, TJHSST Splash Page (Public)â</p>
<p>Wrong. So we believe. For a given kid, odds are probably better at another public school, unless they can manage to take FULL advantage of the electives and run with it. Also, a lot easier to make the football team :). Much harder to keep up a decent GPA, take as many APâs, guidance staff stretched, etc. Maybe not as bad as the TJ disadvantage at UVA, but they can, realistically, only take so many TJâs.</p>
<p>Socnerd,</p>
<p>More power to you, but I suggest you select your private for the intrinsic education compared to your available public, not HYP et al placement. Or at least first check on the GCâs track record on writing recs for non-legacy students (and perhaps how many âAP studentsâ there donât even sit for the actual AP exam). :)</p>
<p>fogfog:#153
The list is also an old one and doesnât include the new high schools like âThe Harker Schoolâ which sends around 25 - 30% of senior class to Ivy+ (SMC).</p>
<p>[The</a> Harker School: College Enrollment](<a href=âCollege Acceptances | Upper School | The Harker Schoolâ>College Acceptances | Upper School | The Harker School)</p>
<p>^^Agree with this comment, âI suggest you select your private for the intrinsic education compared to your available publicâ </p>
<p>Our area, which has two private schools listed on post #153, does not mention our public school, yet our public HS sends numerous (~75) kids to ivies. The reason itâs not listed? It is quite large and diverse, so not every student applies to a top tier college. But I do believe that that diversity issue is a relatively new topic being considered (and favored) at many top universities.</p>
<p>Iâm sure Harker is a fine school, but they donât send anywhere near 25% of their class to Ivies/SMC.</p>
<p>^^^: They do. In th batch of 2009, 43 seniors out of ~170 students, matriculated to Ivies+. Which included 8 Ivies + Stanford + MIT + Caltech and London School of Ecnomics.
The reson for including the SMC and LSE is that the students who matriculated to these have multiple offers from the Ivies.
There have been more students who have gone to UCB (EECS) or UCLA or USC(With Merit Scholarships) over the lower Ivies that are not included in the above number.</p>
<p>Itâs interesting that the Harker page shows up as âThe Harker School: College Enrollmentâ, because the page linked doesnât show enrollment at all. It shows acceptances. Which are pretty impressive, by the way . . . itâs not out of the question that itâs sending ~40 kids/year (25%) to the Ivies/SMC. Itâs averaging 93 acceptances at those schools per class. Some are going to be multiples, obviously, but some wonât be. It would be pretty extraordinary if the kids accepted at any of those colleges were averaging a lot more than 2 acceptances from them.</p>
<p>Also, since when is Harker ânewâ?</p>
<p>The reason I posted that list (albeit old from 2002) was that it was referenced in the bookâand what the author was using to discuss that the diversity at the most selective schools is really not that diverse.
The kids are much alike, coming from similar backgrounds with similar educational models (often the same schools) and many schools have years and years of history in being feedersâŠjust like many states with over-representation at these select schools can be anmed, and certain cities in particular (zip codes).</p>
<p>It is an interesting read regardless of whether your student is even remotely interested in ivy covered walls. Sure there are lots of other schools that send kids to these schoolsâhowever the author is making the case about the feeder pattern etc</p>
<p>JHS:
</p>
<p>The high school is new the first batch matriculated in 2001.</p>
<p>^^^: This is from âThe Harker Schoolâ wiki.</p>
<p>The upper school was first opened in 1998, with the first class graduating in 2002</p>
<p>I remember when a star pupil at our public school was applying to Harvard (he did get in.) The interviewer flat-out said he was a fantastic applicant, but âif onlyâ he had gone to a private school (sigh.) </p>
<p>This story makes me angry every time I remember it.</p>
<p>Just because a parent has the money to send their little hothouse flower to a private school does not mean the kid is better in any way than a top candidate from a good public school. Sheesh.</p>
<p>mommusic: I think you got it wrong. The intent I think was that a student from a known prep school (both public and private) (Known for its Academics not the % of legacies children) should be preferred because a star pupil at a less rigorous public might be like a âone-eyed among blind populationâ.</p>
<p>mommusic: Just because the kid comes from a family that has the means to send the student to a top private school does not mean that the kid is any worse than a top performer at a public h.s., either.</p>
<p>Also, there are very attractive aplicants that come from top private schools that are NOT rich, there is tremendous outreach with scholarships from many of these top prep schools.</p>
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<p>Iâm not sure I get the point of this anecdote. Despite the interviewerâs bias, the kid got into Harvard. Iâve heard the contrary from adcoms: between a public school graduate and an equivalent prep school graduate, the adcoms prefer the public school graduate. The reasoning is that the prep school applicant has had lots more resources to make him/her shine.</p>
<p>In many places, the only way to get into a decent public school and thrive there is to have money. Meanwhile, some private schools have recruiting of bright-but-poor students, and lavish financial aid. So the private school students are not always wealthier than the public school students. Sometimes itâs the other way around.</p>