<p>Well, some rich white kids from urban areas. And some rich black kids from urban areas. And some rich kids from smaller cities and rural areas. And some middle class kids of all colors from all areas. And some poor kids from urban areas and some poor kids from rural areas. </p>
<p>Why are you trying to find a “type” who get in? All types get in. And all types don’t get in. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, pretending that one school out of 30,000 is any kind of “trend” or harbinger of anything is just silly.</p>
<p>How do you even know how many of those kids are applying to these places? For all you know, they want to stay out west and apply to UW or the UCs. A school can’t “take” someone if they don’t apply.</p>
<p>I know someone at one of the schools in the expensive list. He’s not applying to the ivies or even top 20. His grades are decent but not good enough. Not everyone at those schools automatically applies to Harvard.</p>
<p>When we were looking at which private HSs in Los Angeles area to apply to for 9th, I would look at each schools matriculation numbers. Some of the privates sent 0 or 1 % of their class to HYPS, most sent around 3%, but a few schools sent 20%. All of the private HSs seemed like wonderful places with lots of learning and activities. I bet the top students at each of the HSs were comparable with each other. So I presume this means that certain HSs either have a relationship with certain colleges or that some colleges have been happy with the performances of past students from a particular HS.</p>
<p>YoHoYoHo- It may also be that certain schools attract kids who like a certain type of environment. It would be interesting to know where the top kids at the 1-3 percent schools sent their top students. If it’s LAC’s like Williams, Amherst, Pomona and Swarthmore it may well be that these students are choosing smaller schools over large universities. I think when parents look at private schools they sometimes make the mistake of looking only at Ivy matriculations. </p>
<p>On the flip side I do think some schools are known quantities to specific colleges. My son attends a small, slightly quirky prep school and it was fascinating to look at the school’s Naviance results. It was clear to me that some schools “get” the school while others do not. Kids were getting overwhelmingly rejected from certain schools while at the same time getting accepted to other schools with much lower acceptance rates and higher overall admissions stats. By that I mean that a kid in the 75th-100th percentile of stats from his school was rarely admitted to school A while that same kid could consider school B, where his stats fell into the 25th-50th percentile range, a safety.</p>
<p>We also had two different college admissions officers comment to our family that they “love kids from [son’s school].” These were schools that had a similar ethos to his secondary school.</p>
<p>This is a great site for information on which private schools are sending their students to the toughest to get into colleges.
[Matriculation</a> Stats](<a href=“http://matriculationstats.org/]Matriculation”>http://matriculationstats.org/)
It was put together by a member of our own CC community a few years ago. The info. is from 2011 but still current enough to be quite useful. What I like about it is that it lists not only the Ivy+ schools, but the full selection of what are deemed to be “strong schools” and uses a weighting system to indicate which secondary schools are most successful in college admissions.</p>
<p>Sue22,
Yes, I agree. Seems that some colleges like or don’t like particular HSs.
Here’s another anecdotal example for one of the private HSs with a 1-3% HYPS range. When I looked at their matriculations when HS shopping, it was overwhelmingly LACs. Thus, this HS had either good relationships with these colleges or has a similar ethos that the LACs liked. But some of the parents who enrolled their kids at this HS, who had wanted HYPS, were upset that their kids were getting shuttled or sidelined to the LACs when the college counseling process started. Now that their kids are all at LACs (surprise!), both the parents and kids do seem to be happy.</p>
<p>A different story that I hear from parents whose kids go to the 1-2% HYPS private HSs is that the HS tends to identify which of the kids that they are planning on “grooming” for the 2 spots. Parents will jealously say that these 2 or 3 kids get all sorts of attention and promotion etc to get them there while the average kid might get little attention. Then these 2 kids are (presumably) presented on a platter to the HYPS. Just rumors, of course, nothing is ever corroborated by GCs.</p>
<p>Seattle? Is it a school with athletes? Down here, almost all the Ivy admits are athletes. Since there is almost no one with any real money, no one fits the bill of the 45-55% of attendees that don’t require any financial assistance. So they are expensive to the schools, and not many of them have cured cancer or written a best-selling novel; more like valedictorian and president of the Go club. And the schools gain more prestige by rejecting valedictorians rather than accepting them. No great loss, though. Students go to lots of different great schools.</p>
<p>Ivies don’t need valedictorians from Washington State. What they need are 300-lb. offensive tackles.</p>
<p>Our public school sends 1-2 kids/year to HYPSM out of a class of 150. This year they are athletes. A girl basketball player to Yale and a male state champion swimmer to Harvard. Another neighboring school had a wrestler go to Stanford. All qualify academically and at least one is full pay. I think you are overestimating the number of freshman spaces at these schools compared to all kids who graduate HS each year. Also if I remember correctly only 60% of Yale’s enrollees qualify for financial aid. Given how generous Yale is with financial aid that’s a lot of very rich parents and their kids may be at elite NE boarding schools. Looking at the T shirts being worn by seniors in college decision pictures, the expensive private schools around here aren’t doing much better than our public school. Maybe more Davidson’s, Vanderbuilt’s, UVA and Dukes, but not HYPMS. The struggling economy has also convinced some parents with fairly high incomes that the state flagship is not a bad idea. If all your equity evaporated in the housing crash, you’re less likely to shell out 50-60K a year just for bragging where your kid goes.</p>
<p>Your tier 1 is to narrow.There are many colleges outside the top 20 national universities that can easily compete with that list.It also depends on which list you may have used.</p>
<p>Also, why are we comparing prep schools by price? The price differential depends on a lot of things - including average price level in the surrounding economy - to be approaching zero in determination of a prep school’s quality. At Le Rosey you pay for the golf course, not for the academics. I would call it a finishing school.</p>
<p>omedog, this may not be an anomaly at your nephew’s school. You would have to know prior acceptance history, not just a parent’s impression of the school. Numbers of acceptances may be down for many schools, though, due to the huge increase in applications to top schools every year.</p>
<p>But to be more specific, the top private schools in Seattle cost over 25K, so if this school costs less than 20K, I’d guess that it is one of the religiously affiliated schools. Is that correct? These are some wonderful schools, but they do not typically send large numbers of students to top LAC’s and ivies in any year. I assure you, the top school in Seattle, that generally has at least 1/3 of the graduating class as national merit semi-finalists or finalists, is still sending a large percentage of their students to the schools of which you speak.</p>
<p>Good to see my kids’ school made it to the top 20s of sending kids to top schools. But if your kid is not one of those kids then I guess it doesn’t matter either. It is a lot of pressure for kids when 50% of the class go to “top schools.” A lot of parents are concerned when they try to decide if they should send their kids to the school.</p>
<p>Probably, the same type of people who care to attend elite colleges or join posh organizations. </p>
<p>When selecting a school for their children, some people take networking opportunities and social experience into account. They likely think that hobnobing with today’s who-whos of industry and Society opens many doors.</p>
<p>As for me, I’m happy with my public school education. </p>
It is a lot of pressure for kids when 50% of the class go to “top schools.” A lot of parents are concerned when they try to decide if they should send their kids to the school.</p>