Public HS and college acceptances

[Anonymous]

I am particularly interested in getting stats on what colleges students from the public HS in this area (Bethesda, CC, Alexandria) are accpeted to or enroll in. I am trying to convince my husband that we do NOT need to do private. We have preschoolers - but I want to have a game plan for the future. Seems like 30K invested each year for the next 10-15 years is a better way to spend our money!

[Anonymous]

OP here - my husband is convinced you cannot get into a good college (read: Ivy) unless you go to a "name" school. And of course we all know that is not true! I just wish I could get stats to show him!

[Anonymous]

I think if you go to the websites of the particular high schools they will often lists the schools to which the seniors have been accepted.

[Anonymous]

Neighbor across the street (Yorktown High) has a kid at Princeton.

[Anonymous]

I have numerous friends from high school (public school in PA) who all attended an Ivy at some point in their lives. Just in my "circle" we had: UPenn, Bryn Mawr (then Harvard), Swarthmore (then Harvard), Brown, Gtown (then Harvard), Johns Hopkins (now a dr. at Hopkins), UC Berkley, Yale, MIT and Sarah Lawrence, nevermind the great folks who went on to scholarships at Penn St and some "lesser" schools - but who are all extremely successful now with MBAs, etc.

As many people will tell you: the top private schools just won't admit lots of kids from the same school. Much better to be tops at a good public school than in the top tier of a private school.

[Anonymous]

I do not have it handy but I believe there was a recent study comparing admissions to elite colleges from ritzy private schools versus public schools. Unsurprisingly, a bright kid w/good test scores and grades does somewhat BETTER in the college admissions game coming form a public school than a top private school, for the reasons mentioned above: a) he/she stands out more-- He/she is more likely to be one of a smaller group of top students, whereas kids applying from private schools compete with their own peers, all of whom ALSO have top grades and scores and a trillion imoressive extra-currics; and b) colleges want a diverse class: they don't want to have fifty kids from St Albans or Exeter. So even if St Albans or Exeter has fifty kids who are more than qualified to go to Harvard, Harvard's only going to take a handful-- Harvard wants to take 2 or 3 from each school, including 2 or 3 from good public schools. All you do by sending your kid to a top private school is diminish the odds that he or she will be among the 2 or 3 Harvard takes each year, since the pool will be more competitive.

That said: there might be other reasons to nonetheless send your child to a top private school. College admissions ain't everything. there are more good colleges out there than people think. A satisfying and inspiring high school education is important in its own right....

[Anonymous]

This is a bit old but:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/1994/10/01/89175/index.htm

[Anonymous]

And see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12627-2001Nov11?language=printer

[Anonymous]

Do the Ivy League colleges have reputable art programs? Or is it only academic?

[Anonymous]

Depends on the school.

[Anonymous]

Most of my friends at Yale went to public HS. To be fair, there were large groups from TJ and the big name New England boarding schools, but plenty of public school kids.

Yale, at least, has superb arts programs. It's architecture and drama schools are the best in the nation. It's art program is excellent, as is music.

Coming from the DC area, there is so much competition for slots. There are no true quotas for how many kids are allowed from an area, but diversity of geography is a goal in making up a freshman class. If your goal in life is to get your kids into Ivy League schools, move to Nebraska!

[Anonymous]

I heard that close to 40% of Yale's intake was from private schools.
The only advice I would give is that if you're in public, and you want your kid at an Ivy, start those SAT prep courses in 8th grade. The private schools do a better job in that area.
OP, take a peek at the top 100 schools (universities) in the nation. The public schools keep moving up the list. That is apparently because of the large amount of money being spent by the states. When your kiddies reach 18, the best schools may be U of MD, and UVA!

[Anonymous]

f your goal in life is to get your kids into Ivy League schools, move to Nebraska!

I'm from South Dakota (trust me, there aren't many of us here in DC). I totally agree with this quote. The well-rounded, bright kids in my graduating class (1987) could basically write their own ticket to college. FWIW, the Ivy thing didn't loom large in our high school experience, although a few of my classmates did wind up at Columbia and Dartmouth. Mostly the top kids wanted to go west, to Stanford, Berkeley and ... Cal poly-tech, I think.

[Anonymous]

My sister and I attended public high school in Arlington when we were growing up (different ones). She went to Duke and had many friends who went to Dartmouth, Brown, UVA, etc. I went to UVA (I think 10-12 from my high school class were accepted and 5-6 of us went) and had friends/classmates that went to Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown, etc. I find it hard to believe the students now would be any less apt at getting into elite schools.

We live in Arlington and feel like the VA state schools are so strong we'd be thrilled for our daughter to attend almost any of them. I think all the Arlington public schools have good track records of kids attending Ivy league schools, and that's probably also true for the high schools in Bethesda etc.

[Anonymous]

In fact, your chances of getting into a top Ivy School ARE higher if you go to St. Albans versus a run of the mill public school. Roughly 25% of the graduating class from St. Albans (the school I know) will matriculate to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, or Stanford. Some private schools, like Collegiate in NY, have as many as 50% going to one of those 5 schools. So if you are going strictly by probability, you have the higher probability of getting into a top IVY from St. Albans than from an area public school.

However, that's assuming that the student quality is about the same in both schools. It probably is not.