Did private schools get a bump in elite college admissions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there is any bump for non-hooked kids.

My kids left DCPS for a Big3 private in 9th grade. They were able to get into the Big3 private because they were at the very top of their DCPS cohort: PARCC scores at the 99%, grades all 98%+, top math track etc.
Now at the Big3 privates they are both around the 80% of their grades. There are kids who are smarter than they are and who had better preparation PK-8th. My kids are not hooked.
My senior is ending up at a college ranked 20-30. Not a bad result! However, peers who remained at JRHS are also getting the same results, if not higher schools. And these kids were the average kids in the classes
that my kids left.
I have a few friends whose kids also left DCPS and they are having the same experience. Many of the smartest kids leave DCPS and get into the same colleges that the average kids who stayed at DCPS get into.

The good news about leaving is that my kids have learned an absolute phenomenal amount since leaving and were learning next to nothing in DCPS. I had my kids in DCPS or a collective 30+ years so I'm not disparaging the schools as an outsider but as a parent who has a decade plus of experience at every level.

Compare the 2024 (or 2023) college destinations of JR to GDS, Sidwell, Maret, etc. JR students, on average, are attending much lower ranked colleges. You rarely see Big 3/5 student’s attending GMU, JMU, or regionally ranked colleges, but you see that in abundance at JR. I don’t know how your child performed academically at his private, but if his results are similar to a wide swath of JR, then your child did something wrong.

What I'm saying is that my kid is about at the 85% of their Big3 class and was at the 99% in the Deal/Jackson Reed cohort (PARCC always 99 at Deal and city wide, grades 99, Algebra 2 in middle school, etc) He/she is not hooked so Ivies and similar are off the table but kids who remained at JR have Ivies on the table.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there is any bump for non-hooked kids.

My kids left DCPS for a Big3 private in 9th grade. They were able to get into the Big3 private because they were at the very top of their DCPS cohort: PARCC scores at the 99%, grades all 98%+, top math track etc.
Now at the Big3 privates they are both around the 80% of their grades. There are kids who are smarter than they are and who had better preparation PK-8th. My kids are not hooked.
My senior is ending up at a college ranked 20-30. Not a bad result! However, peers who remained at JRHS are also getting the same results, if not higher schools. And these kids were the average kids in the classes
that my kids left.
I have a few friends whose kids also left DCPS and they are having the same experience. Many of the smartest kids leave DCPS and get into the same colleges that the average kids who stayed at DCPS get into.

The good news about leaving is that my kids have learned an absolute phenomenal amount since leaving and were learning next to nothing in DCPS. I had my kids in DCPS or a collective 30+ years so I'm not disparaging the schools as an outsider but as a parent who has a decade plus of experience at every level.

Compare the 2024 (or 2023) college destinations of JR to GDS, Sidwell, Maret, etc. JR students, on average, are attending much lower ranked colleges. You rarely see Big 3/5 student’s attending GMU, JMU, or regionally ranked colleges, but you see that in abundance at JR. I don’t know how your child performed academically at his private, but if his results are similar to a wide swath of JR, then your child did something wrong.

I would not compare the average public school kid to the average private school kid. The private schools have around 100 kids per grade vs 400-600 kids per grade in public school. I would compare the top 150-200 kids from public, the ones who are similar caliber to the private kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there is any bump for non-hooked kids.

My kids left DCPS for a Big3 private in 9th grade. They were able to get into the Big3 private because they were at the very top of their DCPS cohort: PARCC scores at the 99%, grades all 98%+, top math track etc.
Now at the Big3 privates they are both around the 80% of their grades. There are kids who are smarter than they are and who had better preparation PK-8th. My kids are not hooked.
My senior is ending up at a college ranked 20-30. Not a bad result! However, peers who remained at JRHS are also getting the same results, if not higher schools. And these kids were the average kids in the classes
that my kids left.
I have a few friends whose kids also left DCPS and they are having the same experience. Many of the smartest kids leave DCPS and get into the same colleges that the average kids who stayed at DCPS get into.

The good news about leaving is that my kids have learned an absolute phenomenal amount since leaving and were learning next to nothing in DCPS. I had my kids in DCPS or a collective 30+ years so I'm not disparaging the schools as an outsider but as a parent who has a decade plus of experience at every level.

Compare the 2024 (or 2023) college destinations of JR to GDS, Sidwell, Maret, etc. JR students, on average, are attending much lower ranked colleges. You rarely see Big 3/5 student’s attending GMU, JMU, or regionally ranked colleges, but you see that in abundance at JR. I don’t know how your child performed academically at his private, but if his results are similar to a wide swath of JR, then your child did something wrong.

What I'm saying is that my kid is about at the 85% of their Big3 class and was at the 99% in the Deal/Jackson Reed cohort (PARCC always 99 at Deal and city wide, grades 99, Algebra 2 in middle school, etc) He/she is not hooked so Ivies and similar are off the table but kids who remained at JR have Ivies on the table.

What’s your kids uw GPA? Where did they get in this year?

[Anonymous]

The reason I said compare the top 150-200 is because as others have said, there is a screening process for private. You can’t just take your average/below average kid who is ranked 400 and say their outcome is worse than the kid who is ranked 80 out of 100. The 80th kid at private will be better than the 400tb kid in public. But if you compare the 80-100th kid at public, their outcome may be somewhat similar to the 80th kid at private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there is any bump for non-hooked kids.

My kids left DCPS for a Big3 private in 9th grade. They were able to get into the Big3 private because they were at the very top of their DCPS cohort: PARCC scores at the 99%, grades all 98%+, top math track etc.
Now at the Big3 privates they are both around the 80% of their grades. There are kids who are smarter than they are and who had better preparation PK-8th. My kids are not hooked.
My senior is ending up at a college ranked 20-30. Not a bad result! However, peers who remained at JRHS are also getting the same results, if not higher schools. And these kids were the average kids in the classes
that my kids left.
I have a few friends whose kids also left DCPS and they are having the same experience. Many of the smartest kids leave DCPS and get into the same colleges that the average kids who stayed at DCPS get into.

The good news about leaving is that my kids have learned an absolute phenomenal amount since leaving and were learning next to nothing in DCPS. I had my kids in DCPS or a collective 30+ years so I'm not disparaging the schools as an outsider but as a parent who has a decade plus of experience at every level.

Compare the 2024 (or 2023) college destinations of JR to GDS, Sidwell, Maret, etc. JR students, on average, are attending much lower ranked colleges. You rarely see Big 3/5 student’s attending GMU, JMU, or regionally ranked colleges, but you see that in abundance at JR. I don’t know how your child performed academically at his private, but if his results are similar to a wide swath of JR, then your child did something wrong.

There are only 70 results posted for JR...that's less than 20% of the class that will actually go to college (only about 14% of the total class). It is easily a drop of 50% of postings at this time last year. Stop relying on instagram postings as anything close to definitive...it's not. It is no longer reliable for much of anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kid from no-name NOVA hs was admitted to MIT. Since anecdotes mean everything, this fully proves that public schools outperform all private schools across the United States in elite STEM admissions. Anyone who sends their child to a private school has doomed them to a life of penury as an interdisciplinary blank studies major. No way to refute this!

Congratulations!!
Stem = a lifetime of worker bee status. It’s not the golden ticket you think it is.

I think Bezos, Zuckerburg, Gates, Musk, Ellison....would disagree that STEM leads to a lifetime of worker bee status.

I’m confident the stars align and your kid will join those ranks….

Perhaps if you named some quant wizards…..Jim Simons? That’s the true path. But they aren’t famous.
Anyway, gl.

Well, OK...but I struggle to name any humanities majors that have achieved those levels of success (literally, I would have to do a Google search because I am not aware of any). Yet, those names roll off the tip of everyone's tongue.

Well, that’s easy.
Almost every political leader? Barack Obama? Anthony Blinken?

Also many many CEOs.

I would still rather be worth $100BN than be Anthony Blinken (really, that's your example?).

Again, there are many (probably more) CEOs with STEM/quantitative backgrounds...but the CEO of say Coca Cola (no idea on background) has a net worth 1/1000000th of the company founders listed above.

You had to say "many, many CEOs" because it would require you to do a Google search to find one.

Don't worry about it. You'll never be either; neither will your kid!

That's funny...you should probably worry about getting your loser humanities kid any job upon graduation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kid from no-name NOVA hs was admitted to MIT. Since anecdotes mean everything, this fully proves that public schools outperform all private schools across the United States in elite STEM admissions. Anyone who sends their child to a private school has doomed them to a life of penury as an interdisciplinary blank studies major. No way to refute this!

Congratulations!!
Stem = a lifetime of worker bee status. It’s not the golden ticket you think it is.

I think Bezos, Zuckerburg, Gates, Musk, Ellison....would disagree that STEM leads to a lifetime of worker bee status.

I’m confident the stars align and your kid will join those ranks….

Perhaps if you named some quant wizards…..Jim Simons? That’s the true path. But they aren’t famous.
Anyway, gl.

Well, OK...but I struggle to name any humanities majors that have achieved those levels of success (literally, I would have to do a Google search because I am not aware of any). Yet, those names roll off the tip of everyone's tongue.

Well, that’s easy.
Almost every political leader? Barack Obama? Anthony Blinken?

Also many many CEOs.

I would still rather be worth $100BN than be Anthony Blinken (really, that's your example?).

Again, there are many (probably more) CEOs with STEM/quantitative backgrounds...but the CEO of say Coca Cola (no idea on background) has a net worth 1/1000000th of the company founders listed above.

You had to say "many, many CEOs" because it would require you to do a Google search to find one.

Don't worry about it. You'll never be either; neither will your kid!

That's funny...you should probably worry about getting your loser humanities kid any job upon graduation.

Are people seriously arguing that humanities gets you a better paying job? GTFO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah I wouldn't decide based on insta pages. My kid goes to a dcum unregarded public and has friends going to Harvard, mit, BU, Dartmouth, Middlebury etc. they do not allow post on the insta pages.

Kids who aren't recruited athletes or URMs? Name the school or it didn't happen.

Our public NVA HS(wouldn't call it unregarded though) Had all these colleges except middlebury)plus other TOP 10. 4 went to Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of the nonhooked Ivy admits are our private are URM.

This.

The kids that get in a legacies and hooked for the most part. Solid UMC unhooked white kids who would have gone to Harvard 30 years ago are totally shut out. If only 2-3 kids are chosen from a private it will be the hooked legacy donor, and maybe the rich full pay URM. Darn I wish I was "Hawaiian or Pacific Islander" or "native American".

If it makes you feel better . . . I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there is any bump for non-hooked kids.

My kids left DCPS for a Big3 private in 9th grade. They were able to get into the Big3 private because they were at the very top of their DCPS cohort: PARCC scores at the 99%, grades all 98%+, top math track etc.
Now at the Big3 privates they are both around the 80% of their grades. There are kids who are smarter than they are and who had better preparation PK-8th. My kids are not hooked.
My senior is ending up at a college ranked 20-30. Not a bad result! However, peers who remained at JRHS are also getting the same results, if not higher schools. And these kids were the average kids in the classes
that my kids left.
I have a few friends whose kids also left DCPS and they are having the same experience. Many of the smartest kids leave DCPS and get into the same colleges that the average kids who stayed at DCPS get into.

The good news about leaving is that my kids have learned an absolute phenomenal amount since leaving and were learning next to nothing in DCPS. I had my kids in DCPS or a collective 30+ years so I'm not disparaging the schools as an outsider but as a parent who has a decade plus of experience at every level.

Compare the 2024 (or 2023) college destinations of JR to GDS, Sidwell, Maret, etc. JR students, on average, are attending much lower ranked colleges. You rarely see Big 3/5 student’s attending GMU, JMU, or regionally ranked colleges, but you see that in abundance at JR. I don’t know how your child performed academically at his private, but if his results are similar to a wide swath of JR, then your child did something wrong.

What I'm saying is that my kid is about at the 85% of their Big3 class and was at the 99% in the Deal/Jackson Reed cohort (PARCC always 99 at Deal and city wide, grades 99, Algebra 2 in middle school, etc) He/she is not hooked so Ivies and similar are off the table but kids who remained at JR have Ivies on the table.

What is your child’s GPA?
I’m not sure why you keep typing 85% when the Big 3 schools don’t rank.

[Anonymous]

Basing any life decisions on admission to highly-rejective colleges in the ever-changing college landscape is a mistake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just a counterpoint. I went to Princeton from a very fancy private school and was burnt out and didn’t do amazing in college. My friends who went to public did just fine and had equal outcomes (successful in their fields) to everyone else. Heck my husband and I had the same GPA in college. He barely studied in high school while I was pulling all-nighters so idk if that’s a good enough reason. Anyone smart enough to get into an Ivy will rise to the occasion.

I have heard exact opposite. Public school kids get cakewalk in public but then can’t handle he workload in top universities. Private school kids much better prepared and find college to be easier than high school.

So, to state the obvious...college is not a monolith. Two kids at the same college (including any top college) can take completely different classes with different workloads.

To the second point...why would anyone want their HS to be so painful that college is easier than HS? This is really not possible if you pursue a STEM major (maybe it is easy for the first year, but as far as I am aware there is no HS teaching upper level college STEM material), so you have to be referring to primarily humanities subjects.

Its a pretty strong consensus across almost all students from our Big 3 (including DC, an Upperclassmen STEM major) that High School was more challenging. Higher-level class doesn't mean more challenging. Calculus might be a 'harder' class then whatever 6th Grade math was but 6th grade math was more challenging at the time. I think people like it that way because college is a place where more free time can be used for so many things and they were still able to have a great High School experience (its not a zero sum game where you have to pay your dues of a certain number of hours, being strongly prepared saves a lot of time overall).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just a counterpoint. I went to Princeton from a very fancy private school and was burnt out and didn’t do amazing in college. My friends who went to public did just fine and had equal outcomes (successful in their fields) to everyone else. Heck my husband and I had the same GPA in college. He barely studied in high school while I was pulling all-nighters so idk if that’s a good enough reason. Anyone smart enough to get into an Ivy will rise to the occasion.

I have heard exact opposite. Public school kids get cakewalk in public but then can’t handle he workload in top universities. Private school kids much better prepared and find college to be easier than high school.

So, to state the obvious...college is not a monolith. Two kids at the same college (including any top college) can take completely different classes with different workloads.

To the second point...why would anyone want their HS to be so painful that college is easier than HS? This is really not possible if you pursue a STEM major (maybe it is easy for the first year, but as far as I am aware there is no HS teaching upper level college STEM material), so you have to be referring to primarily humanities subjects.

Its a pretty strong consensus across almost all students from our Big 3 (including DC, an Upperclassmen STEM major) that High School was more challenging. Higher-level class doesn't mean more challenging. Calculus might be a 'harder' class then whatever 6th Grade math was but 6th grade math was more challenging at the time. I think people like it that way because college is a place where more free time can be used for so many things and they were still able to have a great High School experience (its not a zero sum game where you have to pay your dues of a certain number of hours, being strongly prepared saves a lot of time overall).

My kid is at a Top 10 school and is friends with a Sidwell kid as well as boarding school and NYC prep kids in CS. None would say their current STEM classes are not challenging nor allow for more free time than the next person. They know what they score on tests and they are doing fine (at or somewhat above the mean), but his Sidwell friend isn't setting the curve by any stretch, nor spending less time on assignments. I am just not getting it.

Kids care less about their GPA compared to HS, so that allows for more free time. They get there is now more to success in life vs. what you did in HS to make it to the college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there is any bump for non-hooked kids.

My kids left DCPS for a Big3 private in 9th grade. They were able to get into the Big3 private because they were at the very top of their DCPS cohort: PARCC scores at the 99%, grades all 98%+, top math track etc.
Now at the Big3 privates they are both around the 80% of their grades. There are kids who are smarter than they are and who had better preparation PK-8th. My kids are not hooked.
My senior is ending up at a college ranked 20-30. Not a bad result! However, peers who remained at JRHS are also getting the same results, if not higher schools. And these kids were the average kids in the classes
that my kids left.
I have a few friends whose kids also left DCPS and they are having the same experience. Many of the smartest kids leave DCPS and get into the same colleges that the average kids who stayed at DCPS get into.

The good news about leaving is that my kids have learned an absolute phenomenal amount since leaving and were learning next to nothing in DCPS. I had my kids in DCPS or a collective 30+ years so I'm not disparaging the schools as an outsider but as a parent who has a decade plus of experience at every level.

Compare the 2024 (or 2023) college destinations of JR to GDS, Sidwell, Maret, etc. JR students, on average, are attending much lower ranked colleges. You rarely see Big 3/5 student’s attending GMU, JMU, or regionally ranked colleges, but you see that in abundance at JR. I don’t know how your child performed academically at his private, but if his results are similar to a wide swath of JR, then your child did something wrong.

There are only 70 results posted for JR...that's less than 20% of the class that will actually go to college (only about 14% of the total class). It is easily a drop of 50% of postings at this time last year. Stop relying on instagram postings as anything close to definitive...it's not. It is no longer reliable for much of anything.

Let’s focus on facts:
1. JR’s enrollment (2022-2023): 2,153 (~538 students per grade)
2. JR’s graduation rate (according to Niche): 87% (468 students)
3. Percentage of graduating JR students attending 2 or 4 year colleges, immediately following graduation (according to JR/DCPS’ website: 90% of the 468 graduates (421 students)

Last year, there were 206 JR Instagram posts. That represents nearly 50% of the 421 students who graduated and attended a 2 or 4 year college in 2023. Seven (7) of the students who posted are freshman at Ivies (including one URM recruited athlete).

Big 3/5 DC Metro schools routinely send 15% to 25%+ of their graduating classes to Ivies. If JR sent 30 students to Ivies last year (that definitely didn’t happen), then that would still only be 7.1% of the class that continued on to college.

In summary, the facts make it clear that if your child is aiming for Ivies (difficult for everyone), they have a much better shot statistically if they attend a Big 3/5, as compared to JR.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think there is any bump for non-hooked kids.

My kids left DCPS for a Big3 private in 9th grade. They were able to get into the Big3 private because they were at the very top of their DCPS cohort: PARCC scores at the 99%, grades all 98%+, top math track etc.
Now at the Big3 privates they are both around the 80% of their grades. There are kids who are smarter than they are and who had better preparation PK-8th. My kids are not hooked.
My senior is ending up at a college ranked 20-30. Not a bad result! However, peers who remained at JRHS are also getting the same results, if not higher schools. And these kids were the average kids in the classes
that my kids left.
I have a few friends whose kids also left DCPS and they are having the same experience. Many of the smartest kids leave DCPS and get into the same colleges that the average kids who stayed at DCPS get into.

The good news about leaving is that my kids have learned an absolute phenomenal amount since leaving and were learning next to nothing in DCPS. I had my kids in DCPS or a collective 30+ years so I'm not disparaging the schools as an outsider but as a parent who has a decade plus of experience at every level.

Compare the 2024 (or 2023) college destinations of JR to GDS, Sidwell, Maret, etc. JR students, on average, are attending much lower ranked colleges. You rarely see Big 3/5 student’s attending GMU, JMU, or regionally ranked colleges, but you see that in abundance at JR. I don’t know how your child performed academically at his private, but if his results are similar to a wide swath of JR, then your child did something wrong.

There are only 70 results posted for JR...that's less than 20% of the class that will actually go to college (only about 14% of the total class). It is easily a drop of 50% of postings at this time last year. Stop relying on instagram postings as anything close to definitive...it's not. It is no longer reliable for much of anything.

Let’s focus on facts:
1. JR’s enrollment (2022-2023): 2,153 (~538 students per grade)
2. JR’s graduation rate (according to Niche): 87% (468 students)
3. Percentage of graduating JR students attending 2 or 4 year colleges, immediately following graduation (according to JR/DCPS’ website: 90% of the 468 graduates (421 students)

Last year, there were 206 JR Instagram posts. That represents nearly 50% of the 421 students who graduated and attended a 2 or 4 year college in 2023. Seven (7) of the students who posted are freshman at Ivies (including one URM recruited athlete).

Big 3/5 DC Metro schools routinely send 15% to 25%+ of their graduating classes to Ivies. If JR sent 30 students to Ivies last year (that definitely didn’t happen), then that would still only be 7.1% of the class that continued on to college.

In summary, the facts make it clear that if your child is aiming for Ivies (difficult for everyone), they have a much better shot statistically if they attend a Big 3/5, as compared to JR.

I believe many people think that being an unhooked UMC kid has a better chance from public than at a top private.

At the end of the day, the kid who didn’t get in from private may think the legacies took all the spots to ivies and that he could have fared better from public. There will be some unhooked public school superstars who shine and get into Harvard or MIT but many more who got rejected.