Private v. public at Brown
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Anonymous
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By way of context, DH and I went to private schools but our kids go to public schools since we live in a good school district. We could have moved to the "city" and sent our kids to a private school instead (and frankly, all of our close friends did that).
So, when I look at who just got into Brown ED and notice that 48% of the ED kids went to private/parochial schools and only 51% went to public schools, that seems really weird to me because I'm sure they received many more applications from public school kids. So, do we think they prefer private school kids or are looking for wealthy students? Is this because of legacy, or what? The data seems to clearly suggest that if you want your kid to go to Brown ED, they should go to a private/parochial school. |
Anonymous
| Did you control for athletes and legacies? |
Anonymous
No, I didn't look at any data besides the pie graph, which jumped out at me, as I just assumed that most top private colleges have roughly 30-40% private school kids, not 48%. https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025/12/as-campus-works-to-heal-brown-admits-165-of-early-decision-applicants-to-class-of-2030 |
Anonymous
| Are you sure they received more ED applications from public school kids? The ED pool skews rich. |
Anonymous
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ED admissions this year seem to be heavily private. My kids are in private and among friends at their school and peer schools there are about 10 kids.
Among the private school bunch are also a bunch of people writing big checks for a spot. I know of this and have heard of more. Apparently Brown can be bribed. |
Anonymous
| Correlation =/= causation. There are a lot of reasons private school kids get accepted at higher rates that likely have to do with demographics, including legacy and athlete status, access to test prep and tutors, knowledge about the college process and ED, etc. |
Anonymous
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You would need more data (and data over time) to understand this.
A lot of athletes in preppy Ivy sports go to prep and parochial schools. A lot of legacies and rich kids have ties to prep schools. In underprivileged urban environments, sometimes the parochial schools are the best academic option. When I lived near the DC/MoCo border about 30 years ago, the public schools, even in Northwest, were considered barely acceptable in many cases. Everyone i knew moved to suburbia when they had kids or did private. The massive gentrification of parts of DC has made it far more acceptable to send kids to the public schools. Other big old cities did not experience this wave of gentrification. So they remained in the privates for affluent kids and public for poor kids world. |
Anonymous
Where do you get the assumption that the colleges have 30-40% private school kids? Where do you get the assumption that the rate is the same for early decision as for the school itself? |
Anonymous
| A lot of Brown faculty and staff send their kids to the local privates. |
Anonymous
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Is this unique to Brown? I went l an Ivy in the ‘90’s and most of my friends had gone to private high schools. (some NYC exceptions - Bronx Science, Stuyvesant). My DC is at an Ivy now and I think all of her friends went to private high schools, many to boarding schools.
There are a lot of factors, but private school education has always had a more direct road to the thought leadership that Ivies aim to produce. Public schools have a broader mandate. |
Anonymous
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This is true at EVERY top school.
It was in the Harvard lawsuit. Top schools go to the same high schools over and over. And yes it includes "some" public schools, but a LOT of privates. The best indication of whether a college will take someone from a high school is if they have in the recent past. |
Anonymous
| ED favors the rich. The rich can pay for private. |
Anonymous
+1 Also ED requires you to accept irrespective of the financial aid package you receive. ED has always been affirmative action for the rich, and private school kids are disproportionately richer on average than their public school counterparts. |
Anonymous
This is true. But in addition, there is a freedom of exploration afforded in private schools that can not be matched in public education. This lends itself to creative thought, wordly perspective, deep exploration and many other features that top universities value and pursue. While of course, there are exceptions. As a general rule a private school education more directly correlates to the intwllextual exploration at top universities. Sure, there are smart kids in public schools….and they can earn great stats. But public schools have boundaries on what they can offer and allow. |
Anonymous
This is flat out wrong. The only way to get out of ED is if the financial package is not what was expected. |