Andover or Exter or St. Pauls

[Anonymous]

I attended an info session for Andover last evening by invitation in Bethesda and it was pretty interesting. You cant deny that, at least, Phillips Andover is a great school. The boarding aspect is probably what gives most people pause. Im sure if Andover was in the middle of Chevy Chase it would be a feeding frenzy to get in. On top of it all, I found this link on DCUM that was conducted by the WSJ. It seems Andover is the top boarding school for college admissions and, furthermore, is head and shoulders above the best independent school in this area--which is Holton. Since I have a boy, Holton is not even an option. Sidwell is the next best thing and it does not seem to match up with Andover at all in terms of statistics. Very disappointing.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-COLLEGE0711-sort.html

[MatriculationStats]

Anonymous wrote:I attended an info session for Andover last evening by invitation in Bethesda and it was pretty interesting. You cant deny that, at least, Phillips Andover is a great school. The boarding aspect is probably what gives most people pause. Im sure if Andover was in the middle of Chevy Chase it would be a feeding frenzy to get in. On top of it all, I found this link on DCUM that was conducted by the WSJ. It seems Andover is the top boarding school for college admissions and, furthermore, is head and shoulders above the best independent school in this area--which is Holton. Since I have a boy, Holton is not even an option. Sidwell is the next best thing and it does not seem to match up with Andover at all in terms of statistics. Very disappointing.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-COLLEGE0711-sort.html

The result that Andover has incredible college placement results is certainly true, but that WSJ study went about showing it in a very bizarre way. It basically picked 8 colleges as representative and decided that's how to rank private high schools throughout the country. Since I just "happen" to have a better methodology at hand, you might want to check it out. http://www.matriculationstats.org As you'll see, I'm going to be adding day schools outside NYC soon (possibly as early as this weekend) and a number of DC area schools will be included. In fact, because I've been hanging around here a bit lately, the DC area will be the most represented area for schools that are added during the inital weeks.

An example of the systemic error in the study came to light just this morning when I was trading emails with my college roommate. He has a daughter at IMSA (Illinois Math Science Academy) a 5-day boarding public school. It made this list but when you dig deeper into the school's college matriculations, you notice that they have a heavy concentration on MIT, not surprising given the focus of the school, and University of Chicago, also not surprising given the school's location. And coincidentally those two schools happen to be among the 8 used in this study. IMSA is certainly a fine school, but if a broader range of colleges and universities had been used in the study, IMSA would not have rated as highly.

[Anonymous]

I agree that looking at one WSJ study is going to give a very skewed view. Here's another WSJ review from just 4 years earlier, and it paints a very different picture: http://webreprints.djreprints.com/wsj_tuition_040104.pdf . I also think both of the WSJ reviews are somewhat skewed in favor of Northeastern high schools, since the colleges they measure are almost all based in the Northeast. For example, if the WSJ study had chosen CalTech/Stanford/Duke instead of MIT/Chicago/Hopkins, the results likely would be far different.

I look forward to the analysis from MatStats. I strongly suspect that Andover will have great results, because it really is a strong school. However, I think PP is taking an unwarranted leap to say that other schools are "disappointing" simply because they don't have the same stats as Andover.

[Anonymous]

BUMP...for those interested in boarding schools

[Anonymous]

In my experience. 1) Andover, 2 Exeter 3 St. Paul's but St. Paul's produces arrogant kids for some reason.

[Anonymous]

Oh god here we go again. So PP your "experience" qualifies you in what way? And the negative comments about SPS are based on how much interaction with St Pauls kids? Some people would say St Pauls is better than PEA or PA. Other schools like Choate, Hotchkiss, Deerfield, Groton, Middlesex, Lawrenceville could easily be on anyone's top school list. There is no big 3 in boarding schools, really.

Please people. There are a number of good boarding schools, if you/your chidlren are interested. Don't rely on information from an anonymous message board. Do your homework. On another thread, there was a question asking for rankings, and more than just these 2 or 3 schools were mentioned.

My child applied to 5 and had a good problem of deciding which one to attend. The one we picked was not the one we might have thought at the beginning of the process.
But now we can't see being anywhere else.

For those interested, don't let people who went there in the 70s or 80s or even 90s sway your thoughts. There are more informative sites online than DC urban moms about boarding schools, and a number of the schools come to this area in October for presentations.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have any experience with the summer programs offered by the elite boarding schools? My husband and I were thinking of sending our son when he is old enough for a writing summer program at one of these schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh god here we go again. So PP your "experience" qualifies you in what way? And the negative comments about SPS are based on how much interaction with St Pauls kids? Some people would say St Pauls is better than PEA or PA. Other schools like Choate, Hotchkiss, Deerfield, Groton, Middlesex, Lawrenceville could easily be on anyone's top school list. There is no big 3 in boarding schools, really.

Please people. There are a number of good boarding schools, if you/your chidlren are interested. Don't rely on information from an anonymous message board. Do your homework. On another thread, there was a question asking for rankings, and more than just these 2 or 3 schools were mentioned.

My child applied to 5 and had a good problem of deciding which one to attend. The one we picked was not the one we might have thought at the beginning of the process.
But now we can't see being anywhere else.

For those interested, don't let people who went there in the 70s or 80s or even 90s sway your thoughts. There are more informative sites online than DC urban moms about boarding schools, and a number of the schools come to this area in October for presentations.

Oh god, yourself. My experience includes knowing a lot of people from each of the schools including recent grads. Listen to me or not, I'm just giving MY opinion, which is St. Paul grads tend to be arrogant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree that looking at one WSJ study is going to give a very skewed view. Here's another WSJ review from just 4 years earlier, and it paints a very different picture: http://webreprints.djreprints.com/wsj_tuition_040104.pdf . I also think both of the WSJ reviews are somewhat skewed in favor of Northeastern high schools, since the colleges they measure are almost all based in the Northeast. For example, if the WSJ study had chosen CalTech/Stanford/Duke instead of MIT/Chicago/Hopkins, the results likely would be far different.

I look forward to the analysis from MatStats. I strongly suspect that Andover will have great results, because it really is a strong school. However, I think PP is taking an unwarranted leap to say that other schools are "disappointing" simply because they don't have the same stats as Andover.

Hmmph. Worry about which boarding school or college after the admissions offers roll in. Might not have any of these options to pick from ...........