Best schools for college admissions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell by a landslide last year --and I'm not a Sidwell parent but have kids at another big3, including a 2025 senior. Sidwell was able to get in almost 50% of the class into top20 schools and all the ones I knew well were completely unhooked. meanwhile at our school you pretty much needed to be top15% in the class or an athlete/legacy. it was night and day.

Your kids don’t even go to Sidwell. You are in no position to make sweeping generalizations based on “all the ones you know well.” How many is that, exactly? How is it that you know enough intimate detail about the families of kids attending a school that yours don’t to know that who is “completely unhooked?”

Answer: you don’t. You’re full of shit.

You're weirdly hostile for a Sunday morning. I suggest medication.

Not hostile. Just accurate. And tired of bullshit meaningless and entirely unhelpful responses.

Sounds like a Sidwell parent.

[Anonymous]

St. Anselms Abbey School is made up of 100% poor or middle class kids who have no hooks and has impressive college results

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:St. Anselms Abbey School is made up of 100% poor or middle class kids who have no hooks and has impressive college results

I know upper class and UMC families who have sent kids there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:St. Anselms Abbey School is made up of 100% poor or middle class kids who have no hooks and has impressive college results

I loved this egalitarianism about the school when I visited for the Open House. They seem like a truly unique school and the boys were so friendly and polite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:St. Anselms Abbey School is made up of 100% poor or middle class kids who have no hooks and has impressive college results

I loved this egalitarianism about the school when I visited for the Open House. They seem like a truly unique school and the boys were so friendly and polite.

Agree with your impressions. But the PP is misinformed.

[Anonymous]

For unhooked college admissions I would considered a magnet public school.

[Anonymous]

Easy answer: whichever school your child will do best in. What I mean by that is success inside the classroom -- the classes and teachers they'll respond to best -- and outside -- sports, ECs, whatever. And the place they'll feel most comfortable and thrive. For some, that's a parochial school. For others, a public school. Four years is a long time for a child to develop, so focus on the place that will best help them do that, not the one with the impressive list of college matriculations (which may vary wildly from year to year).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell by a landslide last year --and I'm not a Sidwell parent but have kids at another big3, including a 2025 senior. Sidwell was able to get in almost 50% of the class into top20 schools and all the ones I knew well were completely unhooked. meanwhile at our school you pretty much needed to be top15% in the class or an athlete/legacy. it was night and day.

You're full of $h...

[Anonymous]

Legacy is only a real hook with major donor/VIPs. Other than that, legacy is not worth much around here. A far bigger hook than plain vanilla legacy is athletic recruiting, first gen etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Easy answer: whichever school your child will do best in. What I mean by that is success inside the classroom -- the classes and teachers they'll respond to best -- and outside -- sports, ECs, whatever. And the place they'll feel most comfortable and thrive. For some, that's a parochial school. For others, a public school. Four years is a long time for a child to develop, so focus on the place that will best help them do that, not the one with the impressive list of college matriculations (which may vary wildly from year to year).

THIS.

If you're fortunate enough to have choices, this is the way to go. Whether a school sent 0, 1, or 10 kids to Harvard last year has very little bearing on whether YOUR kid will have (or want to have) the same outcomes in four years. The best you can do, given multiple options, is to pick a place where they will be challenged and engaged as they are now. Trying to game the system is a sure way to be disappointed.

If you do look at the college list, don't look at the top. Look at the middle 50% over multiple years. I know we all think our kids will be in the top tier, but you want to be comfortable with the average outcome. (To me, one appeal of a private HS is the average outcomes are still very solid, whereas our zoned public HS has a steep drop off outside the very top tier of achievers.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ivy League admissions are entirely a crapshoot. Don’t try to pick a HS because you think it will help your kid get into Harvard.

I think the question still is valid. Which school has a good track record in college admissions. Maybe not Harvard but let’s say a top public university.

All the area schools have solid college admissions results, exactly how “good” is going to be entirely subjective unless you start applying metrics like top 10 or Ivy, at which point you’re back to the crapshoot problem.

Remove the legacy kids from your statistics.

How would you propose to do that? Most area private schools are not even transparent with statistics about who got in where. The lists they release often combine multiple graduations years and don't disclose whether admissions to multiple schools are by the same student. Only a small handful of schools identify D1 athletes on their lists. I have never seen a school identify kids who had legacy preference. I don't know how you could figure that out on your own for thousands of kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:St. Anselms Abbey School is made up of 100% poor or middle class kids who have no hooks and has impressive college results

I know upper class and UMC families who have sent kids there.

Very few upper class families. But thanks for the random anecdote on the 2 or 3 families you know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve noticed that many expensive private schools showcase impressive admission results to Ivy League universities, but the statistics can be misleading since a large share of those students benefit from legacy admissions. Which private schools have a strong record of Ivy League placements when legacy admissions are excluded?

What do you define as a good college admission?

Any school that supports your child reaching their potential and going to a school that is a good fit for them will be a good fit. That is going to look different for a strong B kid who works hard but isn't able to get an A vs a kid who works hard and gets all As vs a kid who slacks and gets Cs.

I would guess that all of the private schools that are discussed on this board have a good amount of success placing their students at good colleges.

Are you asking, what schools are best for getting kids into top 50 schools regardless of legacy status? That is a different question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ivy League admissions are entirely a crapshoot. Don’t try to pick a HS because you think it will help your kid get into Harvard.

But isn’t that exactly what people are doing, hoping for, and counting on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easy answer: whichever school your child will do best in. What I mean by that is success inside the classroom -- the classes and teachers they'll respond to best -- and outside -- sports, ECs, whatever. And the place they'll feel most comfortable and thrive. For some, that's a parochial school. For others, a public school. Four years is a long time for a child to develop, so focus on the place that will best help them do that, not the one with the impressive list of college matriculations (which may vary wildly from year to year).

THIS.

If you're fortunate enough to have choices, this is the way to go. Whether a school sent 0, 1, or 10 kids to Harvard last year has very little bearing on whether YOUR kid will have (or want to have) the same outcomes in four years. The best you can do, given multiple options, is to pick a place where they will be challenged and engaged as they are now. Trying to game the system is a sure way to be disappointed.

If you do look at the college list, don't look at the top. Look at the middle 50% over multiple years. I know we all think our kids will be in the top tier, but you want to be comfortable with the average outcome. (To me, one appeal of a private HS is the average outcomes are still very solid, whereas our zoned public HS has a steep drop off outside the very top tier of achievers.)

How do you quantify this though? Privates are not very transparent or precise (is one student’s stellar record counted multiple times for several acceptances? Are several years combined?), and our public has a large range of acceptances and placements that seem to correspond to the large amount of kids from all backgrounds that go there. How do you see the steep drop off at your public? How do I read deeper into the numbers, or take away more from what information we get?