College Acceptance/Matriculation Stats: NCS/STA, Holton/Landon

[Anonymous]

I agree with 14:36 - law school name and prestige is extremely important for certain legal careers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Between my husband and myself, we have 4 Ivy degrees. Employers don't care where you've gone to school. All they care about is whether you can do the work. The worst employee I ever had had a degree from one of the best-ranked Ivies out there.

It maybe matters the first year you're out of college. After that, it's all on your own merit 100%.

Let's not forget that Bill Gates, Edison and Ford didn't even have college degrees. It's all about the person, not the school. The school can help but if the individual doesn't have the drive, it doesn't matter.

You and your husband are not lawyers. Marketability is almost entirely based on school and that is still important 10+ years after practicing. In a city where many people are and become lawyers, I can tell you SCHOOL MATTERS! I think those stats are very impressive....and this is coming from someone who spent a lot on a tiny house in a top public school district....

I am a mgmt consultant and I have to admit that my ivy degree (graduate) seems to give me signficant credibility with clients. Certainly more than it should but who am I to argue that. And I have been out more than 20 years! Of course I can't just wave a piece of paper around - I have to deliver good services as well - but it does give me an edge.

As to the acceptance stats - going to these colleges is no guarantee of success but given how selective they are (a fact with which I am all too familiar as we embark on the college process this year) I think it does point to the quality of the applicants from the top schools.

[Anonymous]

Are these numbers a surprise? You are looking at some of the top high schools in the country. They should be sending 75%+ of the graduates to top schools. Each of these High Schools is highly selective [note: pedigree may be the selected factor for some students - and this same factor may be used for college admission]

If these schools were not sending a high percentage of every class to the top schools I would wonder what was wrong - especially after spending ~$28K a year on tuition.

[Anonymous]

In response to 14:36's question, I come from a family of 5 lawyers so I do know about marketability. I am also a branding expert in my career so I work with people on how to market themselves. The fact that major law firms have all cancelled their visits to Yale Law, considered to be the top law school, for this school year due to the economy shows you that labels only get you so far.

Labels are not always the answer. Look at all the top attorneys in this town who came from nowhere to be at the top of their game. I can't tell you how many lawyers with Ivy degrees I have as clients who feel frustrated and unrecognized in their jobs because all they are using is their school's name.

Essentially, everyone needs to have a complete package. You can't just rest on your laurels. I've known plenty of slackers at Harvard who didn't amount to much. The label alone is not going to open up doors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In response to 14:36's question, I come from a family of 5 lawyers so I do know about marketability. I am also a branding expert in my career so I work with people on how to market themselves. The fact that major law firms have all cancelled their visits to Yale Law, considered to be the top law school, for this school year due to the economy shows you that labels only get you so far.

Labels are not always the answer. Look at all the top attorneys in this town who came from nowhere to be at the top of their game. I can't tell you how many lawyers with Ivy degrees I have as clients who feel frustrated and unrecognized in their jobs because all they are using is their school's name.

Essentially, everyone needs to have a complete package. You can't just rest on your laurels. I've known plenty of slackers at Harvard who didn't amount to much. The label alone is not going to open up doors.

Ugh. Again, you are not a lawyer. Obviously there are always exceptions. But as a RULE, for example, my firm will not even look at an associate applicant that is not from a tier 1 school. This is the norm. There are, of course, exceptions. And if you have a client that is being overshadowed by his degree, maybe he should be doing more to let his work shine brighter.

But we have all digressed from the point of this thread. The eximissions stats from those schools are quite good. If I was paying that tuition and my kid jumped through all the hoops to get in, I wouldn't accept much less though...

[Anonymous]

PP again - I will add, I doubt you have had a client that was a lawyer trying to get a job as an associate that did not come from a top school. If you did, it would be because he or she needed "branding" help to find a way to market him or herself despite the setback of not having attended a top law school.

[Anonymous]

I too find this impressive - especially since these schools are K-12. I think it says a lot about the schools as well as the families that go there. So many kids enter K with high promise and the potential to thrive academically, etc. There are many paths to take, and I'm not saying top colleges are the only way to go - but if you think this is an important choice that you would like your child to have, it is a long process that shouldn't be forced, but can certainly be nurtured. That's what I'm seeing here....

[Anonymous]

I'm wondering how many of the students entering at the K level were rich and/or connected and/or legacies.... and how many of the students entering later on got in on academic/athletic prowess.....

[Anonymous]

Interesting point - there are numerous levels of entry and in the DC area I imagine only a small percentage of kids actually go all the way through k-12 - that is what I heard at least.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I too find this impressive - especially since these schools are K-12. I think it says a lot about the schools as well as the families that go there. So many kids enter K with high promise and the potential to thrive academically, etc. There are many paths to take, and I'm not saying top colleges are the only way to go - but if you think this is an important choice that you would like your child to have, it is a long process that shouldn't be forced, but can certainly be nurtured. That's what I'm seeing here....

These schools do not go K-12. They go 3-12.

[Anonymous]

Actually, NCS/STA is 4-12. PP is right, though. None of these are K-12 schools.

[Anonymous]

Local publics can do as well. Whitman has a ton of kids going on to (getting into) Ivys.
BTW, maybe for law it matters, but not for most other professions. Not everyone wants to be a lawyer. Odd profession that 3 years of school matters 20 years out. That must mean that you come out of law school totally prepared. We KNOW that's not true.
For medicine it definitely does not matter. The good med schools can get you into better residencies, but the residency reputation counts the most. That is where you learn. However, top students in low ranked med schools get to go wherever. Poorly ranked students in good med schools have trouble.
The Ivys are not too famous for their engineering schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I too find this impressive - especially since these schools are K-12. I think it says a lot about the schools as well as the families that go there. So many kids enter K with high promise and the potential to thrive academically, etc. There are many paths to take, and I'm not saying top colleges are the only way to go - but if you think this is an important choice that you would like your child to have, it is a long process that shouldn't be forced, but can certainly be nurtured. That's what I'm seeing here....

These exmissions stats may say as much about the parents about the school. Likely to be more Ivy/top school legacy kids at NCS, St A, etc. That can significantly bump up admissions rates. Control for legacies, and I wonder if the stats look as impressive?

[Anonymous]

I don't agree that it matters 20+ years out in law. Among my clients and colleagues, whether you worked at one of the top New York firms matters much more than where you went to school. There are several things that go into a legal resume. Sure, school and things like law review are on there, but clerkships (especially if you clerked for a Supreme Court justice) matter, and working at one of the very few big name NY firms matters even more - at least if you are a corporate lawyer. In litigation, depending on your practice area, different firms may have more name recognition. Same thing for specialty fields like energy, etc. Also, to correct a PP, not all major firms pulled out of OCI at Yale this year.

It is generally true that you do not have a shot at a top firm unless you went to certain law schools, but at several firms they recognize if you are #1 in your class from Podunk State Law, they will at least call you in for an interview - especially if you can get someone who used to work at the firm to provide an introduction for you.

As for the OP's post, placing my kids in a top college is not my primary concern. Been there, done that; am living that overachieving life. I look for schools at which my kids can thrive and be happy and will worry about college later. They both have decent legacy shots at a top Liberal Arts college very high in the US News rankings if that is where they want to go. If they choose to live a life that is less concerned with where they went to school and how much money they make than mine was until just a few years ago, then I will be very proud of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are these numbers a surprise? You are looking at some of the top high schools in the country. They should be sending 75%+ of the graduates to top schools. Each of these High Schools is highly selective [note: pedigree may be the selected factor for some students - and this same factor may be used for college admission]

If these schools were not sending a high percentage of every class to the top schools I would wonder what was wrong - especially after spending ~$28K a year on tuition.

OP here. For what it's worth (and I've seen the matriculation lists for each of these four schools): If you extend the acceptances to the top 60 schools (both US News lists: National Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges), then the entire 2008 class (2009 class for Landon) for each school (save for a handful of kids) goes to these 120 top schools. That would include, for example, GW, UMD, and Syracuse, but not include SMU, Virginia Tech, and American University. If there are 2400 4-year colleges, the top 120 is the top 5%. Getting 90%+ of your graduating class into schools that rank in the top 5% is impressive, but you're misguided if you think pedigree is a factor. These are smart, driven kids, most with terrific GPAs and high SAT scores, although a lot of the credit should go to these schools and their extraordinary teachers. While the class composition at these schools is to some degree self-selective, parents are enrolling their kids there for good reason. This is not to say that you cannot get a great education at other private or public schools, but rather that if you attend one of these four, odds are good that you will matriculate at a top-ranked college or university.