Do you think it is easier to get into a top college from public or private?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the private school. I think private schools do place better for ivy/t20. However, public school kids likely have an advantage at flagship publics that like high gpa. Publics have more grade inflation and inflated gpa due to weighted gpa and heavy AP curriculum. Lots of pressure for perfection at public hs whereas private kids dont have that expectation. At our private, we have zero AP courses and few kids have perfect gpa's and all place very well, even the kids that aren't very strong. Our private has rigor, a strong curriculum that colleges know and a solid track record of kids doing well. Lots of opportunities for kids to distinguish themselves academically. Yes, school has legacy, urm, and wealthy donors. But we are neither (we got financial aid from the hs), and my smart, interesting kid is now at an Ivy and I don't think they would be there now if they went to public. Also, small classes mean teachers really know kids, kids are expected to lead discussions, etc. I think the exception might be for math/stem where public magnet school kids do very well in admission to top stem programs (mit, engineering, etc). I think public kids can distinguish themselves but they have to put in the effort to find opportunities where they can showcase their strengths. .

Same with my college freshman who is also at an Ivy after attending a top private for high school. She is very smart but she did not have perfect grades and she did not have an extensive resume. There was no way if she had attended Langley or similar that she would have taken 16 APs and done research and had 2 internships etc. By attending private she was able to get into an Ivy with pretty regular extracurriculars and even a few Bs.

[Anonymous]

Easier from a very good private than from a bad private
Easier from a bad public than from a very good public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s always amusing to see how worked up public school parents get on these threads.

I was thinking just the opposite. The insecurity dripping from the private school parents' posts is something to behold. I guess they have to somehow rationalize throwing away thousands on private school.

OP, you're in an excellent school pyramid. Langley has fantastic college acceptance results. There's no way I'd pay for private in your situation.
NP

What exactly are these fantastic Langley results? Lots of adjectives and no actual receipts.

They do well for a non-magnet public. Last year Harvard, Yale, Stanford x3, Northwestern x3, Duke, Brown, Rice, Dartmouth, Cornell, multiple Georgetown, tons of UVA, W&M, and VT. Probably not enough to impress the private school snobs but for kids who don’t need their hands held it can work.

Most of T20 admits at Langley are Asian.

Next you'll be telling us most D1 recruits are black. What exactly are we supposed to do with this information?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in a top public school (Langley High in McLean). My oldest is currently a junior and it feels like there are so many students who may sound similar on paper. He is targeting T20 schools like everyone else in the school.

I have 2 other kids and considering private schools for them. Cost is a non-factor. We gave our oldest the option to switch to private in middle school and he chose to stay with his friends. He does have a fantastic friend group. Wondering if we should switch our younger kids earlier.

We're been in a top public and a top private, also have friends from all over publics and private of different levels of selectivity.

My observation is if you can afford it (budget extra for donations, extra curricular, summer programs, etc. it sucks but that's the reality), then always better to be applying from a top feeder private HS if your goal is T20 college. My DC who goes to a top private sends 35% a year to T20, 1-2 each a year to HYP, Duke, Penn, Chicago, Williams, JHU, Dartmouth, etc. like clock work.

After a true feeder private, I have seen it's better to come from a top public, of course best if it's TJ, Stuy, Bronx Sci.. that level.

Affluent area top publics like Scarsdale also do well, but not at the same level as above 2.

After that, honestly I have seen kids who go to mediocre publics do well if your school generally sucks, never sends anyone to T20, but you are a unicorn and scored 1560+ in the SAT and have a real (not BS kind) hospital internship.

It gets harder when you come from a mediocre private. Some of these schools send a handful of kids to T20 a year, like 3-4 kids total out of a class 120 so lower than gen pop stats, and almost never to HYPMS unless it's a top athletic recruit.

If your kid is a true super star, then a feeder private will give you a better shot at HYPMS and magnet public will give you a great chance at T20. If your kid is the kind who would score 1400 in SAT first try with no tutoring no superscore (be honest here), then don't do top magnet because they won't be on the top 10% of class, and then after that it gets real dicey; UVA may not be a guarantee due to competition. if this caliber of kid can be tutored to get a 1530, then go for the top private if you can afford it. These kinds of kids get into at least Emory, and decent chance to schools like Chicago, Rice and Wash U if you are willing to ED.

Emory if you include the Oxford campus. Or Chicago if full pay. Otherwise WashU is the easiest ED admit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Easier from a very good private than from a bad private
Easier from a bad public than from a very good public.

This is the long and short of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you run the numbers? I mean do the colleges that interest your kids have data showing how many incoming freshmen are from public or private schools?

Anything you ask here will just be met with opinion and conjecture, sometime informed, sometimes less so.

This

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the private school. I think private schools do place better for ivy/t20. However, public school kids likely have an advantage at flagship publics that like high gpa. Publics have more grade inflation and inflated gpa due to weighted gpa and heavy AP curriculum. Lots of pressure for perfection at public hs whereas private kids dont have that expectation. At our private, we have zero AP courses and few kids have perfect gpa's and all place very well, even the kids that aren't very strong. Our private has rigor, a strong curriculum that colleges know and a solid track record of kids doing well. Lots of opportunities for kids to distinguish themselves academically. Yes, school has legacy, urm, and wealthy donors. But we are neither (we got financial aid from the hs), and my smart, interesting kid is now at an Ivy and I don't think they would be there now if they went to public. Also, small classes mean teachers really know kids, kids are expected to lead discussions, etc. I think the exception might be for math/stem where public magnet school kids do very well in admission to top stem programs (mit, engineering, etc). I think public kids can distinguish themselves but they have to put in the effort to find opportunities where they can showcase their strengths. .

Same with my college freshman who is also at an Ivy after attending a top private for high school. She is very smart but she did not have perfect grades and she did not have an extensive resume. There was no way if she had attended Langley or similar that she would have taken 16 APs and done research and had 2 internships etc. By attending private she was able to get into an Ivy with pretty regular extracurriculars and even a few Bs.

Same for my Ivy kid. Def had Bs. No national awards.
Made an impact at school and had interesting pt jobs and hobbies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As I said before from my experience in the Bay Area- yes for the very top students but not for the next tier. Those kids from the public high schools don’t seem to get in to the top privates or Cal and UCLA. Look at the Stanley Zhong example- Gunn HS, was in the top 9% of his class but had at least one B in junior year and took stem AP’s but not the humanities side. Best acceptance was UC Davis. Similar kids from our local independent high schools (and there are several very good private high schools) have better/more choices.

I know nothing of Langley HS but what I do know is AO are assigned by region so the AO who reviews applicants from Langley also reviews the applicants from the local private high schools. Students in a geographic area are necessarily competing with each other . .

No one knows (or cares) about any of the schools you keep mentioning. This thread is asking about a specific school in FCPS. Please stop posting about SF.

Agreed. This is just so odd. We have a poster asking if they should keep their kid in a public high school in McLean, VA and somebody is going on and on about San Francisco? Why??

The answer may be about SF, but from my experience with my kids, it is valid for the DMV, for the same profile, top 10% in public HS, great APs but did not score 16 5s. Best acceptance would be UMD. Meanwhile at private schools, UMD is a safety and everyone gets in!

Which private schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the private school. I think private schools do place better for ivy/t20. However, public school kids likely have an advantage at flagship publics that like high gpa. Publics have more grade inflation and inflated gpa due to weighted gpa and heavy AP curriculum. Lots of pressure for perfection at public hs whereas private kids dont have that expectation. At our private, we have zero AP courses and few kids have perfect gpa's and all place very well, even the kids that aren't very strong. Our private has rigor, a strong curriculum that colleges know and a solid track record of kids doing well. Lots of opportunities for kids to distinguish themselves academically. Yes, school has legacy, urm, and wealthy donors. But we are neither (we got financial aid from the hs), and my smart, interesting kid is now at an Ivy and I don't think they would be there now if they went to public. Also, small classes mean teachers really know kids, kids are expected to lead discussions, etc. I think the exception might be for math/stem where public magnet school kids do very well in admission to top stem programs (mit, engineering, etc). I think public kids can distinguish themselves but they have to put in the effort to find opportunities where they can showcase their strengths. .

Same with my college freshman who is also at an Ivy after attending a top private for high school. She is very smart but she did not have perfect grades and she did not have an extensive resume. There was no way if she had attended Langley or similar that she would have taken 16 APs and done research and had 2 internships etc. By attending private she was able to get into an Ivy with pretty regular extracurriculars and even a few Bs.

Thats special.

[Anonymous]

I think my older kid really benefitted by their private high school "managing the herd".

They limit the number of applications, if you get in SCEA - you are encouraged to be done, etc.

My second kid is at a top public and right now a classmate who got into MIT via Questbridge is applying to every other ivy plus Stanford plus Caltech. He ticks a lot of boxes for colleges and will likely grab a bunch of seats. And then go to MIT anyway. This would NEVER happen at our private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the private school. I think private schools do place better for ivy/t20. However, public school kids likely have an advantage at flagship publics that like high gpa. Publics have more grade inflation and inflated gpa due to weighted gpa and heavy AP curriculum. Lots of pressure for perfection at public hs whereas private kids dont have that expectation. At our private, we have zero AP courses and few kids have perfect gpa's and all place very well, even the kids that aren't very strong. Our private has rigor, a strong curriculum that colleges know and a solid track record of kids doing well. Lots of opportunities for kids to distinguish themselves academically. Yes, school has legacy, urm, and wealthy donors. But we are neither (we got financial aid from the hs), and my smart, interesting kid is now at an Ivy and I don't think they would be there now if they went to public. Also, small classes mean teachers really know kids, kids are expected to lead discussions, etc. I think the exception might be for math/stem where public magnet school kids do very well in admission to top stem programs (mit, engineering, etc). I think public kids can distinguish themselves but they have to put in the effort to find opportunities where they can showcase their strengths. .

Same with my college freshman who is also at an Ivy after attending a top private for high school. She is very smart but she did not have perfect grades and she did not have an extensive resume. There was no way if she had attended Langley or similar that she would have taken 16 APs and done research and had 2 internships etc. By attending private she was able to get into an Ivy with pretty regular extracurriculars and even a few Bs.

How is a kid with few Bs smart and deserving of an Ivy? And you yourself say she cannot compete with students who take 16 APs. What a corrupt admissions system. Is this Cornell? That is where many such students from private schools with mediocre profiles end up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the private school. I think private schools do place better for ivy/t20. However, public school kids likely have an advantage at flagship publics that like high gpa. Publics have more grade inflation and inflated gpa due to weighted gpa and heavy AP curriculum. Lots of pressure for perfection at public hs whereas private kids dont have that expectation. At our private, we have zero AP courses and few kids have perfect gpa's and all place very well, even the kids that aren't very strong. Our private has rigor, a strong curriculum that colleges know and a solid track record of kids doing well. Lots of opportunities for kids to distinguish themselves academically. Yes, school has legacy, urm, and wealthy donors. But we are neither (we got financial aid from the hs), and my smart, interesting kid is now at an Ivy and I don't think they would be there now if they went to public. Also, small classes mean teachers really know kids, kids are expected to lead discussions, etc. I think the exception might be for math/stem where public magnet school kids do very well in admission to top stem programs (mit, engineering, etc). I think public kids can distinguish themselves but they have to put in the effort to find opportunities where they can showcase their strengths. .

Same with my college freshman who is also at an Ivy after attending a top private for high school. She is very smart but she did not have perfect grades and she did not have an extensive resume. There was no way if she had attended Langley or similar that she would have taken 16 APs and done research and had 2 internships etc. By attending private she was able to get into an Ivy with pretty regular extracurriculars and even a few Bs.

You’re not from the DMV obviously. Thank you for your useless and unhelpful post.

[Anonymous]

Can we have a new rule that since we’re talking about a specific high school in a specific region that only posters whose kids attend a DMV private available to OP and who actually know something about Langley can comment?

EVERY OTHER POST IS IRRELEVANT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the private school. I think private schools do place better for ivy/t20. However, public school kids likely have an advantage at flagship publics that like high gpa. Publics have more grade inflation and inflated gpa due to weighted gpa and heavy AP curriculum. Lots of pressure for perfection at public hs whereas private kids dont have that expectation. At our private, we have zero AP courses and few kids have perfect gpa's and all place very well, even the kids that aren't very strong. Our private has rigor, a strong curriculum that colleges know and a solid track record of kids doing well. Lots of opportunities for kids to distinguish themselves academically. Yes, school has legacy, urm, and wealthy donors. But we are neither (we got financial aid from the hs), and my smart, interesting kid is now at an Ivy and I don't think they would be there now if they went to public. Also, small classes mean teachers really know kids, kids are expected to lead discussions, etc. I think the exception might be for math/stem where public magnet school kids do very well in admission to top stem programs (mit, engineering, etc). I think public kids can distinguish themselves but they have to put in the effort to find opportunities where they can showcase their strengths. .

Same with my college freshman who is also at an Ivy after attending a top private for high school. She is very smart but she did not have perfect grades and she did not have an extensive resume. There was no way if she had attended Langley or similar that she would have taken 16 APs and done research and had 2 internships etc. By attending private she was able to get into an Ivy with pretty regular extracurriculars and even a few Bs.

How is a kid with few Bs smart and deserving of an Ivy? And you yourself say she cannot compete with students who take 16 APs. What a corrupt admissions system. Is this Cornell? That is where many such students from private schools with mediocre profiles end up.

you realize there are high schools harder than some colleges. and there are high schools where every other kid has a 4.0.

our high school almost never has a kid with a 4.0 and we send 20% of the class to t10 colleges. So literally they all have a B, at least one.. And they all have a 1550 plus.

[Anonymous]

There is data on this topic. ~88% of US kids go to public high schools, the remainder are in private and religious schools. Yet if you look up the percentage at elite colleges which report the data, the public school students are clearly under represented.
For example at Yale around 60% are from the publics and 40% are from private high schools.