Which level kid goes to which schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard Trinity in NYC this year has 9 kids going to Brown? that's wild!

NYC kids are typically very impressive and often with hooks too. I think there are 6-8 girls at The Spence School going to Harvard this year out of a class of 60! Half of Brearley’s class is going to Ivies + Stanford & MIT. Saint Ann’s, Dalton, Hunter, Stuyvesant all have excellent outcomes too. Nothing new there. These are their results (almost) every year.

This is insane to me. Someone posted SA matriculation and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a school with such great exmissions. And SA has no grades or GPA!

The private school exmissions are driven by hooks. Donations, celebrity connections, golf games with university board members, etc. And URM. I've heard it sucks to be an unconnected kid at these schools - if they've got 6 connected kids applying to, say Princeton, they'll tell you to your face that they won't support your unconnected child's application there.

Unhooked private here. One at Ivy; other private T20. Full pay.

You don’t need to listen to secondhand stuff (“you’ve heard”). It just depends on your private school. At some private schools what you say is true and it does suck. Buyer beware.

Key for us: understand the (hooked) competition in your class and what it would mean to your application to overshoot. There are plenty of great schools in the top 20 or 25. No need to cluster around the top five.

Also, our HS sends a lot of kids to WashU. I can attest that it is an attractive option for someone in the lower half part of the class. I know it sounds shocking when I type this. Sometimes 10% of the class gets in regular decision.

Is this HS in NYC?

Im not that PP, but its not surprising. WashU is very much like UChicago for private high schools. We see a lot of WashU admissions from our non-DMV private as well. Its considered a "backup":

https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1c6j73v/where_the_elite_study_the_t30_for_selective_prep/

[Anonymous]

Also, our HS sends a lot of kids to WashU. I can attest that it is an attractive option for someone in the lower half part of the class. I know it sounds shocking when I type this. Sometimes 10% of the class gets in regular decision.

Are you saying there are kids in the lower 50% of the class at your child's school that are admitted to WashU?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, our HS sends a lot of kids to WashU. I can attest that it is an attractive option for someone in the lower half part of the class. I know it sounds shocking when I type this. Sometimes 10% of the class gets in regular decision.

Are you saying there are kids in the lower 50% of the class at your child's school that are admitted to WashU?

Yes, at our private. There are other private colleges too. The reddit link someone posted is really accurate in terms of colleges that private CCO steer kids towards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard Trinity in NYC this year has 9 kids going to Brown? that's wild!

NYC kids are typically very impressive and often with hooks too. I think there are 6-8 girls at The Spence School going to Harvard this year out of a class of 60! Half of Brearley’s class is going to Ivies + Stanford & MIT. Saint Ann’s, Dalton, Hunter, Stuyvesant all have excellent outcomes too. Nothing new there. These are their results (almost) every year.

This is insane to me. Someone posted SA matriculation and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a school with such great exmissions. And SA has no grades or GPA!

The private school exmissions are driven by hooks. Donations, celebrity connections, golf games with university board members, etc. And URM. I've heard it sucks to be an unconnected kid at these schools - if they've got 6 connected kids applying to, say Princeton, they'll tell you to your face that they won't support your unconnected child's application there.

Unhooked private here. One at Ivy; other private T20. Full pay.

You don’t need to listen to secondhand stuff (“you’ve heard”). It just depends on your private school. At some private schools what you say is true and it does suck. Buyer beware.

Key for us: understand the (hooked) competition in your class and what it would mean to your application to overshoot. There are plenty of great schools in the top 20 or 25. No need to cluster around the top five.

Also, our HS sends a lot of kids to WashU. I can attest that it is an attractive option for someone in the lower half part of the class. I know it sounds shocking when I type this. Sometimes 10% of the class gets in regular decision.

Is this HS in NYC?

Im not that PP, but its not surprising. WashU is very much like UChicago for private high schools. We see a lot of WashU admissions from our non-DMV private as well. Its considered a "backup":

https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1c6j73v/where_the_elite_study_the_t30_for_selective_prep/

This quote frm the link is mind-blowing (maybe everyone else knew this?):

High end privates accept about 40% private school students. About 8% of US high school students attend a private school. I just finished listening to Who Gets In and Why. That book quoted (I may be very slightly off) something like 18% of high schools account for 75% of elite college aadmissions.

The NYT put this all in a nice article for us not too long ago

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/24/upshot/ivy-league-elite-college-admissions.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a s/o of the Duke vs Northwestern post below.

Here is what I've noticed at our selective NYC public:

--Top 10% or high stats + hook: HYP + Columbia + Penn (Wharton, VIPER or Engineering) .
--High stats, missing national level ECs or hook: Duke, Georgetown, Northwestern, Brown, Penn
--High stats + normal ECs OR some flaw on their record (like a bad grade or two) - Cornell, Chicago, JHU - these kids do very well with ED to the latter two.
--Mid to lower stats + no hook - public school or T50 possibly with merit. Most parents won't pay full for that level.

S and M are rare (most commonly high stats URM); no one gets into Dart or Vandy, for whatever reason

Curious if this is similar to other selective/feeder schools.

OP here reporting back from this year now that waitlists are (mostly) finished. Here is how it panned out:

--Top 10% or high stats + hook: HYP + Penn + MIT
--High stats, very strong ECs but not national level: Columbia, Georgetown, Northwestern (RD), Brown, Cornell, WASP
--High stats + normal ECs - Cornell, Northwestern (ED), Chicago (ED)
--None to S or V or WashU (the advice about knowing which colleges like your HS is good advice...)
--A handful of high stats kids passed on one or more of the above in favor of a full ride (a real full ride - tuition + housing + stipend) from a T50. Good for them!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not an Emory or Tufts or Wash U booster but people on this board do not seem to realize that these are reaches for top 10%, 1500+ average excellent unhooked kids for non-feeder privates and publics.

It all depends on your high school. None of the advice here applies to everyone.

Not really.
WashUs 25th percentile is 1500, Emory is 1480. The vast majority of students at Emory submit test scores so there's no way for white or Asian private school students to get into Emory with less than a 1480, when there's so many URM students in the class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard Trinity in NYC this year has 9 kids going to Brown? that's wild!

NYC kids are typically very impressive and often with hooks too. I think there are 6-8 girls at The Spence School going to Harvard this year out of a class of 60! Half of Brearley’s class is going to Ivies + Stanford & MIT. Saint Ann’s, Dalton, Hunter, Stuyvesant all have excellent outcomes too. Nothing new there. These are their results (almost) every year.

Almost everyone of these have $50k-100k per year counselors right from 8th grade.

No, they do not. The schools themselves provide the college counseling. I personally know a kid well at one of the privates going to HYPSM with zero outside help. What he does have is 1580 on the SAT that he got at one sitting the summer before his junior year, a 3.95 GPA and a niche major that is his true interest and intended course of study.
The rigor at those schools is insane. Their students are extremely well prepared for college and do very well.

Don’t let these schools totally fool you. These kids are not infinitely more impressive or working infinitely harder than dc kids. I know many. They have hooks well beyond just run of the mill legacy. Many have real f’u $ and many do hire private counselors.

They aren’t sending 8 a class to Yale bc they are working these kids harder and colleges are impressed by the rigor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard Trinity in NYC this year has 9 kids going to Brown? that's wild!

NYC kids are typically very impressive and often with hooks too. I think there are 6-8 girls at The Spence School going to Harvard this year out of a class of 60! Half of Brearley’s class is going to Ivies + Stanford & MIT. Saint Ann’s, Dalton, Hunter, Stuyvesant all have excellent outcomes too. Nothing new there. These are their results (almost) every year.

Almost everyone of these have $50k-100k per year counselors right from 8th grade.

No, they do not. The schools themselves provide the college counseling. I personally know a kid well at one of the privates going to HYPSM with zero outside help. What he does have is 1580 on the SAT that he got at one sitting the summer before his junior year, a 3.95 GPA and a niche major that is his true interest and intended course of study.
The rigor at those schools is insane. Their students are extremely well prepared for college and do very well.

Don’t let these schools totally fool you. These kids are not infinitely more impressive or working infinitely harder than dc kids. I know many. They have hooks well beyond just run of the mill legacy. Many have real f’u $ and many do hire private counselors.

They aren’t sending 8 a class to Yale bc they are working these kids harder and colleges are impressed by the rigor.

Private school kids are not smarter, nor are they more impressive. It's not really about the hooks, though, for the majority of the class getting into T20. Their schools are feeders that don't focus on testing (some of these schools don't even have grades). Instead, they focus on the whole person, often hyper-focused on intellectual independence, creativity, and curiosity, which creates strong analytic thinkers with strong communication skills. That is the difference.

- signed non-DMV private school parent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a s/o of the Duke vs Northwestern post below.

Here is what I've noticed at our selective NYC public:

--Top 10% or high stats + hook: HYP + Columbia + Penn (Wharton, VIPER or Engineering) .
--High stats, missing national level ECs or hook: Duke, Georgetown, Northwestern, Brown, Penn
--High stats + normal ECs OR some flaw on their record (like a bad grade or two) - Cornell, Chicago, JHU - these kids do very well with ED to the latter two.
--Mid to lower stats + no hook - public school or T50 possibly with merit. Most parents won't pay full for that level.

S and M are rare (most commonly high stats URM); no one gets into Dart or Vandy, for whatever reason

Curious if this is similar to other selective/feeder schools.

OP here reporting back from this year now that waitlists are (mostly) finished. Here is how it panned out:

--Top 10% or high stats + hook: HYP + Penn + MIT
--High stats, very strong ECs but not national level: Columbia, Georgetown, Northwestern (RD), Brown, Cornell, WASP
--High stats + normal ECs - Cornell, Northwestern (ED), Chicago (ED)
--None to S or V or WashU (the advice about knowing which colleges like your HS is good advice...)
--A handful of high stats kids passed on one or more of the above in favor of a full ride (a real full ride - tuition + housing + stipend) from a T50. Good for them!

Its doesn't seem like this year was very different for your school? Did your school see a lot of WL movement? What were the most popular WLs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard Trinity in NYC this year has 9 kids going to Brown? that's wild!

NYC kids are typically very impressive and often with hooks too. I think there are 6-8 girls at The Spence School going to Harvard this year out of a class of 60! Half of Brearley’s class is going to Ivies + Stanford & MIT. Saint Ann’s, Dalton, Hunter, Stuyvesant all have excellent outcomes too. Nothing new there. These are their results (almost) every year.

Almost everyone of these have $50k-100k per year counselors right from 8th grade.

No, they do not. The schools themselves provide the college counseling. I personally know a kid well at one of the privates going to HYPSM with zero outside help. What he does have is 1580 on the SAT that he got at one sitting the summer before his junior year, a 3.95 GPA and a niche major that is his true interest and intended course of study.
The rigor at those schools is insane. Their students are extremely well prepared for college and do very well.

Don’t let these schools totally fool you. These kids are not infinitely more impressive or working infinitely harder than dc kids. I know many. They have hooks well beyond just run of the mill legacy. Many have real f’u $ and many do hire private counselors.

They aren’t sending 8 a class to Yale bc they are working these kids harder and colleges are impressed by the rigor.

Private school kids are not smarter, nor are they more impressive. It's not really about the hooks, though, for the majority of the class getting into T20. Their schools are feeders that don't focus on testing (some of these schools don't even have grades). Instead, they focus on the whole person, often hyper-focused on intellectual independence, creativity, and curiosity, which creates strong analytic thinkers with strong communication skills. That is the difference.

- signed non-DMV private school parent

The HS rigor is much different though. I was a Ffx co public school kid. My kids did k-8 public in strong DMV school district. They then went to private HS in DC. They received 5s on all 10 AP exams with no outside studying or prep. They scored a 35 and 36 ACT- each first sitting. Not only did they excel in STEM, but they came out as excellent writers. They were taught to think, question and solve.

My attic is overflowing with the required books —literally shelves, upon shelves. The amount of novels in one year, the lit reading in Spanish - honors , etc. Oldest is at an Ivy and was very very well prepared.

Privates/Ivies do look at HS rigor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard Trinity in NYC this year has 9 kids going to Brown? that's wild!

NYC kids are typically very impressive and often with hooks too. I think there are 6-8 girls at The Spence School going to Harvard this year out of a class of 60! Half of Brearley’s class is going to Ivies + Stanford & MIT. Saint Ann’s, Dalton, Hunter, Stuyvesant all have excellent outcomes too. Nothing new there. These are their results (almost) every year.

Almost everyone of these have $50k-100k per year counselors right from 8th grade.

No, they do not. The schools themselves provide the college counseling. I personally know a kid well at one of the privates going to HYPSM with zero outside help. What he does have is 1580 on the SAT that he got at one sitting the summer before his junior year, a 3.95 GPA and a niche major that is his true interest and intended course of study.
The rigor at those schools is insane. Their students are extremely well prepared for college and do very well.

Don’t let these schools totally fool you. These kids are not infinitely more impressive or working infinitely harder than dc kids. I know many. They have hooks well beyond just run of the mill legacy. Many have real f’u $ and many do hire private counselors.

They aren’t sending 8 a class to Yale bc they are working these kids harder and colleges are impressed by the rigor.

Private school kids are not smarter, nor are they more impressive. It's not really about the hooks, though, for the majority of the class getting into T20. Their schools are feeders that don't focus on testing (some of these schools don't even have grades). Instead, they focus on the whole person, often hyper-focused on intellectual independence, creativity, and curiosity, which creates strong analytic thinkers with strong communication skills. That is the difference.

- signed non-DMV private school parent

The HS rigor is much different though. I was a Ffx co public school kid. My kids did k-8 public in strong DMV school district. They then went to private HS in DC. They received 5s on all 10 AP exams with no outside studying or prep. They scored a 35 and 36 ACT- each first sitting. Not only did they excel in STEM, but they came out as excellent writers. They were taught to think, question and solve.

My attic is overflowing with the required books —literally shelves, upon shelves. The amount of novels in one year, the lit reading in Spanish - honors , etc. Oldest is at an Ivy and was very very well prepared.

Privates/Ivies do look at HS rigor.

I agree with that.
My kids went private, and at Ivy and T10. They are very well prepared for private selective colleges.

But do I think they are more impressive than public school kids? That's what you are saying?

No - I think they have been taught differently. Not taught for a test, but taught how to think critically, how to write well (heavy humanities focus is a good thing imo) and how to excel in school (and other) settings. They aren't competing with one another ever. But I don't think this makes private school kids "more impressive" or "smarter" or "harder workers" - they have a different skill set.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a s/o of the Duke vs Northwestern post below.

Here is what I've noticed at our selective NYC public:

--Top 10% or high stats + hook: HYP + Columbia + Penn (Wharton, VIPER or Engineering) .
--High stats, missing national level ECs or hook: Duke, Georgetown, Northwestern, Brown, Penn
--High stats + normal ECs OR some flaw on their record (like a bad grade or two) - Cornell, Chicago, JHU - these kids do very well with ED to the latter two.
--Mid to lower stats + no hook - public school or T50 possibly with merit. Most parents won't pay full for that level.

S and M are rare (most commonly high stats URM); no one gets into Dart or Vandy, for whatever reason

Curious if this is similar to other selective/feeder schools.

OP here reporting back from this year now that waitlists are (mostly) finished. Here is how it panned out:

--Top 10% or high stats + hook: HYP + Penn + MIT
--High stats, very strong ECs but not national level: Columbia, Georgetown, Northwestern (RD), Brown, Cornell, WASP
--High stats + normal ECs - Cornell, Northwestern (ED), Chicago (ED)
--None to S or V or WashU (the advice about knowing which colleges like your HS is good advice...)
--A handful of high stats kids passed on one or more of the above in favor of a full ride (a real full ride - tuition + housing + stipend) from a T50. Good for them!

Its doesn't seem like this year was very different for your school? Did your school see a lot of WL movement? What were the most popular WLs?

Not very different. A few differences at the margin:
--Columbia did not get the tippy top kids. Columbia admitted several from the WL.
--Cornell seemed to have a stronger cohort in general, maybe just a coincidence, maybe due to more shutouts at the HYP level.
--Penn also admitted several from the WL. I was surprised to see that. Ditto Michigan.
--A lot more high stats non-hooked kids opted for ED1 or ED2. Chicago and Northwestern commits nearly doubled. More LAC commits as well. I think a lot of kids/parents have gotten the message (whether rightly or wrongly) that T10 RD is a game of chance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a s/o of the Duke vs Northwestern post below.

Here is what I've noticed at our selective NYC public:

--Top 10% or high stats + hook: HYP + Columbia + Penn (Wharton, VIPER or Engineering) .
--High stats, missing national level ECs or hook: Duke, Georgetown, Northwestern, Brown, Penn
--High stats + normal ECs OR some flaw on their record (like a bad grade or two) - Cornell, Chicago, JHU - these kids do very well with ED to the latter two.
--Mid to lower stats + no hook - public school or T50 possibly with merit. Most parents won't pay full for that level.

S and M are rare (most commonly high stats URM); no one gets into Dart or Vandy, for whatever reason

Curious if this is similar to other selective/feeder schools.

OP here reporting back from this year now that waitlists are (mostly) finished. Here is how it panned out:

--Top 10% or high stats + hook: HYP + Penn + MIT
--High stats, very strong ECs but not national level: Columbia, Georgetown, Northwestern (RD), Brown, Cornell, WASP
--High stats + normal ECs - Cornell, Northwestern (ED), Chicago (ED)
--None to S or V or WashU (the advice about knowing which colleges like your HS is good advice...)
--A handful of high stats kids passed on one or more of the above in favor of a full ride (a real full ride - tuition + housing + stipend) from a T50. Good for them!

Its doesn't seem like this year was very different for your school? Did your school see a lot of WL movement? What were the most popular WLs?

Not very different. A few differences at the margin:
--Columbia did not get the tippy top kids. Columbia admitted several from the WL.
--Cornell seemed to have a stronger cohort in general, maybe just a coincidence, maybe due to more shutouts at the HYP level.
--Penn also admitted several from the WL. I was surprised to see that. Ditto Michigan.
--A lot more high stats non-hooked kids opted for ED1 or ED2. Chicago and Northwestern commits nearly doubled. More LAC commits as well. I think a lot of kids/parents have gotten the message (whether rightly or wrongly) that T10 RD is a game of chance.

Interesting about Cornell. Seeing that as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard Trinity in NYC this year has 9 kids going to Brown? that's wild!

NYC kids are typically very impressive and often with hooks too. I think there are 6-8 girls at The Spence School going to Harvard this year out of a class of 60! Half of Brearley’s class is going to Ivies + Stanford & MIT. Saint Ann’s, Dalton, Hunter, Stuyvesant all have excellent outcomes too. Nothing new there. These are their results (almost) every year.

This is insane to me. Someone posted SA matriculation and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a school with such great exmissions. And SA has no grades or GPA!

The private school exmissions are driven by hooks. Donations, celebrity connections, golf games with university board members, etc. And URM. I've heard it sucks to be an unconnected kid at these schools - if they've got 6 connected kids applying to, say Princeton, they'll tell you to your face that they won't support your unconnected child's application there.

Unhooked private here. One at Ivy; other private T20. Full pay.

You don’t need to listen to secondhand stuff (“you’ve heard”). It just depends on your private school. At some private schools what you say is true and it does suck. Buyer beware.

Key for us: understand the (hooked) competition in your class and what it would mean to your application to overshoot. There are plenty of great schools in the top 20 or 25. No need to cluster around the top five.

Also, our HS sends a lot of kids to WashU. I can attest that it is an attractive option for someone in the lower half part of the class. I know it sounds shocking when I type this. Sometimes 10% of the class gets in regular decision.

Is this HS in NYC?

Im not that PP, but its not surprising. WashU is very much like UChicago for private high schools. We see a lot of WashU admissions from our non-DMV private as well. Its considered a "backup":

https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1c6j73v/where_the_elite_study_the_t30_for_selective_prep/

Not really. Chicago takes more than double the number of private school kids what WashU takes. 564 vs 272