Class of '26 Instagram College Decisions

[Anonymous]

NP. Genuinely shocked by how toxic some of these posts are. That said I've spoken with several very credible college admissions consultants and they all share a view that there aren't any true feeder schools anymore. There are Tier 1 schools with known standards of rigor that the TTs fall into along with top boarding schools, SHS's and also (critically) topic suburban publics. It sounds like coming from a top school is a check the box rubric like hitting a certain SAT score. After that it's all about the applicant's relative ranking in their class and how differentiated their story is relative to the rest of the qualified applicant pool.

Would be really curious to see if that's been everyone else's experience or if these consultants are more talking their book with their services being the easy way for an applicant to be differentiated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. Genuinely shocked by how toxic some of these posts are. That said I've spoken with several very credible college admissions consultants and they all share a view that there aren't any true feeder schools anymore. There are Tier 1 schools with known standards of rigor that the TTs fall into along with top boarding schools, SHS's and also (critically) topic suburban publics. It sounds like coming from a top school is a check the box rubric like hitting a certain SAT score. After that it's all about the applicant's relative ranking in their class and how differentiated their story is relative to the rest of the qualified applicant pool.

Would be really curious to see if that's been everyone else's experience or if these consultants are more talking their book with their services being the easy way for an applicant to be differentiated.

My DS is a senior at a TT, and this rings true. Plus the kids are a lot more open-minded than the people in this forum about schools where they might flourish and enjoy the next four years of their educational journeys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. Genuinely shocked by how toxic some of these posts are. That said I've spoken with several very credible college admissions consultants and they all share a view that there aren't any true feeder schools anymore. There are Tier 1 schools with known standards of rigor that the TTs fall into along with top boarding schools, SHS's and also (critically) topic suburban publics. It sounds like coming from a top school is a check the box rubric like hitting a certain SAT score. After that it's all about the applicant's relative ranking in their class and how differentiated their story is relative to the rest of the qualified applicant pool.

Would be really curious to see if that's been everyone else's experience or if these consultants are more talking their book with their services being the easy way for an applicant to be differentiated.

Yeah… also to add HYP admissions committee definition of TT is very strict which may surprise a lot of the posters on this forum. I’ve only heard 4 schools being repeatedly mentioned in the nyc private k-12 ecosystem. Everything else will take a discount, meaning they will take class ranking with a grain of salt and think there is a lot of grade inflation generally. Don’t come for me I don’t make the rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Genuinely shocked by how toxic some of these posts are. That said I've spoken with several very credible college admissions consultants and they all share a view that there aren't any true feeder schools anymore. There are Tier 1 schools with known standards of rigor that the TTs fall into along with top boarding schools, SHS's and also (critically) topic suburban publics. It sounds like coming from a top school is a check the box rubric like hitting a certain SAT score. After that it's all about the applicant's relative ranking in their class and how differentiated their story is relative to the rest of the qualified applicant pool.

Would be really curious to see if that's been everyone else's experience or if these consultants are more talking their book with their services being the easy way for an applicant to be differentiated.

Yeah… also to add HYP admissions committee definition of TT is very strict which may surprise a lot of the posters on this forum. I’ve only heard 4 schools being repeatedly mentioned in the nyc private k-12 ecosystem. Everything else will take a discount, meaning they will take class ranking with a grain of salt and think there is a lot of grade inflation generally. Don’t come for me I don’t make the rules.

Curious to know which 4 ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Genuinely shocked by how toxic some of these posts are. That said I've spoken with several very credible college admissions consultants and they all share a view that there aren't any true feeder schools anymore. There are Tier 1 schools with known standards of rigor that the TTs fall into along with top boarding schools, SHS's and also (critically) topic suburban publics. It sounds like coming from a top school is a check the box rubric like hitting a certain SAT score. After that it's all about the applicant's relative ranking in their class and how differentiated their story is relative to the rest of the qualified applicant pool.

Would be really curious to see if that's been everyone else's experience or if these consultants are more talking their book with their services being the easy way for an applicant to be differentiated.

Yeah… also to add HYP admissions committee definition of TT is very strict which may surprise a lot of the posters on this forum. I’ve only heard 4 schools being repeatedly mentioned in the nyc private k-12 ecosystem. Everything else will take a discount, meaning they will take class ranking with a grain of salt and think there is a lot of grade inflation generally. Don’t come for me I don’t make the rules.

Curious to know which 4 ?

Guessing here but: Dalton, Trinity, Brearley and Collegiate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Genuinely shocked by how toxic some of these posts are. That said I've spoken with several very credible college admissions consultants and they all share a view that there aren't any true feeder schools anymore. There are Tier 1 schools with known standards of rigor that the TTs fall into along with top boarding schools, SHS's and also (critically) topic suburban publics. It sounds like coming from a top school is a check the box rubric like hitting a certain SAT score. After that it's all about the applicant's relative ranking in their class and how differentiated their story is relative to the rest of the qualified applicant pool.

Would be really curious to see if that's been everyone else's experience or if these consultants are more talking their book with their services being the easy way for an applicant to be differentiated.

Yeah… also to add HYP admissions committee definition of TT is very strict which may surprise a lot of the posters on this forum. I’ve only heard 4 schools being repeatedly mentioned in the nyc private k-12 ecosystem. Everything else will take a discount, meaning they will take class ranking with a grain of salt and think there is a lot of grade inflation generally. Don’t come for me I don’t make the rules.

Curious to know which 4 ?

Guessing here but: Dalton, Trinity, Brearley and Collegiate?

Actually not brearley because of the way they grade. And certainly not dalton. I think another poster mentioned, some privates schools recruit their class based on hook — especially for 9th grade. That’s why some schools look good for matriculation, but it has nothing to do with admissions based on academic excellence. It’s probably true that unless you rank top 10 at a real academic tier 1 private, you are better off at public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Genuinely shocked by how toxic some of these posts are. That said I've spoken with several very credible college admissions consultants and they all share a view that there aren't any true feeder schools anymore. There are Tier 1 schools with known standards of rigor that the TTs fall into along with top boarding schools, SHS's and also (critically) topic suburban publics. It sounds like coming from a top school is a check the box rubric like hitting a certain SAT score. After that it's all about the applicant's relative ranking in their class and how differentiated their story is relative to the rest of the qualified applicant pool.

Would be really curious to see if that's been everyone else's experience or if these consultants are more talking their book with their services being the easy way for an applicant to be differentiated.

Yeah… also to add HYP admissions committee definition of TT is very strict which may surprise a lot of the posters on this forum. I’ve only heard 4 schools being repeatedly mentioned in the nyc private k-12 ecosystem. Everything else will take a discount, meaning they will take class ranking with a grain of salt and think there is a lot of grade inflation generally. Don’t come for me I don’t make the rules.

Curious to know which 4 ?

Guessing here but: Dalton, Trinity, Brearley and Collegiate?

Actually not brearley because of the way they grade. And certainly not dalton. I think another poster mentioned, some privates schools recruit their class based on hook — especially for 9th grade. That’s why some schools look good for matriculation, but it has nothing to do with admissions based on academic excellence. It’s probably true that unless you rank top 10 at a real academic tier 1 private, you are better off at public.

How can this be true if Horace Mann sends ~50 kids to Ivies+Chicago? At what public, would the HM student #37 have better prospects?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Genuinely shocked by how toxic some of these posts are. That said I've spoken with several very credible college admissions consultants and they all share a view that there aren't any true feeder schools anymore. There are Tier 1 schools with known standards of rigor that the TTs fall into along with top boarding schools, SHS's and also (critically) topic suburban publics. It sounds like coming from a top school is a check the box rubric like hitting a certain SAT score. After that it's all about the applicant's relative ranking in their class and how differentiated their story is relative to the rest of the qualified applicant pool.

Would be really curious to see if that's been everyone else's experience or if these consultants are more talking their book with their services being the easy way for an applicant to be differentiated.

Yeah… also to add HYP admissions committee definition of TT is very strict which may surprise a lot of the posters on this forum. I’ve only heard 4 schools being repeatedly mentioned in the nyc private k-12 ecosystem. Everything else will take a discount, meaning they will take class ranking with a grain of salt and think there is a lot of grade inflation generally. Don’t come for me I don’t make the rules.

Curious to know which 4 ?

Guessing here but: Dalton, Trinity, Brearley and Collegiate?

Actually not brearley because of the way they grade. And certainly not dalton. I think another poster mentioned, some privates schools recruit their class based on hook — especially for 9th grade. That’s why some schools look good for matriculation, but it has nothing to do with admissions based on academic excellence. It’s probably true that unless you rank top 10 at a real academic tier 1 private, you are better off at public.

How can this be true if Horace Mann sends ~50 kids to Ivies+Chicago? At what public, would the HM student #37 have better prospects?

Or did you mean for HYP specifically? And as far as I can tell there is zero grade inflation at HM (people think there is grade deflation…)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. Genuinely shocked by how toxic some of these posts are. That said I've spoken with several very credible college admissions consultants and they all share a view that there aren't any true feeder schools anymore. There are Tier 1 schools with known standards of rigor that the TTs fall into along with top boarding schools, SHS's and also (critically) topic suburban publics. It sounds like coming from a top school is a check the box rubric like hitting a certain SAT score. After that it's all about the applicant's relative ranking in their class and how differentiated their story is relative to the rest of the qualified applicant pool.

Would be really curious to see if that's been everyone else's experience or if these consultants are more talking their book with their services being the easy way for an applicant to be differentiated.

This is exactly right. Harvard does not say “oh wow she went to B. She’s smarter and better prepared than John who went to HM. That settles that.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Genuinely shocked by how toxic some of these posts are. That said I've spoken with several very credible college admissions consultants and they all share a view that there aren't any true feeder schools anymore. There are Tier 1 schools with known standards of rigor that the TTs fall into along with top boarding schools, SHS's and also (critically) topic suburban publics. It sounds like coming from a top school is a check the box rubric like hitting a certain SAT score. After that it's all about the applicant's relative ranking in their class and how differentiated their story is relative to the rest of the qualified applicant pool.

Would be really curious to see if that's been everyone else's experience or if these consultants are more talking their book with their services being the easy way for an applicant to be differentiated.

Yeah… also to add HYP admissions committee definition of TT is very strict which may surprise a lot of the posters on this forum. I’ve only heard 4 schools being repeatedly mentioned in the nyc private k-12 ecosystem. Everything else will take a discount, meaning they will take class ranking with a grain of salt and think there is a lot of grade inflation generally. Don’t come for me I don’t make the rules.

Curious to know which 4 ?

Guessing here but: Dalton, Trinity, Brearley and Collegiate?

Actually not brearley because of the way they grade. And certainly not dalton. I think another poster mentioned, some privates schools recruit their class based on hook — especially for 9th grade. That’s why some schools look good for matriculation, but it has nothing to do with admissions based on academic excellence. It’s probably true that unless you rank top 10 at a real academic tier 1 private, you are better off at public.

Yep. HYPS may not respect B, but they have to accept their graduates if they have donor parents or some major FGLI angle. The admissions offices track the GPAs of current undergrads based on their HS. They know there’s no special B program that justifies their exmissions

[Anonymous]

This probably depends on what field the [unhooked] kids are going into. Brearley is still very strong in the humanities, and a graduate is guaranteed to have a level of verbal polish (and almost guaranteed to have a liberal lean). Theater is mandatory for a reason. And for STEM fields, girls with high level of aptitude are desirable, so 1 or 2 top math girls have reasonably good prospects (similarly to other top privates and publics). At least that's my rough extrapolation from the few happy outcomes I am familiar with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Genuinely shocked by how toxic some of these posts are. That said I've spoken with several very credible college admissions consultants and they all share a view that there aren't any true feeder schools anymore. There are Tier 1 schools with known standards of rigor that the TTs fall into along with top boarding schools, SHS's and also (critically) topic suburban publics. It sounds like coming from a top school is a check the box rubric like hitting a certain SAT score. After that it's all about the applicant's relative ranking in their class and how differentiated their story is relative to the rest of the qualified applicant pool.

Would be really curious to see if that's been everyone else's experience or if these consultants are more talking their book with their services being the easy way for an applicant to be differentiated.

Yeah… also to add HYP admissions committee definition of TT is very strict which may surprise a lot of the posters on this forum. I’ve only heard 4 schools being repeatedly mentioned in the nyc private k-12 ecosystem. Everything else will take a discount, meaning they will take class ranking with a grain of salt and think there is a lot of grade inflation generally. Don’t come for me I don’t make the rules.

Curious to know which 4 ?

Guessing here but: Dalton, Trinity, Brearley and Collegiate?

Definitely Trinity, Collegiate, and Brearley according to what I've heard from college consultants who used to be AOs at HYP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This probably depends on what field the [unhooked] kids are going into. Brearley is still very strong in the humanities, and a graduate is guaranteed to have a level of verbal polish (and almost guaranteed to have a liberal lean). Theater is mandatory for a reason. And for STEM fields, girls with high level of aptitude are desirable, so 1 or 2 top math girls have reasonably good prospects (similarly to other top privates and publics). At least that's my rough extrapolation from the few happy outcomes I am familiar with.

Almost the entire grade is filled with happy outcomes, unless you mean happy outcomes only with respect to HYP. Then it's only about 20% of the class that has happy outcomes in that narrow sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This probably depends on what field the [unhooked] kids are going into. Brearley is still very strong in the humanities, and a graduate is guaranteed to have a level of verbal polish (and almost guaranteed to have a liberal lean). Theater is mandatory for a reason. And for STEM fields, girls with high level of aptitude are desirable, so 1 or 2 top math girls have reasonably good prospects (similarly to other top privates and publics). At least that's my rough extrapolation from the few happy outcomes I am familiar with.

Almost the entire grade is filled with happy outcomes, unless you mean happy outcomes only with respect to HYP. Then it's only about 20% of the class that has happy outcomes in that narrow sense.

The conversation is about HYP and some posters delusion that B is a genius factory, so much so that it leaves other TTs in the dust. Occam’s razor says some of them are super rich and can buy spots

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This probably depends on what field the [unhooked] kids are going into. Brearley is still very strong in the humanities, and a graduate is guaranteed to have a level of verbal polish (and almost guaranteed to have a liberal lean). Theater is mandatory for a reason. And for STEM fields, girls with high level of aptitude are desirable, so 1 or 2 top math girls have reasonably good prospects (similarly to other top privates and publics). At least that's my rough extrapolation from the few happy outcomes I am familiar with.

Almost the entire grade is filled with happy outcomes, unless you mean happy outcomes only with respect to HYP. Then it's only about 20% of the class that has happy outcomes in that narrow sense.

I mean unhooked kids going to HYP.

To your general point, I'd say there is still a sizeable portion of B. seniors (maybe 30%?) who may not quite be going to where they (or their parents) were hoping for them to go. That of course speaks to their ambition, and the matriculations are no doubt very impressive!