The Death of Private School As We Know It

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1000+ applicants for 100 spots at our private. I don’t think it’s dying anytime soon.

As long as there is demand there will be supply.

And there will only be demand if they deliver a superior experience

For some that may be college admission for others that may be something else.

The admit list from our private is pretty impressive so not too worried. And with covid response by the publics vs privates across past 24 months, the roi is beyond there college admissions aside

Really?!? So which private school is this? 1000+ applicants for 100 spots! What a huge school!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should save accusations of racism for the very rare instances where it is actually true. If admissions favor URMs and lessen reliance on grades and test scores, can the effects of that on the school not be discussed objectively without calling somebody racist?

They are blatantly disfavoring certain races at the expense of other races, so the answer is no.

Go read the entire thread. It is racist when a supposed lesser reliance on grades and test scores is only a problem when URMs are involved. Do you think these schools care what rich, white people's grades and test scores were in the past? Or now? They certainly don't care about grades and test scores when white athletes are involved.

So a lack of reliance on grades and test scores isn't your problem because then you'd be complaining about athletic recruiting, legacy and donor admits. And you certainly wouldn't be saying that these colleges were elite in the early 1900s when grades and test scores meant even less (and the applicant pool was severely curtailed). So the only consistent theme that can reconcile these contradictory thoughts is that you only have a problem when URMs are supposedly the beneficiaries. It's not about merit and never has been. You don't want those people going to your precious 'elite colleges". That is a racist argument.

This is reinforced by the use of "Asian tennis players", which was also specifically cited as being a reason why elite colleges were less elite. Please explain to me how that isn't a racist argument. Are you going to argue that this is a symptom of the supposed lack of merit? If not, then what's wrong with having a few more Asian tennis players?

At the end of the day, the post basically was saying having URMs and Asians (I'll assume the poster had no problem with tennis players generally but that's being generous) degraded the value of an elite college. You can't make excuses that (i) this is about grades and test scores because you fail on the Asian front and (ii) this is about having rich, connected people on campus because you fail by not including white FGLI students in your rant. So all you're left with is simply saying "Colleges are more elite and valued when they're mostly white and wealthy".

This is what was actually written and called racist. Go ahead and defend it.

PP here. I wrote the post to suggest that elite colleges have become less elite as they admitted fewer and fewer of the wealthy and connected. My comment of about the Asian tennis players was just low level trolling and not part of the argument. Around 25% of Harvard's students are URMs. My discussion concerns admissions for the other 75% of the students.

I suspect the wealthy and connected have coalesced at schools that favor students from that background and that those schools will gain prestige at the expense of the ivies. Where do the graduates of the elite New England boarding schools go now that the ivies do not favor them? (I know that changed long ago.) Where do wealthy students from top DC private schools go that will favorably admit the children of the wealthy and connected? Which are the schools that wealthy (and accomplished) students seek out for networking and prestige?

1. You have nothing to substantiate that these schools have become 'less elite' except the presence of minorities.
2. What are these newly prestigious schools filled with wealthy people that you are referring to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Husband and I graduated from our state flagship and the private and Catholic school kids ran circles around everyone in the classroom and socially. I went to "one of the best" public schools in the state and could not keep up. They were on a different level. Anyone pinching pennies when it comes to kindergarten through 12th education for an alleged better roll of the dice with Ivies is frankly an idiot.

They're an idiot because there is no better roll at a DMV public. If you ever review the admits from Whitman, Wilson, Mclean, etc. something like 98% of the Ivy admits are legacy, athletes or URM. THE SAME FREAKING demographics as the private school admits. THERE IS NO MAGIC IVY-BOUND HIGH SCHOOL FOR WHITE OR ASIAN KIDS. Except many some of the NE boarding schools?
But actually I'm sure it's the same story there. More admits but they're probably also legacies, URM, athletes plus some Ivy faculty kids thrown in.

At least in the DC area, there aren't a lot of Asians in private high schools. Mainly public. Same for families from India

Isn't it interesting how public schools are still working for asian and indian kids???

interesting how you never hear asian parents saying public schools are not a good fit for their children the way you hear it from white parents on this forum. LOL!

Anecdotally, in my neighborhood, the enrichment programs like Kumon, Mathnasium, RSM, etc. are predominantly Asian kids. So public may work for them, but many, many feel the need to supplement quite a bit to make it work.

[Anonymous]

Why is it necessary for elite colleges to have different test or GPA threshholds for URM's? It can't be that the admissions offices are full of racists who have an agenda to keep the URMs out. (maybe 60-70 years ago, but not today). It seems to me that they could just accept the strongest applicants, regardless of race, and every group would be represented appropriately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is it necessary for elite colleges to have different test or GPA threshholds for URM's? It can't be that the admissions offices are full of racists who have an agenda to keep the URMs out. (maybe 60-70 years ago, but not today). It seems to me that they could just accept the strongest applicants, regardless of race, and every group would be represented appropriately.

Why is it necessary for you to keep making this claim about URMs and not about white athletes who clearly would not be getting in on their GPAs and test scores? Where is your outrage about that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it necessary for elite colleges to have different test or GPA threshholds for URM's? It can't be that the admissions offices are full of racists who have an agenda to keep the URMs out. (maybe 60-70 years ago, but not today). It seems to me that they could just accept the strongest applicants, regardless of race, and every group would be represented appropriately.

Why is it necessary for you to keep making this claim about URMs and not about white athletes who clearly would not be getting in on their GPAs and test scores? Where is your outrage about that?

+1. It’s absent because PP probably suspects (accurately as it turns out) that white, wealthy kids disproportionately benefit from the biggest hook - legacy status.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it necessary for elite colleges to have different test or GPA threshholds for URM's? It can't be that the admissions offices are full of racists who have an agenda to keep the URMs out. (maybe 60-70 years ago, but not today). It seems to me that they could just accept the strongest applicants, regardless of race, and every group would be represented appropriately.

Why is it necessary for you to keep making this claim about URMs and not about white athletes who clearly would not be getting in on their GPAs and test scores? Where is your outrage about that?

+1. It’s absent because PP probably suspects (accurately as it turns out) that white, wealthy kids disproportionately benefit from the biggest hook - legacy status.

Not any more. Legacies are increasingly non-white these days because the kids going to college today are offsprings of people who graduated from college in the late 1980s into the early 1990s, and schools were already starting to diversify.

The kids who benefit the most from hooks are the children of the very rich and connected. Most legacies barely get an acknowledgement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it necessary for elite colleges to have different test or GPA threshholds for URM's? It can't be that the admissions offices are full of racists who have an agenda to keep the URMs out. (maybe 60-70 years ago, but not today). It seems to me that they could just accept the strongest applicants, regardless of race, and every group would be represented appropriately.

Why is it necessary for you to keep making this claim about URMs and not about white athletes who clearly would not be getting in on their GPAs and test scores? Where is your outrage about that?

+1. It’s absent because PP probably suspects (accurately as it turns out) that white, wealthy kids disproportionately benefit from the biggest hook - legacy status.

Not any more. Legacies are increasingly non-white these days because the kids going to college today are offsprings of people who graduated from college in the late 1980s into the early 1990s, and schools were already starting to diversify.

The kids who benefit the most from hooks are the children of the very rich and connected. Most legacies barely get an acknowledgement.

Depends how you think of “increasingly”. 70% of legacy applicants at Harvard are white. I guess that’s less than 90% but it’s still a pretty overwhelming percentage.

And legacies are seven times more likely to be admitted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it necessary for elite colleges to have different test or GPA threshholds for URM's? It can't be that the admissions offices are full of racists who have an agenda to keep the URMs out. (maybe 60-70 years ago, but not today). It seems to me that they could just accept the strongest applicants, regardless of race, and every group would be represented appropriately.

Why is it necessary for you to keep making this claim about URMs and not about white athletes who clearly would not be getting in on their GPAs and test scores? Where is your outrage about that?

It’s not a claim, it’s a question. And I have no outrage about any of these categories (athlete, legacy, URM), but I am asking for somebody to articulate the reason. We know the reason why standards are lowered for athletes, black or white. Schools want winning teams, which translates into revenue and prestige. And we also know why they want legacies, because they want alums to have incentive to donate for decades, from graduation until matriculation of their next generation. But why is it necessary for regular students, ie, non athlete, non legacy students to be judged by race? Why can’t that pool just be judged purely on their objective academic merit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it necessary for elite colleges to have different test or GPA threshholds for URM's? It can't be that the admissions offices are full of racists who have an agenda to keep the URMs out. (maybe 60-70 years ago, but not today). It seems to me that they could just accept the strongest applicants, regardless of race, and every group would be represented appropriately.

Why is it necessary for you to keep making this claim about URMs and not about white athletes who clearly would not be getting in on their GPAs and test scores? Where is your outrage about that?

It’s not a claim, it’s a question. And I have no outrage about any of these categories (athlete, legacy, URM), but I am asking for somebody to articulate the reason. We know the reason why standards are lowered for athletes, black or white. Schools want winning teams, which translates into revenue and prestige. And we also know why they want legacies, because they want alums to have incentive to donate for decades, from graduation until matriculation of their next generation. But why is it necessary for regular students, ie, non athlete, non legacy students to be judged by race? Why can’t that pool just be judged purely on their objective academic merit?

Schools want what they want. You aren’t questioning the worth of athletes or legacies that they want. I find if curious this is the one you second guess. Gee. I wonder why.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like there is no answer to the question.

[Anonymous]

The primary/only value of elite colleges were to serve as a sorting/filtering mechanism for employers. Now that they don’t serve that function anymore, the value of elite colleges is little more than bragging rights at cocktail parties. Very expensive bragging rights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The primary/only value of elite colleges were to serve as a sorting/filtering mechanism for employers. Now that they don’t serve that function anymore, the value of elite colleges is little more than bragging rights at cocktail parties. Very expensive bragging rights.

If that’s what you think then you shouldn’t care what they do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The primary/only value of elite colleges were to serve as a sorting/filtering mechanism for employers. Now that they don’t serve that function anymore, the value of elite colleges is little more than bragging rights at cocktail parties. Very expensive bragging rights.

+1
Admissions standards have been lowered for decades for three pools of applicants (athletes, legacies, and URMs), but not enough to pull down the perception among employers that graduates of elite colleges are elite students. But if elite schools go to far, then the perception that elite schools = elite graduates will be gone. That seems to be happening right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The primary/only value of elite colleges were to serve as a sorting/filtering mechanism for employers. Now that they don’t serve that function anymore, the value of elite colleges is little more than bragging rights at cocktail parties. Very expensive bragging rights.

+1
Admissions standards have been lowered for decades for three pools of applicants (athletes, legacies, and URMs), but not enough to pull down the perception among employers that graduates of elite colleges are elite students. But if elite schools go to far, then the perception that elite schools = elite graduates will be gone. That seems to be happening right now.

Where do you see evidence of that happening?

And what is an “elite” graduate? I’ve know many HYP grads, and there is nothing that distinguishes any of them in a way that made me think they were on a different level. In fact, I’d never have guessed if they didn’t tell me or put it on their bio.

Of the 10 smartest people I know, 9 went to non-top 20 universities.