Class of '26 Instagram College Decisions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At some level, if paying $70k/year to send your kid to private school gives your kid a leg up in college admissions - whether through connections/name recognition or even through a legitimately better education - then that reflects an unfairness in society that we ought to be pushing back against, since it's not something most people can afford.

So if you assume (naively?) that post-Trump we're going to be back in the mindset of trying to make the world at least a little bit better bit by bit, one can expect the marginal benefit of sending your kid to Trinity on their college admissions prospects will be substantially lower in 13 years than it is now.

On the contrary I would have assumed that the current move away from racial profiling and focus towards qualifications only regardless of income or race in admissions would actually help students who attend a highly intense high school and come out highly qualified.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At some level, if paying $70k/year to send your kid to private school gives your kid a leg up in college admissions - whether through connections/name recognition or even through a legitimately better education - then that reflects an unfairness in society that we ought to be pushing back against, since it's not something most people can afford.

So if you assume (naively?) that post-Trump we're going to be back in the mindset of trying to make the world at least a little bit better bit by bit, one can expect the marginal benefit of sending your kid to Trinity on their college admissions prospects will be substantially lower in 13 years than it is now.

On the contrary I would have assumed that the current move away from racial profiling and focus towards qualifications only regardless of income or race in admissions would actually help students who attend a highly intense high school and come out highly qualified.

A highly intense high school that you don't have to be wealthy or win a financial aid lottery to attend, sure. So yay SHSAT schools, boo TT privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At some level, if paying $70k/year to send your kid to private school gives your kid a leg up in college admissions - whether through connections/name recognition or even through a legitimately better education - then that reflects an unfairness in society that we ought to be pushing back against, since it's not something most people can afford.

So if you assume (naively?) that post-Trump we're going to be back in the mindset of trying to make the world at least a little bit better bit by bit, one can expect the marginal benefit of sending your kid to Trinity on their college admissions prospects will be substantially lower in 13 years than it is now.

On the contrary I would have assumed that the current move away from racial profiling and focus towards qualifications only regardless of income or race in admissions would actually help students who attend a highly intense high school and come out highly qualified.

A highly intense high school that you don't have to be wealthy or win a financial aid lottery to attend, sure. So yay SHSAT schools, boo TT privates.

What does it matter whether the school is expensive or not if we're just evaluating candidates based on how well qualified they are?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At some level, if paying $70k/year to send your kid to private school gives your kid a leg up in college admissions - whether through connections/name recognition or even through a legitimately better education - then that reflects an unfairness in society that we ought to be pushing back against, since it's not something most people can afford.

So if you assume (naively?) that post-Trump we're going to be back in the mindset of trying to make the world at least a little bit better bit by bit, one can expect the marginal benefit of sending your kid to Trinity on their college admissions prospects will be substantially lower in 13 years than it is now.

On the contrary I would have assumed that the current move away from racial profiling and focus towards qualifications only regardless of income or race in admissions would actually help students who attend a highly intense high school and come out highly qualified.

A highly intense high school that you don't have to be wealthy or win a financial aid lottery to attend, sure. So yay SHSAT schools, boo TT privates.

What does it matter whether the school is expensive or not if we're just evaluating candidates based on how well qualified they are?

Agree. And what's a financial aid lottery even mean? These schools offer tremendous aid. I know families making 500-600k who get some aid and families making 100k have their kids go for free. If the kid is qualified and is admitted, and the family finances are below the thresholds, the kid will get aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At some level, if paying $70k/year to send your kid to private school gives your kid a leg up in college admissions - whether through connections/name recognition or even through a legitimately better education - then that reflects an unfairness in society that we ought to be pushing back against, since it's not something most people can afford.

So if you assume (naively?) that post-Trump we're going to be back in the mindset of trying to make the world at least a little bit better bit by bit, one can expect the marginal benefit of sending your kid to Trinity on their college admissions prospects will be substantially lower in 13 years than it is now.

13 years is a long time to look forward.

There has always been leg up in admissions for different areas (atheletes, donors, legacy, FGLI, certain demographic goals, etc). Perhaps during the last decade it's moved more to certain hooks being more important than others.

The one thing missing here is that your child still has to get into Trinity. It's not a slam dunk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At some level, if paying $70k/year to send your kid to private school gives your kid a leg up in college admissions - whether through connections/name recognition or even through a legitimately better education - then that reflects an unfairness in society that we ought to be pushing back against, since it's not something most people can afford.

So if you assume (naively?) that post-Trump we're going to be back in the mindset of trying to make the world at least a little bit better bit by bit, one can expect the marginal benefit of sending your kid to Trinity on their college admissions prospects will be substantially lower in 13 years than it is now.

On the contrary I would have assumed that the current move away from racial profiling and focus towards qualifications only regardless of income or race in admissions would actually help students who attend a highly intense high school and come out highly qualified.

A highly intense high school that you don't have to be wealthy or win a financial aid lottery to attend, sure. So yay SHSAT schools, boo TT privates.

What does it matter whether the school is expensive or not if we're just evaluating candidates based on how well qualified they are?

Agree. And what's a financial aid lottery even mean? These schools offer tremendous aid. I know families making 500-600k who get some aid and families making 100k have their kids go for free. If the kid is qualified and is admitted, and the family finances are below the thresholds, the kid will get aid.

what is the profile of the family making 500k getting some aid? Asset poor? athlete? First Gen? lots of kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I’m the trin/harvard poster again. Not sure wtf the person talking about networks is saying. Things don’t work that way. Think it’s just a bad faith argument which holds about as much truth as a lot of other assumptions people make about tt schools. mostly exaggerated or just false.

I agree that, at trin, there was a fairly pervasive sense of entitlement. BUT it was mostly contained within a certain clique, and never extended much beyond it. For most of us, it was the opposite: we worked like dogs all through school in part because none of us believed we would be handed anything. If we wanted to get into harvard or yale or stanford or whatever, we all knew that there were minimum 40 other candidates at least as good as us. COmpetition was FIERCE. You needed to be smart and figure out a way to differentiate yourself from a pretty talented student body all while navigating the strange politics of trinity and (occasionally) new york’s stratospheric classes and dealing with the insane workload. It’s a weird scene. Some of this is true at every school of course. But competition is so extreme at new york privates that it really feels zero sum. And thinking on those terms is itself a destructive, harmful way to go through high school - one of the things i only learned once i was in college and was able to breathe for the first time.

What I’d say about the mystique of ny tt is that some of it is cultivated by the schools, but so much of it comes from the outside and all the school can do is try to manage it. It’s what happens when there’s that much competition for few places in the biggest US city. And honestly, what people do to get their kids into these schools can be hilarious. I don’t think most of my trin classmates or my sib’s believed it was a ticket to anything, but an opportunity we had the choice to seize. Some kids did, some didn’t, but we were conscious of our choices.

I also don’t think anyone, NYC privately educated or not, who denies that you can go to any school and eventually become successful or that people who go to TT’s can wind up pretty poorly off. Mediocrity abounds wherever there are people, because most people (myself included) are pretty average.

I appreciate your feedback.

I would say the value proposition is what drives this debate for me. When you will be spending $1mm+ prior to college and the return on the investment is based on future potential rather than grounded in reality. Realistically the money is best served to save for them to have financial flexibility after college.

I am a fan of the K-8 model where the child needs to show talent and drive in wanting to pursue TT schools before investing a lot of resources.

This is a very good strategy on several levels and what we did. Go to a top performing elementary school - could be zoned or G&T (if that's still a real thing). See how talented and motivated the kids are - then in middle school or high school find the private school that's the best fit. And if you have more than one child - the ideal school might not be the same. Plus you save a ton of $$.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At some level, if paying $70k/year to send your kid to private school gives your kid a leg up in college admissions - whether through connections/name recognition or even through a legitimately better education - then that reflects an unfairness in society that we ought to be pushing back against, since it's not something most people can afford.

So if you assume (naively?) that post-Trump we're going to be back in the mindset of trying to make the world at least a little bit better bit by bit, one can expect the marginal benefit of sending your kid to Trinity on their college admissions prospects will be substantially lower in 13 years than it is now.

On the contrary I would have assumed that the current move away from racial profiling and focus towards qualifications only regardless of income or race in admissions would actually help students who attend a highly intense high school and come out highly qualified.

A highly intense high school that you don't have to be wealthy or win a financial aid lottery to attend, sure. So yay SHSAT schools, boo TT privates.

What does it matter whether the school is expensive or not if we're just evaluating candidates based on how well qualified they are?

Agree. And what's a financial aid lottery even mean? These schools offer tremendous aid. I know families making 500-600k who get some aid and families making 100k have their kids go for free. If the kid is qualified and is admitted, and the family finances are below the thresholds, the kid will get aid.

what is the profile of the family making 500k getting some aid? Asset poor? athlete? First Gen? lots of kids?

Lawyers, two kids (though only one in the school), for elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I’m the trin/harvard poster again. Not sure wtf the person talking about networks is saying. Things don’t work that way. Think it’s just a bad faith argument which holds about as much truth as a lot of other assumptions people make about tt schools. mostly exaggerated or just false.

I agree that, at trin, there was a fairly pervasive sense of entitlement. BUT it was mostly contained within a certain clique, and never extended much beyond it. For most of us, it was the opposite: we worked like dogs all through school in part because none of us believed we would be handed anything. If we wanted to get into harvard or yale or stanford or whatever, we all knew that there were minimum 40 other candidates at least as good as us. COmpetition was FIERCE. You needed to be smart and figure out a way to differentiate yourself from a pretty talented student body all while navigating the strange politics of trinity and (occasionally) new york’s stratospheric classes and dealing with the insane workload. It’s a weird scene. Some of this is true at every school of course. But competition is so extreme at new york privates that it really feels zero sum. And thinking on those terms is itself a destructive, harmful way to go through high school - one of the things i only learned once i was in college and was able to breathe for the first time.

What I’d say about the mystique of ny tt is that some of it is cultivated by the schools, but so much of it comes from the outside and all the school can do is try to manage it. It’s what happens when there’s that much competition for few places in the biggest US city. And honestly, what people do to get their kids into these schools can be hilarious. I don’t think most of my trin classmates or my sib’s believed it was a ticket to anything, but an opportunity we had the choice to seize. Some kids did, some didn’t, but we were conscious of our choices.

I also don’t think anyone, NYC privately educated or not, who denies that you can go to any school and eventually become successful or that people who go to TT’s can wind up pretty poorly off. Mediocrity abounds wherever there are people, because most people (myself included) are pretty average.

I appreciate your feedback.

I would say the value proposition is what drives this debate for me. When you will be spending $1mm+ prior to college and the return on the investment is based on future potential rather than grounded in reality. Realistically the money is best served to save for them to have financial flexibility after college.

I am a fan of the K-8 model where the child needs to show talent and drive in wanting to pursue TT schools before investing a lot of resources.

This is a very good strategy on several levels and what we did. Go to a top performing elementary school - could be zoned or G&T (if that's still a real thing). See how talented and motivated the kids are - then in middle school or high school find the private school that's the best fit. And if you have more than one child - the ideal school might not be the same. Plus you save a ton of $$.

G&T is not a thing anymore unless you win the Hunter Elementary lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I’m the trin/harvard poster again. Not sure wtf the person talking about networks is saying. Things don’t work that way. Think it’s just a bad faith argument which holds about as much truth as a lot of other assumptions people make about tt schools. mostly exaggerated or just false.

I agree that, at trin, there was a fairly pervasive sense of entitlement. BUT it was mostly contained within a certain clique, and never extended much beyond it. For most of us, it was the opposite: we worked like dogs all through school in part because none of us believed we would be handed anything. If we wanted to get into harvard or yale or stanford or whatever, we all knew that there were minimum 40 other candidates at least as good as us. COmpetition was FIERCE. You needed to be smart and figure out a way to differentiate yourself from a pretty talented student body all while navigating the strange politics of trinity and (occasionally) new york’s stratospheric classes and dealing with the insane workload. It’s a weird scene. Some of this is true at every school of course. But competition is so extreme at new york privates that it really feels zero sum. And thinking on those terms is itself a destructive, harmful way to go through high school - one of the things i only learned once i was in college and was able to breathe for the first time.

What I’d say about the mystique of ny tt is that some of it is cultivated by the schools, but so much of it comes from the outside and all the school can do is try to manage it. It’s what happens when there’s that much competition for few places in the biggest US city. And honestly, what people do to get their kids into these schools can be hilarious. I don’t think most of my trin classmates or my sib’s believed it was a ticket to anything, but an opportunity we had the choice to seize. Some kids did, some didn’t, but we were conscious of our choices.

I also don’t think anyone, NYC privately educated or not, who denies that you can go to any school and eventually become successful or that people who go to TT’s can wind up pretty poorly off. Mediocrity abounds wherever there are people, because most people (myself included) are pretty average.

I appreciate your feedback.

I would say the value proposition is what drives this debate for me. When you will be spending $1mm+ prior to college and the return on the investment is based on future potential rather than grounded in reality. Realistically the money is best served to save for them to have financial flexibility after college.

I am a fan of the K-8 model where the child needs to show talent and drive in wanting to pursue TT schools before investing a lot of resources.

This is a very good strategy on several levels and what we did. Go to a top performing elementary school - could be zoned or G&T (if that's still a real thing). See how talented and motivated the kids are - then in middle school or high school find the private school that's the best fit. And if you have more than one child - the ideal school might not be the same. Plus you save a ton of $$.

G&T is not a thing anymore unless you win the Hunter Elementary lottery.

that's what i thought. it's unfortunate, Nest and Anderson and Lower Lab provided very good education in our experience. Middle school was great as well till they made some changes which removed the testing for incoming 6th and 7th graders. But it was very good while our kids were there. The changes really impacted the quality of teaching in 6th and 7th grade we heard. I feel like there was probably a better way to solve the issue (minority representation at the school) but what's done is done.

unlikely to ever come back in a pure testing format (and not clear if that's the best approach anyway)

[Anonymous]

Elementary school G&T was a joke. I'm glad they got rid of it, particularly in neighborhoods that had good Gen Ed programs. One can make a better case for it at middle school, at which point it is easier to distinguish the truly "gifted."

My child who is now in HS was accepted to top G&T programs but we turned them down several times to stay at our excellent neighborhood public school. We are very glad we did that.