Class of '26 Instagram College Decisions
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Anonymous
Physics |
Anonymous
Excellent, UChicago physics department is top notch! If you don’t mind sharing - I am curious how this works wrt the school college counselor - was REA to HYP and then ED2 to Chicago something they suggested as a strategy from the get-go? |
Anonymous
PP here — the poster who said Physics is not me. DC is interested in Economics and Math! As for strategy with the school CC, they looked at DC’s school list ranked by preference and recommended ED2 to Chicago, which was DC’s third choice. Their first and second choices were HYP schools, and knowing just how big of a crapshoot RD is, ED2 at Chicago was a very wise choice that the CCO offered. They didn’t aggressively steer or anything like that, they just made sure we were aware that it was a really great option for DC to go to a school high on their list. No regrets! |
Anonymous
not a Brearley parent (but am a Spence parent) - at some point maybe the distractors will acknowledge it might actually be the students and the school. Over 50% of the class are POC, 20% get financial aid, and from talking to parents there it's not full of uber rich kids. The financial aid there is pretty remarkable. Under $100k a year income, no tuition cost. under $175k tuition is capped at $2k a year. The kids are smart and work extremely hard and are pretty driven. Not really sure all the hate. All the NYC girls schools do pretty well. Spence/Chapin/Nightingale all really good college results. But nothing compares to Brearley. 40 girls so far have posted on IG. Only 1 i would say I would be disappointed if my daughter went there. A couple of "so-so" schools like Oberlin, Wesleyan. ALL the rest are either elite (ivy, duke, stanford, etc) or T25 type schools (Emory, UNC). |
Anonymous
did they do similar analysis and help for all the kids? Do you think they steer kids to certain schools - such that there aren't like 20 kids applying early to Penn in any one year? (say someone is considering Penn or Columbia, and less Columbia ED candidates)? |
Anonymous
America is great at providing socioeconomic mobility for poor families. Once you reach upper middle class it starts to feel as if there is a ceiling because of the high taxes and having to pay for everything. Spending $1m+ for university of chicago feels differently if it was free or if your family net worth is $20m+. |
Anonymous
Also not a Brearley parent - but Brearley is 90% hooked kids. Some of are hooked because of legacy, some because they're on the X list b/c parents are famous or billionaires, some are fencers or sailors, and some are URM kids or FGLI kids who have proven themselves to succeed . or at least do well enough .. in PWOs. And those are the URM and FGLI elite colleges love the most. I would say this is also true at other TT schools, where 2/3rds of the kids are hooked. But at Brearley, it's 90%+ And for sure, they work their asses off for those high school years |
Anonymous
would you say the same about Spence? is that 2/3 as well? I don't think "legacy" is as big of a hook as the others, there are tens of thousands of legacies from Top colleges. Where are you getting your 90% comment? the few Brearley parents we know aren't hooked at all. Did most go to good colleges, yes, but generally upper middle class dual income households. Maybe we just know the unhooked families. |
Anonymous
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I would say Spence is more like 2/3rds too
I dont know that Brearley is 90% hooked, but I've literally never known a single kid who wasn't hooked. Legacy is less of a thing than it was 20 years ago, but even the most recent data we have shows it's a big big leg up. |
Anonymous
it's $1mm over 13 years and that assumes starting at K. most upper middle class families don't do that but rather start in 6th or 9th grade. you should know that difference. So, for a upper middle class family (in NYC), spending $300k for high school is totally doable especially if the outcomes are much better than public school. But your other points i agree with. |
Anonymous
If you are not a Brearley parent, how could you possibly know this? Heck, I am a Brearley parent and don’t know this. |
Anonymous
the 90% kind of is a made up number which i think you indirectly acknowledge. but i will push back a bit on the brearley comments and feel free to let me know where you think i am wrong. Brearley class is ~65 girls. 20% on financial aid is probably the right anchor for FGLI — that's 13 girls. Recruited athletes at a girls school of this size to academic-tier colleges is maybe 3 at most, and one or two overlap with the FGLI/Development bucket. Real development cases — meaning families where the school dev office will actually go to bat hard at elite schools — is maybe 6-8, and some of those overlap with athletes (squash, crew). Net of overlap you're at maybe 22-24 hooked girls, or 35-40%. Not 90%. And more importantly — being URM or FGLI doesn't mean a kid walks into Harvard. FGLI is a real hook but a Brearley FGLI girl still needs the grades, scores, and rigor to be competitive. The hook gets her looked at seriously and the contextual narrative gets weight, but she still has to be competitive against the rest of the applicant pool. Also note that I don't consider college legacy to be the hook people think it is. many schools have dropped it and where it's still used -it's a tiebreaker between already-admissible candidates, not something that pulls a marginal kid in (outside the 3 comma club) The Harvard alum on the earlier page said it directly — "the alum bump doesn't work the way I think most people assume it does." So even though plenty of Brearley parents went to HYPS, that's not what's driving these matriculation numbers. So if 35/60 girls go elite schools and only ~15 of the hooked actually convert that into elite admits, you've got ~20 unhooked girls getting elite outcomes. More importantly the number of really good schools (t30 or whatever) is probably close to 85%. Brearley girl is genuinely a top-decile candidate by graduation. Selective K admit, further filtering through middle school, deflated grading that admissions offices know is deflated, and 140 years of track record. The cynical "it's all rich parents and squash" framing is just wrong on the numbers. The opposite framing — "it's all about the students and teaching" — is also probably wrong as hooked is real and does boost top-line numbers. But 90% is not realistic. The cynical view is sour grapes at least in my opinion. |
Anonymous
It's sour grapes. |
Anonymous
If you include legacy broadly (one parent going to an "elite" school) - then maybe the Spence number comes close to that. Without it - much lower. |
Anonymous
I agree with this - but harvard will say they could scarp the entire class and offer it to the next group of kids and be just fine. I was on the tour when the presenter said 80% of applicants are qualified. My kids were all over SAT 1550 and great GPAs and didn't bother because they didn't have a hook. they had a lot going and got into T20s, but T5 schools love their hooks. But yes, the squash player and the FG kid all need to also have the stats. But .. what else is new? |