Any Parents Privately Disappointed with College Placement?

[Anonymous]

Study skills, peer groups, quotas, legacies -- those are all common denominators in any school setting But how is it that everyone in this private/public exmissions debate seems to be forgetting the overwhelmingly superior SAT aggregates coming out of the top privates? Doesn't that give you a big leg up? Stop kidding yourself that a top public education is anywhere comparable to a top private school education in this area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Study skills, peer groups, quotas, legacies -- those are all common denominators in any school setting But how is it that everyone in this private/public exmissions debate seems to be forgetting the overwhelmingly superior SAT aggregates coming out of the top privates? Doesn't that give you a big leg up? Stop kidding yourself that a top public education is anywhere comparable to a top private school education in this area.[/quote

yeah, like so much better than say Thomas Jefferson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Study skills, peer groups, quotas, legacies -- those are all common denominators in any school setting But how is it that everyone in this private/public exmissions debate seems to be forgetting the overwhelmingly superior SAT aggregates coming out of the top privates? Doesn't that give you a big leg up? Stop kidding yourself that a top public education is anywhere comparable to a top private school education in this area.[/quote

yeah, like so much better than say Thomas Jefferson.

Yes. Better than TJ .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WTF right back-atcha. You read *that* into those two paragraphs? I think it says a lot more about who you are than who I am (wrong on every guess, BTW). I especially liked the part where you simultaneously reassured me that not all public schools are like "those dreadful southeast DC high schools" and castigated me for presumably seeking an environment full of people who look exactly like me. Personally, the peer groups at many local privates scare me a helluva lot more than the peer groups at many local publics.

Not surprisingly, I think the "naivety" is all on your part. Perhaps you're confusing me with a different PP, but I haven't argued that private always gives a kid the edge over public -- depends on the kid, depends on the public, depends on the private, depends on the kid's class rank (which depends, in part, on the kid's cohort).

Yes, if the kid will be at the very top of the class regardless of whether s/he goes to public or private, and if your kid will not be a legacy at the school s/he most wants to attend, and if your primary goal in choosing a HS is college admissions (rather than HS education), then your kid is better off at public.

But guess what? Very few kids will actually be at the very tops of their class, not all of them will get into the most coveted colleges, and parents (much less parents of elementary school-aged kids) are not the most accurate or objective judges/predictors of where their own kids should/will be.

If it's all about college admissions (which strikes me as the wrong approach but, for the sake of argument, I'll start from that premise), then the real question for most people here should be where will my kid be best off is s/he turns out to be a strong/capable student but not the star of his or her class? There are certainly kids in that category who will be better off at a private school -- but, again, it depends on which private vs. which public.

You need to adjust the tones of your posts, if they provoke such responses. Arguing that private kids are a better peer group than public kids is just offensive.

Unless you have some way to explain this statement that doesn't sound offensive, in which case we're all ears.

I think you have a reading comprehension problem. My initial statement was completely abstract -- e.g. what school you go to affects who your peers out, whether your motivated (and how). I didn't divide schools into public and private (categories so large as to be meaningless, I think) -- much less elevate one above the other. And in my subsequent statement (which you've quoted and I've italicized) on the topic I indicated that, actually, I have more concern about the cohorts at some private schools than at most local public schools. But, as I've stressed throughout, depends on the private, depends on the public, depends on the kid.

[Anonymous]

oops, who your peers *are* and whether *you're* motivated...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Study skills, peer groups, quotas, legacies -- those are all common denominators in any school setting But how is it that everyone in this private/public exmissions debate seems to be forgetting the overwhelmingly superior SAT aggregates coming out of the top privates? Doesn't that give you a big leg up? Stop kidding yourself that a top public education is anywhere comparable to a top private school education in this area.

A private school may have higher average SAT scores than a public high school. But the public high school would contain many different types of kids taking very different classes. (college prep, honors, AP, etc.) The top track so to speak very likely has as high or even higher SAT average test scores compared with area private high schools. You need to compare like populations.

[Anonymous]

TJ is the tops. Other schools are sending 1 , 2, 3, maybe 6 kids to Harvard every year? Try 12-20 from TJ admitted. (Ditto for Stanford, MIT, etc.) Don't kid yourselves, if you can get into and excel at TJ, it blows away the top 3 for college placement.

[Anonymous]

I haven't read all the posts but I'm curious...why and how does legacy or athletic ability matter in the long run? Legacy or athletic ability might get you into an Ivy but to stay there and after graduation to be able to apply the skills you learned into a lucrative or rewarding career is the real test isn't it? I knew a kid whose parents got him into Dartmouth Engineering program. But he floundered when he got there and he's struggling to graduate.

[Anonymous]

Well, that professional lacrosse league is paying salaries in the low five figure range, so there is a start.

[Anonymous]

Legacy means connections, which is a significant factor in your future job success. Connections can not only provide resources for your success, but they can also impart specific knowledge which can boost your chances of success (for example, no one would argue having a famous politician/political figure for a father helped the initial chances of success for Al Gore and Jesse Jackson Jr, either through funding or through the imparted knowledge of campaigning).

Don't undervalue legacy in a person's ultimate success in life. Lots of us ride the coattails.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TJ is the tops. Other schools are sending 1 , 2, 3, maybe 6 kids to Harvard every year? Try 12-20 from TJ admitted. (Ditto for Stanford, MIT, etc.) Don't kid yourselves, if you can get into and excel at TJ, it blows away the top 3 for college placement.

Blair had 53 national merit scholarship finalists last year, in a class of what, 700? That's 1 in every 14 kids. How many privates can say that, even after all the Kaplan classes? Richard Montgomery had 28, in a class of 500, which is about 6%. And as a PP said, many of the kids in these schools don't intend to go to college and didn't take the SATs. These schools also have Harvard admits, although not as many as TJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Unless you have some way to explain this statement that doesn't sound offensive, in which case we're all ears.

I think you have a reading comprehension problem. My initial statement was completely abstract -- e.g. what school you go to affects who your peers out, whether your motivated (and how). I didn't divide schools into public and private (categories so large as to be meaningless, I think) -- much less elevate one above the other. And in my subsequent statement (which you've quoted and I've italicized) on the topic I indicated that, actually, I have more concern about the cohorts at some private schools than at most local public schools. But, as I've stressed throughout, depends on the private, depends on the public, depends on the kid.

You simply need to stop insulting other posters and public schools. Talking about reading comprehension is rich from somebody who missed the irony in the word "dreadful" in an earlier post, and who is now trying to deny the whole public/private context of her earlier post (which the rest of us remember, however).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TJ is the tops. Other schools are sending 1 , 2, 3, maybe 6 kids to Harvard every year? Try 12-20 from TJ admitted. (Ditto for Stanford, MIT, etc.) Don't kid yourselves, if you can get into and excel at TJ, it blows away the top 3 for college placement.

TJ has NOT had 12 to 20 students admitted to Harvard every year, or even any year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't read all the posts but I'm curious...why and how does legacy or athletic ability matter in the long run? Legacy or athletic ability might get you into an Ivy but to stay there and after graduation to be able to apply the skills you learned into a lucrative or rewarding career is the real test isn't it? I knew a kid whose parents got him into Dartmouth Engineering program. But he floundered when he got there and he's struggling to graduate.

What do legacy and athletic admits have to do with engineering? Most of those broholes at DS's SS school don't take the hard math/science courses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You simply need to stop insulting other posters and public schools. Talking about reading comprehension is rich from somebody who missed the irony in the word "dreadful" in an earlier post, and who is now trying to deny the whole public/private context of her earlier post (which the rest of us remember, however).

Context was some poster (not me) made a claim that high school determines/has a major impact on where a kid goes to college. Some other poster (you?) responded that it wasn't the school but the kid(s) -- cohort, motivation, etc. At which point I said but school affects cohort, motivation, etc. A point I would have thought was pretty obvious/uncontroversial. You then nastily flame me for bashing publics and suggest that I'm racist. I point out I didn't say anything remotely resembling your interpretation and, in fact, that you've misjudged which cohorts I'd find problematic. Then you start accusing me of being a liar as well.

So, okay, I get it. You're impervious to reason. And now you're hearing voices (the rest of DCUM). I give up. Carry on without me.