Princeton early action?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best NE boarding schools get tons of kids into the Ivies, most of whom are not legacies. A lot are recruited athletes, though most are neither.

My daughter goes to one of these schools and this is mostly true. But the downside is for every 4 Yale acceptances (for example) there are 20-30 qualified applicants who would have been first in their classes at their public schools and likely had a better chance of admission if not compared to their BS classmates. Every year the director of college guidance emphasizes that while their matriculations look great, the majority of seniors were still disappointed.

If you selected the 50 highest performing students from the best private schools worldwide and dropped them into the Top 50 public high schools in America, you would be extremely fortunate if you produced more than 2 - 3 valedictorians. There's a distorted view of private vs. public education that exists for a lot of private school parents in this DCUM community. At the very high end, an easily defensible argument can be made that the students at the Top 50 public high schools in America are significantly more academically accomplished and capable than any of their contemporaries from the very best private high schools.

Having a distinct advantage over an average or below average public high school (perhaps the alternative for most of your daughter's classmates) is VERY different than competing with students from a high performing public high school - the kind of school where over 10 - 15% of a 500 student class is NMSF/F, and nearly 50% meet the Commended Scholar threshold in a high performing state, by way of example.

My daughter’s BS acceptance rate hovers at 12% and the majority of applicants are academically qualified. My daughter was first in her class of 650 in middle school and would have gone on to a top performing public high school but instead chose the boarding school for the small class size (and the full financial aid).

Consider that very few top-ranked kids in middle school go to boarding school, but continue on with their public HS.

My kid, who has always been a 99th percentile kid, works hard to maintain his As in the advanced math/science track at his PS. There are a few kids with him on this track who sit in the back of the class and are on their phones, play chess, etc, and still pull 100s on tests in the science class. They are either taking MV calc or other post-MV calc math as sophomores.

These kids do not need boarding school. The legacy kid who is not at an academic level with these kids (or even my kid) considers boarding school to give them an edge for Princeton because the athletic avenue is their best bet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Please note:

Expensive privates are where you'll meet the greatest concentration of parents who have been to Ivies.

Since universities have quotas for each school, it stands to reason that legacy kids will have better chances than non-legacy kids, everything else being equal. There are always more excellent students than there are spots.

Conclusion:

***If your kid is unhooked, attending a private is the worst thing you can do for selective college admissions!!! ***

But of course, your kid can attend to receive a stellar education. (Or attend a great public, and save money for college, retirement, etc.)

This. Top Private Schools in DC are no longer feeders in the sense that they used to be. For elective college admissions, get out and have your DC shine at a local public. For the effort they have to put into being at the top of their Big 3 Private, they will do very well at a Public as well, for sure. Better access to selective colleges after that.

This just isn’t true and there are plenty, if not more, hooked kids in the W public schools. Private school admissions isn’t as good as it was five years ago but still better than public high schools, especially when adjusting for the huge difference in class size.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Please note:

Expensive privates are where you'll meet the greatest concentration of parents who have been to Ivies.

Since universities have quotas for each school, it stands to reason that legacy kids will have better chances than non-legacy kids, everything else being equal. There are always more excellent students than there are spots.

Conclusion:

***If your kid is unhooked, attending a private is the worst thing you can do for selective college admissions!!! ***

But of course, your kid can attend to receive a stellar education. (Or attend a great public, and save money for college, retirement, etc.)

This. Top Private Schools in DC are no longer feeders in the sense that they used to be. For elective college admissions, get out and have your DC shine at a local public. For the effort they have to put into being at the top of their Big 3 Private, they will do very well at a Public as well, for sure. Better access to selective colleges after that.

This just isn’t true and there are plenty, if not more, hooked kids in the W public schools. Private school admissions isn’t as good as it was five years ago but still better than public high schools, especially when adjusting for the huge difference in class size.

yep, there are hooked kids at the publics but the elite private admissions in 2024 are not great unless you're top 10% or hooked. It's really hard to be top 10%.... could your kid realistically be better than 90% or 95% of kids at Sidwell or similar? That is not easy to do. These kids come from all over the DMV and are really, really smart in both STEM and the humanities (and also have a bit of luck and didn't get teachers who don't give As) . My kid came out of a public middle school at the top of her class and could not do this at Sidwell. Meanwhile the public school kids she left behind all have 4.5+ (DCPS). Moving to an elite private will be a step down for her admissions chances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of the posts on this thread exemplify what’s wrong and uninteresting about the Ivies. Many of the UMC kids that get in are not compelling students or people, but their parents will do ANYTHING to get them admitted. Then, you have the truly rich and well-connected, who associate with each, but no one else. Throw in the test-optional URMs, Pell grant kids, who are great people, but not the brightest or best connected of the application pool. Finally, you have the middle to UMC kids who are genuinely bright and thought they’d meet their academic peers, only to find out that three-quarters of the class is nothing like them. Whatever.

Hold up, Sis. You lost me with this veiled racism. Basically you’re saying that any poor brown kid at an Ivy must me intellectually inferior. Go pound sand.

Amen. Firstly, there are not that many URM kids at Ivies at all! The ones I've met are interesting, talented and bright, and some of them have overcome real challenges.

+1. Folks entitlement is out of hand. The greater majority of URM kids at elite universities are not slackers. And some aren’t starting out the game of life on 3rd base.

[Anonymous]

About half the students at DC's boarding school last year went to Ivy or equivalent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best NE boarding schools get tons of kids into the Ivies, most of whom are not legacies. A lot are recruited athletes, though most are neither.

My daughter goes to one of these schools and this is mostly true. But the downside is for every 4 Yale acceptances (for example) there are 20-30 qualified applicants who would have been first in their classes at their public schools and likely had a better chance of admission if not compared to their BS classmates. Every year the director of college guidance emphasizes that while their matriculations look great, the majority of seniors were still disappointed.

If you selected the 50 highest performing students from the best private schools worldwide and dropped them into the Top 50 public high schools in America, you would be extremely fortunate if you produced more than 2 - 3 valedictorians. There's a distorted view of private vs. public education that exists for a lot of private school parents in this DCUM community. At the very high end, an easily defensible argument can be made that the students at the Top 50 public high schools in America are significantly more academically accomplished and capable than any of their contemporaries from the very best private high schools.

Having a distinct advantage over an average or below average public high school (perhaps the alternative for most of your daughter's classmates) is VERY different than competing with students from a high performing public high school - the kind of school where over 10 - 15% of a 500 student class is NMSF/F, and nearly 50% meet the Commended Scholar threshold in a high performing state, by way of example.

Dp, but I don’t think you understand how competitive admission is to top boarding schools. Not at comparable to even top local day schools.

Why don’t the standardized test scores reflect that “competitive” process, then?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best NE boarding schools get tons of kids into the Ivies, most of whom are not legacies. A lot are recruited athletes, though most are neither.

My daughter goes to one of these schools and this is mostly true. But the downside is for every 4 Yale acceptances (for example) there are 20-30 qualified applicants who would have been first in their classes at their public schools and likely had a better chance of admission if not compared to their BS classmates. Every year the director of college guidance emphasizes that while their matriculations look great, the majority of seniors were still disappointed.

If you selected the 50 highest performing students from the best private schools worldwide and dropped them into the Top 50 public high schools in America, you would be extremely fortunate if you produced more than 2 - 3 valedictorians. There's a distorted view of private vs. public education that exists for a lot of private school parents in this DCUM community. At the very high end, an easily defensible argument can be made that the students at the Top 50 public high schools in America are significantly more academically accomplished and capable than any of their contemporaries from the very best private high schools.

Having a distinct advantage over an average or below average public high school (perhaps the alternative for most of your daughter's classmates) is VERY different than competing with students from a high performing public high school - the kind of school where over 10 - 15% of a 500 student class is NMSF/F, and nearly 50% meet the Commended Scholar threshold in a high performing state, by way of example.

My daughter’s BS acceptance rate hovers at 12% and the majority of applicants are academically qualified. My daughter was first in her class of 650 in middle school and would have gone on to a top performing public high school but instead chose the boarding school for the small class size (and the full financial aid).

How many single attempt 1520 PSAT, 1600 SAT and 36 ACT scores does that BS produce every year? Acceptance rates can be based on anything, and I’d guess academics are not the sole criterion at that BS, right? So the acceptance rate doesn’t necessarily indicate much to me.

[Anonymous]

OP again: I think the discussion went off rail, still looking for answers for the magic ingredients to get into Princeton

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP again: I think the discussion went off rail, still looking for answers for the magic ingredients to get into Princeton

There’s no such thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best NE boarding schools get tons of kids into the Ivies, most of whom are not legacies. A lot are recruited athletes, though most are neither.

I hear this too. It’s amazing how regionally focused Ivy admissions can be. Sure, they admit kids from everywhere, but their class skews to the NE.

It’s interesting because other top privates do this too, but posters then call these colleges regional schools. 15% of Harvard admits are from MA, but the state represents only 2% of the US population. I guess Harvard’s a regional too!

Princeton has a conscious commitment to taking NJ students. About 15 kids a year from Princeton High School go to Princeton, and lots of kids from other schools as well. I guess you could call that a regional focus? Or a commitment to providing opportunities to kids in its home state.

A large percentage of those kids have a parent who works for the university.

It's similar with Georgetown, and most schools.

[Anonymous]

The top private school kids will probably continue to go to Chicago in large numbers. Has anyone heard if Hopkins or Northwestern also got a lot of local ED2 applicants after Chicago fell below them in USNWR? Chicago looked like the catch-all ED2 school for solid students who were not admitted to places like Princeton, Stanford, and Harvard REA.

[Anonymous]

The posters above who said the key to college admissions is to NOT send your unhooked kid to a private school are 100% right. I learned the hard way at Sidwell. The high GPAs and tons of APs at the public school are critical to admissions.

[Anonymous]

If you want the key to getting into Princeton it is multifactorial:

1. Be URM
2. Be Legacy
3. Live in an area few Princeton students come from. In other words, move to West Virginia or Montana.
4. Ge a recruited athlete.

A white unhooked kid from the DC area needs to be top 10% of class with near perfect ACT/SAT scores (35 ACT minimum) and mind blowing ECs.

[Anonymous]

[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:The posters above who said the key to college admissions is to NOT send your unhooked kid to a private school are 100% right. I learned the hard way at Sidwell. The high GPAs and tons of APs at the public school are critical to admissions.

Our private regularly sends unhooked kids to Princeton, need to be at tip top of class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of the posts on this thread exemplify what’s wrong and uninteresting about the Ivies. Many of the UMC kids that get in are not compelling students or people, but their parents will do ANYTHING to get them admitted. Then, you have the truly rich and well-connected, who associate with each, but no one else. Throw in the test-optional URMs, Pell grant kids, who are great people, but not the brightest or best connected of the application pool. Finally, you have the middle to UMC kids who are genuinely bright and thought they’d meet their academic peers, only to find out that three-quarters of the class is nothing like them. Whatever.

Hold up, Sis. You lost me with this veiled racism. Basically you’re saying that any poor brown kid at an Ivy must me intellectually inferior. Go pound sand.

Nothing "veiled" about that. Wow.