Bias against privates high school in admissions?

[Anonymous]

It depends on the school. For example, top Catholic universities like Notre Dame and Boston College really like top kids coming out of private Catholic high schools vs. public schools. A lot of it may have to do with yield, knowing kids out of Catholic schools are more likely to want to attend/enroll if admitted.

For example, Notre Dame only admitted about 5 percent of MCPS applicants last year, vs. an overall admit rate of 11 percent. I know for a fact that Catholic school admit rates are even higher than 11 percent.

[Anonymous]

OP, where's your data because your post seems to be all about feelings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe expand your horizons beyond the neighbor’s kid who goes to a public and got into UVa, but your friend Sally’s son didn’t despite her saying that he’s doing really well at Gonzaga.

According to the WSJ:
Among all high-school students in the U.S., 8.5% attend private high schools, according to federal data. Among the eight Ivy League schools, the percentage of students who graduate from a private high school is about four to five times that.

So for every 100 spots in an Ivy League, 40 of them are taken up by a student from a private school.

These 40 students have the strongest academic backgrounds and can afford to pay full tuition, ensuring the Ivy League school at least four years of tuition revenue. This allows the school to provide merit-based aid to attract the other 60 students with super high academic record, which contributes substantially to the school overall academic ranking. They dont want just rich kids, but academic rich kids, so that school academic reputation is still intact.

I do not agree with your premise that those forty students have the strongest academic backgrounds.

Given the endowments of the Ivy League schools and their non profit tax free status their financials would indicate that they do not need the full pay tuition of these forty students either; so they are not filling their classes for the greater good.

If they truly exist to educate the scions of society I am ok with that - let’s just call it as it is and revoke their non-profit status.

And use the resultant tax collections to further invest in our education system and build out the college equivalents of the TJ’s, Stuyvesants, and Bronx Sciences.

We should not be hoarding the opportunities behind the veil of prestige; we should be expanding them by providing them to our best and brightest independent of SES. That’s how we grow our society.

There’s a reason Bronx Science not Andover nor Exeter has produced the most Nobel Laureates of any secondary school in this country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:(I posted this in private schools but I think it’s maybe more relevant here)


Look I know this is an uncomfortable topic. Probably one you’ll want to deny if you have a kid in private. But could we have a frank convo about this? I have multiple friends with kids in privates who have top grades and SAT scores but don’t get into schools that their public counterparts do. Like UVA for example.

I get it-there’s a backlash against the perceived privilege of privates, but how bad is it? I keep hearing about first generation college students being what’s sought after. How true is this?

We are debating public vs private for high school. DS has been accepted to an elite private for upper school but has a great public. We see so many intangible benefits to attending the private, things like character and social skills and being more in alignment with our family values. Public has a solid education & offers great academics but lacks the focus on those things. And I have a number of friends with kids from privates that didn’t get into schools their public counterparts did. To the point that I’m being warned to go public instead!

How true is this? I get that college overall is so much harder to get into-but is there a bias against privates now in admissions?? Have you experienced this?

This does not exist. If anything Privates still have an advantage. Look at results this year. Off the charts. So no you are off.

[Anonymous]

Troll harder, recent arrival reddit teenager.

48 year old women (aka, the moms of a middle schooler contemplating private HS and beyond) do not frame the equation like you did OP.

Nor do they say “convo”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the secret:
OOS flagships do not really have holistic admissions in the same way and tend to like AP and weighted GPA. Many private high schools have neither….
But private universities understand that very well.

+1. This. So yes, maybe it helps to get into an 80K/year private college in that T25-T40 but if you you don’t qualify for need based and either can’t afford or will only pay x amount if it’s a top school, go with eyes wide open that it could make in-state options like UVA or UMD harder to get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:(I posted this in private schools but I think it’s maybe more relevant here)


Look I know this is an uncomfortable topic. Probably one you’ll want to deny if you have a kid in private. But could we have a frank convo about this? I have multiple friends with kids in privates who have top grades and SAT scores but don’t get into schools that their public counterparts do. Like UVA for example.

I get it-there’s a backlash against the perceived privilege of privates, but how bad is it? I keep hearing about first generation college students being what’s sought after. How true is this?

We are debating public vs private for high school. DS has been accepted to an elite private for upper school but has a great public. We see so many intangible benefits to attending the private, things like character and social skills and being more in alignment with our family values. Public has a solid education & offers great academics but lacks the focus on those things. And I have a number of friends with kids from privates that didn’t get into schools their public counterparts did. To the point that I’m being warned to go public instead!

How true is this? I get that college overall is so much harder to get into-but is there a bias against privates now in admissions?? Have you experienced this?

Admissions has not been posted for DMV elite privates yet....?

[Anonymous]

There is a big difference between your run of the mill parochial (catholic) school and your independent school. I can't see the cash cow of the latter ever changing how colleges view those students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:(I posted this in private schools but I think it’s maybe more relevant here)


Look I know this is an uncomfortable topic. Probably one you’ll want to deny if you have a kid in private. But could we have a frank convo about this? I have multiple friends with kids in privates who have top grades and SAT scores but don’t get into schools that their public counterparts do. Like UVA for example.

I get it-there’s a backlash against the perceived privilege of privates, but how bad is it? I keep hearing about first generation college students being what’s sought after. How true is this?

We are debating public vs private for high school. DS has been accepted to an elite private for upper school but has a great public. We see so many intangible benefits to attending the private, things like character and social skills and being more in alignment with our family values. Public has a solid education & offers great academics but lacks the focus on those things. And I have a number of friends with kids from privates that didn’t get into schools their public counterparts did. To the point that I’m being warned to go public instead!

How true is this? I get that college overall is so much harder to get into-but is there a bias against privates now in admissions?? Have you experienced this?

The issue isn't a bias. The issue is that any elite private in DMV will have a fair share of VIP, legacy, athlete, and URM students for top colleges to choose from. A super smart kid with GPA/testscores can be leapfrogged by all of these hooked applicants (some with high stats, some not). The reason is that these top colleges want to fill a class with a mix of students - they KNOW that these hooked kids will all do just fine at their university having gotten through the elite DMV private.

It's hard to say whether the same kid would do better in public. If you go to some DMV public that also has legacy, VIP, athletes, URM - you'll have the same issue.

I do think the private school kid will have better luck a highly regarded private (outside of T20) than from a public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the secret:
OOS flagships do not really have holistic admissions in the same way and tend to like AP and weighted GPA. Many private high schools have neither….
But private universities understand that very well.

+1. This. So yes, maybe it helps to get into an 80K/year private college in that T25-T40 but if you you don’t qualify for need based and either can’t afford or will only pay x amount if it’s a top school, go with eyes wide open that it could make in-state options like UVA or UMD harder to get in.

+1 I think it helps with this group. Doesn't help with state schools. REALLY hurts for U California schools because of lack of AP designation on courses (that are often just has hard and rich as AP).

[Anonymous]

OP, it depends. How smart is your child and do you have legacy? If they are wealthy, legacy, and smart, that's perfect. There are many wealthy people in this area that know how to make money but their children are not book smart. If you are coming from private, you need to be all and not ask for financial aid.

[Anonymous]

This is a really complicated thing to study and no one on this board is going to give you more than their own gut reaction. Even if I think about how to set up a big research study to answer your questions, a huge number of methodological problems arise in getting to a good answer.

A big one is that the profile of a kid going to private is completely different from one going to public. Private school kids are pretty much 100% in families that place a strong value on education, generally, and probably also on brand name education, specifically. Their parents are, themselves, educated and probably wealthy, and probably savvy about the college admissions game. So a straight comparison of the percentage of kids from public/private going to a name-brand college won't tell you anything because you're not comparing apples to apples.

In other words, since the profile of the private school kid (not in terms of intelligence, but in terms of commitment and preparation) should give them huge advantages in college admission, the question is whether their positive outcomes are as high as they 'should' be given that kid's profile.

In other words, if you took the same kid (whose parents will hire them tutors and push them along the perfect path in the college admissions game) and put them in public vs private, where are the better admissions chances? I've no idea, but I could imagine that OP might be right. That kid (with their parental advantages) might have a better chance out of a public school.

[Anonymous]

I have public and private school kids.
My anecdotal observation is that private school kids have better results with ivies and privates, although the ivy admits I know are double hooked. Public school kids have more success with top publics and the UC system.

This could also be a situation of self selection meaning that private students are more likely to want another private environment over a public and therefore are more likely to pursue those schools and subsequently be admitted in larger numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wealthy people just don’t use public high school. Personally I never even considered it.

Omg did you type this with a straight face?

Honestly, I wouldn’t have said that but I pretty much agree. We never considered public. We send our kids to private because we can easily afford $50k tuition (x4) and we really don’t know many people that send their kids to public school. Maybe for elementary school they do public? I don’t know.

Ditto….
Small classes/bespoke curriculum /Amazing eye-opening ECs, research ops and independent studies and no rowdy distractions- well worth it

Did you just use “bespoke” with reference to your child’s education?? Please, please stick to private school.

It's like a skit from SNL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a big difference between your run of the mill parochial (catholic) school and your independent school. I can't see the cash cow of the latter ever changing how colleges view those students.

there are plenty of independent catholic schools too.