Largest percentage of private HS kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is all super helpful.

The more I read, think and crunch the data/fees, I am inclined not to have my child apply / enroll at large public Flagships. For the out-of-state tuition prices, I just don’t think it’s worth it - with the limited amount of undergrad focused resources. The value isn’t there for me.

If you think your kid needs a bit more handholding, undergrad resources, student-centric staff, administration, and programming, are the schools listed above the ones we should be focusing on? Are there any others? How do we figure out the “spend” per undergraduate student?

Profile: private school senior girl, full pay, non-DMV. Humanities major, top GPA stats/rigor + high test scores. Looking for social, friendly schools with attention from faculty.

Any and all advice appreciated.

I think you're asking two separate things. Your first question was schools that take a disproportionate number of students from private high schools. Your second question was schools that offer more support/hand holding/advising. The schools in both those lists might overlap, but it isn't the same thing.

I could be wrong but I’d assume schools with larger % of private HS kids would offer more of these handholding, robust freshman/undergrad focused services? That these types of students would gravitate towards these schools?

Is that wrong?

not necessarily. Private school is going to correlate with the ability to pay more than with the need for hand holding. Some times the two overlap, but not always

What exactly is handholding in this context?

Advisors who know you exist as a freshman, teachers expected to know a students name, responsive student life department especially with respect to housing.... The SLAC I went to gave professors large budgets to host freshmen for group dinners and my advisor met with me multiple times and pushed me towards certain clubs all of which were lavishly funded. Basically they did everything possible to bring freshman into the school community. My spouse went to Cal. They joke that for the first two years they doubt that any school employee knew their name or cared that they existed

Would schools like Amherst; Middlebury; Bard; Lehigh; Colgate; Wake; Richmond fall into this category?

Wake might be getting too big, I would assume the rest will. Ask on tours, these are things admissions loves to brag about

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS (from private HS) attends a small (not super competitive LAC). It has a well developed freshman experience and your student's advisor is the teacher of a freshman seminar your kid takes.

Yesterday during campus move in, my DS ran into two professors that know his name and that he was excited to see.

These schools exist - look for good freshman experience, residential housing that is integrated into the academic program, small classes where you can know your professor and good advising.

Some suggestions might be Union College in NY, University of Denver, Elon.

on the other hand, my son's friend is a freshman at a big flagship out of state - the freshman had to move in a week early and there are no required activities - so the kid is basically sitting around with nothing to do. He hasn't made friends yet and it's the weekend and no classes until Monday. That seems really hard.

My kid went on a week long camping with other freshmen trip in the Adirondacks led by the wilderness club. They showed up to move in already knowing a dozen kids. SLACs that care know how to make freshmen orientation work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is all super helpful.

The more I read, think and crunch the data/fees, I am inclined not to have my child apply / enroll at large public Flagships. For the out-of-state tuition prices, I just don’t think it’s worth it - with the limited amount of undergrad focused resources. The value isn’t there for me.

If you think your kid needs a bit more handholding, undergrad resources, student-centric staff, administration, and programming, are the schools listed above the ones we should be focusing on? Are there any others? How do we figure out the “spend” per undergraduate student?

Profile: private school senior girl, full pay, non-DMV. Humanities major, top GPA stats/rigor + high test scores. Looking for social, friendly schools with attention from faculty.

Any and all advice appreciated.

Wake is

I think you're asking two separate things. Your first question was schools that take a disproportionate number of students from private high schools. Your second question was schools that offer more support/hand holding/advising. The schools in both those lists might overlap, but it isn't the same thing.

I could be wrong but I’d assume schools with larger % of private HS kids would offer more of these handholding, robust freshman/undergrad focused services? That these types of students would gravitate towards these schools?

Is that wrong?

not necessarily. Private school is going to correlate with the ability to pay more than with the need for hand holding. Some times the two overlap, but not always

What exactly is handholding in this context?

Advisors who know you exist as a freshman, teachers expected to know a students name, responsive student life department especially with respect to housing.... The SLAC I went to gave professors large budgets to host freshmen for group dinners and my advisor met with me multiple times and pushed me towards certain clubs all of which were lavishly funded. Basically they did everything possible to bring freshman into the school community. My spouse went to Cal. They joke that for the first two years they doubt that any school employee knew their name or cared that they existed

Would schools like Amherst; Middlebury; Bard; Lehigh; Colgate; Wake; Richmond fall into this category?

Wake might be getting too big, I would assume the rest will. Ask on tours, these are things admissions loves to brag about

Wake is definitely like this. That’s their elevator pitch — small school environment with medium size school amenities. The class sizes are astonishing small, even for freshman, leading to very close relationships with professors.

[Anonymous]

I have a senior and a kid at Cornell (which tbh has a subpar first year program). After that 1st year struggle, we realized that our kids might thrive in a smaller more SLAC oriented campus where “everyone knows their name”.

This type of info is why I browse this site. Actually really valuable!

My senior has a few of these schools on the list but will push for a few others mentioned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS (from private HS) attends a small (not super competitive LAC). It has a well developed freshman experience and your student's advisor is the teacher of a freshman seminar your kid takes.

Yesterday during campus move in, my DS ran into two professors that know his name and that he was excited to see.

These schools exist - look for good freshman experience, residential housing that is integrated into the academic program, small classes where you can know your professor and good advising.

Some suggestions might be Union College in NY, University of Denver, Elon.

on the other hand, my son's friend is a freshman at a big flagship out of state - the freshman had to move in a week early and there are no required activities - so the kid is basically sitting around with nothing to do. He hasn't made friends yet and it's the weekend and no classes until Monday. That seems really hard.

My kid went on a week long camping with other freshmen trip in the Adirondacks led by the wilderness club. They showed up to move in already knowing a dozen kids. SLACs that care know how to make freshmen orientation work.

Vassar?

[Anonymous]

colgate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Slacs

Which ones??

Nearly all of them.

Not much at the top. More diversity and emphasis on public schools.

This seems to be true only of Swarthmore, which is 68 percent public school grads. Can’t find Williams data, but Amherst and Pomona are over 40 percent from independent/parochial schools.

Is 40% egregious now? That lines up for selecting some of the best students in the US.

It's high considering only 10% of K-12 students in the US attend private schools. I think what you mean is "lines up for selecting some of the richest students in the US."
-private school parent.

Well unless we know the breakdown of the applicant pool, test scores, and HS grades, there is no way to tell whether they are overrepresented or not. Private school kids get higher test scores and are more likely to apply to these scores, so it is very possible that 4X representation at these schools is actual proportion after adjusting for confounding variables.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Slacs

Which ones??

Nearly all of them.

Not much at the top. More diversity and emphasis on public schools.

This seems to be true only of Swarthmore, which is 68 percent public school grads. Can’t find Williams data, but Amherst and Pomona are over 40 percent from independent/parochial schools.

Is 40% egregious now? That lines up for selecting some of the best students in the US.

It's high considering only 10% of K-12 students in the US attend private schools. I think what you mean is "lines up for selecting some of the richest students in the US."
-private school parent.

Well unless we know the breakdown of the applicant pool, test scores, and HS grades, there is no way to tell whether they are overrepresented or not. Private school kids get higher test scores and are more likely to apply to these scores, so it is very possible that 4X representation at these schools is actual proportion after adjusting for confounding variables.

Well unless we know the breakdown of the applicant pool, test scores, and HS grades, there is no way to tell whether they are overrepresented or not. Private school kids get higher test scores and are more likely to apply to these schools, so it is very possible that 4X representation of these schools is actually proportional after adjusting for confounding variables.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS (from private HS) attends a small (not super competitive LAC). It has a well developed freshman experience and your student's advisor is the teacher of a freshman seminar your kid takes.

Yesterday during campus move in, my DS ran into two professors that know his name and that he was excited to see.

These schools exist - look for good freshman experience, residential housing that is integrated into the academic program, small classes where you can know your professor and good advising.

Some suggestions might be Union College in NY, University of Denver, Elon.

on the other hand, my son's friend is a freshman at a big flagship out of state - the freshman had to move in a week early and there are no required activities - so the kid is basically sitting around with nothing to do. He hasn't made friends yet and it's the weekend and no classes until Monday. That seems really hard.

Like Rice?
Are all SLACs (mostly) like this?

Both of my kids toured primarily SLACs and, yes, they were all like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Slacs

Which ones??

Nearly all of them.

Not much at the top. More diversity and emphasis on public schools.

This seems to be true only of Swarthmore, which is 68 percent public school grads. Can’t find Williams data, but Amherst and Pomona are over 40 percent from independent/parochial schools.

Is 40% egregious now? That lines up for selecting some of the best students in the US.

It's high considering only 10% of K-12 students in the US attend private schools. I think what you mean is "lines up for selecting some of the richest students in the US."
-private school parent.

That's the wrong data to consider though. In the class of '22 331,584 student in the U.S. graduated from private high schools. However, not all of the schools counted are college preparatory, as the data includes specialized schools, alternative schools, special education schools, and private institutions for a variety of special needs. Only about 70% of the private school were categorized as regular secondary schools. So the relevant data point is that 62.5 percent of the private school class of '22 matriculated to 4-year colleges, or about

[Anonymous]

Thanks for this post.
I’m also looking for a more collaborative, advisory-heavy freshman experience that offers a fair amount of structured “community-building” time along with heavy oversight and time from professors.

The list of schools here is good.
Are there particular SLACs to focus on for a kid who doesn’t want “too remote” and not tooo small?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is all super helpful.

The more I read, think and crunch the data/fees, I am inclined not to have my child apply / enroll at large public Flagships. For the out-of-state tuition prices, I just don’t think it’s worth it - with the limited amount of undergrad focused resources. The value isn’t there for me.

If you think your kid needs a bit more handholding, undergrad resources, student-centric staff, administration, and programming, are the schools listed above the ones we should be focusing on? Are there any others? How do we figure out the “spend” per undergraduate student?

Profile: private school senior girl, full pay, non-DMV. Humanities major, top GPA stats/rigor + high test scores. Looking for social, friendly schools with attention from faculty.

Any and all advice appreciated.

I think you're asking two separate things. Your first question was schools that take a disproportionate number of students from private high schools. Your second question was schools that offer more support/hand holding/advising. The schools in both those lists might overlap, but it isn't the same thing.

I could be wrong but I’d assume schools with larger % of private HS kids would offer more of these handholding, robust freshman/undergrad focused services? That these types of students would gravitate towards these schools?

Is that wrong?

not necessarily. Private school is going to correlate with the ability to pay more than with the need for hand holding. Some times the two overlap, but not always

What exactly is handholding in this context?

Advisors who know you exist as a freshman, teachers expected to know a students name, responsive student life department especially with respect to housing.... The SLAC I went to gave professors large budgets to host freshmen for group dinners and my advisor met with me multiple times and pushed me towards certain clubs all of which were lavishly funded. Basically they did everything possible to bring freshman into the school community. My spouse went to Cal. They joke that for the first two years they doubt that any school employee knew their name or cared that they existed

PP, What school is this?
We are looking for this exactly.

[Anonymous]

Emory, Georgetown, Vanderbilt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Slacs

Which ones??

Nearly all of them.

Nearly all of them. Families paying private for 12 years of education can and often pay full freight for college too. College want these kids!!

[Anonymous]

Especially if they are legacies!