Average Student at Big 3 - Where did your kid end up going to college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree. I was a college debator and visited all the Ivies and many of the small liberal arts colleges like Williams, Amherst, Swathmore, etc and invariably if the someone was from the DC metro area, they were from Bethesda, Chevy Chase, McLean, etc. Those public high schools send LOTS of kids to elite colleges many more than the private schools around here. Certainly enough to make an impression on someone from the Midwest who'd never heard of these high schools before.

Your math is screwed. They "send many more" because the number of students in public schools in the DC area far outweigh the number in private schools. But when you look at %, er, no, the best public schools in the area do not have better placement at the top ivies than the best private school. Obviously, TJ is a massive exception

Your logic is screwed. Lots of kids at area publics don't go to ivies because they are entering a trade that doesnt require a college degree, because the family couldn't afford SAT and subject tutors, because public schools can't select for test results, or because UMD or UVA is cheaper in state (shocker! Not everyone can afford a private school education.) The relevant comparison group is the cohort of kids in a public school who are vying for competitive colleges, not the whole school.

But you knew that. So if it makes you feel better, keep telling yourself that your kid's personal chances are much better in a private school where he will be competing against legacies and other kids who were selected for top test results.

[Anonymous]

Where you go for undergrad only matters while you're going there. Once it's in your past, on one will care.

[Anonymous]

GDS > Harvard

[Anonymous]

But of course.

[Anonymous]

Average students at Big 3 go to the same as the average students at MoCo W's. Tulane, BU, Wash U, etc. maybe UMD honors these days.

[Anonymous]

I am in a midwestern city, and we have one independent school, two Catholic prep schools and two really awesome public high schools. (The other high schools are not so great!). I have known a few friends who went to Ivies, and guess what? They are underemployed. The kids who did well, went to local small private or public schools, have been better career wise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Average students at Big 3 go to the same as the average students at MoCo W's. Tulane, BU, Wash U, etc. maybe UMD honors these days.

Wash U in St. Louis is much more selective then either BU or Tulane. The kids who go there from our school are strong.

[Anonymous]

The average student from a selective school is strong. Wash U gets a lot of kids who are smart but didn't work as hard as the top of the class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I are battling over whether to keep our son at a Big 3. He is in 9th grade, and as far as we can tell, is in the bottom half of his class. Bright kid. Good extracurriculars, but nothing to really make him stand out. I'm of the mind that paying 30K + per year is an investment of sorts, and can't really be measured by college placement. My DH is much more data driven, and thinks that if our son isn't going to end up at a top university by virtue of his bottom half status, we might as well just go public. We are in the BCC school district.

I still think that even bottom half kids at Big 3 schools end up at name brand colleges. But apart from thinking that, have nothing to back it up. So, if your kid was at a Big 3 and was not an academic standout, but in the bottom half, where did he/she end up going to college?

We are in a similar boat, with a rising 8th grader at a large MoCo private, paying $35k+ per year for our middle-of-the-road son, on top of paying taxes for all the public school kids. While DH and I make a nice living, that extra $35K/yr would look tremendous in our investment account, with retirement not too far down the horizon. I often ask myself the same question, since I know that my charismatic son will not be spending four years in Cambridge, New Haven or Palo Alto.

But we leave him in because his school gives my son confidence, a positive community attitude, and leaves him surrounded by children with like-minded parents. We fear that sending him to a large public (we are in the BCC cluster) would present too many temptations. I know that there are some tremendous students that come out of the local public schools (and I attended suburban public schools myself, K-12), but I fear my son would be attracted to the kids who run toward the bottom 20%, not the top 50%. So we leave him in private, to help Jesus in our pleas to not "lead him not into temptation".

Plus, with my son's charisma I see him in sales later on, and 20 years from now his private school friends may be in a better position to purchase insurance, a car or software from him -- or even contribute to his campaign.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In our experience at two big 3's recently, and with stepkids in publics like BCC, sort of depends what average means in terms of college admissions. It seems like at these schools there is a top 20% that are taking all the most challenging courses, are National Merit SF's or end up improving by SATs enough to be in the 2300 range, grades almost all As (rarely 100% As at the top independents) and are realistically looking at the top Ivys and LACs. Then there may be a lower 10% that are struggling academically, not really focused on academics in HS or for college etc. Then there is everyone else kind of in the middle, ie not in the absolute most accelerated courses for every subject, in the 2000-2200 SAT range, grades some As and Bs and even low Bs or Cs here and there. And I think if anything those kids may benefit the most from being at a private with strong academics, where they have much more individualized college counseling, can have perhaps a super close relationship with a few teachers that could end up writing very personal recommendations, more chances for leadership and intense involvement in extracurriculars within the school. College admissions is a real crap shoot, [b]but the middle kids seem to end up places such as Wash U, Vanderbilt, Tufts, U Va, Wesleyan, NYU, CCMC or even Cornell if lucky or some hook/connection, and places like Tulane, Emory, U Mich, Colby, Wake Forest, Davidson, Kenyon if maybe not quite as lucky or without super extracurriculars.[b] And when they get to those places, they will do great academically in general because they will have really learned to write, and speak and think in small groups and under pressure. Some of my kids classmates have transferred successfully to much more academically high-profile schools after a year or two, having done incredibly well at their first institution.

These lists don't really make sense to me. Davidson, for instance, is significantly harder to get into than NYU & is ranked much higher: http://colleges.startclass.com/compare/2878-3052/New-York-University-vs-Davidson-College
& is pretty comparable to Wesleyan (if anything it has slightly more competitive admissions, but the difference is so small that comparing their admissions is really splitting hairs ): http://colleges.startclass.com/compare/782-3052/Wesleyan-University-vs-Davidson-College

[Anonymous]

I wonder if OP could give us an update on how the mediocre-student son turned out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Average students at Big 3 go to the same as the average students at MoCo W's. Tulane, BU, Wash U, etc. maybe UMD honors these days.

I have had one child at MoCo W and 3 at different big 3s. IMO, the above is definitely not true. The class size and % are too different. Probably fairer to compare the top 20% of an excellent public to the entire class of a big 3. You can get a superb and equal education at both, but not the same for the majority of the students at an excellent public.

[Anonymous]

Several 50% students at my DC's Big 3 ended up at state flagships, top 10 Lacs, and some top25 USNWR schools, and most others (50%-25%) at 25-50 schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Several 50% students at my DC's Big 3 ended up at state flagships, top 10 Lacs, and some top25 USNWR schools, and most others (50%-25%) at 25-50 schools.

I meant 50-75%.

[Anonymous]

It's really hard to say what the 50% percentile is at these schools. I think it is more like four clumps -- tippy top (top 5% of class), almost tippy top (15-20% of class), the middle (most of the class), and the bottom 20%. In my experience, all these kids are pretty smart and students from the top three categories have a shot at top schools, depending on other factors.