Ever disappointed when you look at lists of where kids are going to college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People at Big 3 who are disappointed: Did you ever do the math? How could a slew of students from your child's school get into top schools when there are schools on par or superior to your child's around the country. Think boarding schools. It astonishes me, this thinking. It is provincial.

DC private school parents are, as a group, very provincial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My DD attended NCS, none of her college friends had heard of it. Yes, many kids came from top boarding schools and other nationally-recognized day schools. Her grades and board scores were comparable to her peers. Not speaking for the other Big 3 pps, I assumed the school's name and reputation would carry some weight. In hindsight, sure my thinking was provincial, fortunately DD was a stellar applicant.

Why would you know the top schools in a city you don't live in, unless you have relatives there or lived there for a while or participated in a ton of national competitions? Can you name all the top prep schools in Los Angeles, for example? Especially at age 18, why would you care to store that information in your head?

Unless they've been living under a rock, most college-aged teens have probably heard of these schools: Andover, Exeter, Spence, Dalton

mine knows only the high schools close by, from track meets...those boarding schools are not known by tons o teens, and adults

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is ridiculous. One simply cannot equate college admittances solely to the school itself. What about the STUDENT???? Regardless of the school, if the STUDENT doesn't have the scores/grades they simply won't get in. HOWEVER, before the knives come out, keep in mind that YES, there will be some legacies getting in spite of their performance. Those of course boost the particular school's profile. Anyone who thinks simply getting into a Big 3 is a ticket into HRP needs to drink some more expensive wine and chill out.

Point is that these are "good" schools -- whether they are NJ publics or DC Top 3 -- that are touting their "good" results -- but when you look at the list, you see too many who are going places out of the top 10/top 25 and you wonder what these schools consider "good."

Maybe, just maybe these kids got into excellent programs in 2nd tier colleges. Maybe they got into honors colleges in the same. Maybe they received spectacular merit scholarships and saved their families a lot of money and ensure that future law or medical school will be paid for.
Or all of the above.

[Anonymous]

I dunno, I feel like I'm pretty aware of the world. I've lived in a number of cities, went to a SLAC where a lot of people were from prep schools, have a professional career, and now as an adult, I have met and am generally aware of people who went to Dalton, Choate, Andover, Exeter, University of Chicago Lab, Sidwell Friends etc. and I have also met several people who attended the top magnet schools in this country, i.e. Stuyvesant, Thomas Jefferson, Lowell, etc. However this general awareness did not happen until adulthood. When I was a teenager, I simply was not concerned with such things--I knew of one person who went to Exeter, one who went to Choate, and one who went to Taft. The most common reason for going to boarding school was to play ice hockey at a higher level than what was available in club sports in our area. I went to a well regarded suburban high school in the Chicago suburbs, and I was generally aware of Chicago prep schools like Lab and Latin. I didn't know or care much about schools in New York or NE boarding schools.

As I've gotten older and I have more college friends, colleagues, and friends whose kids who attend those schools, so I am aware of them. But if you were to choose a random city that I have no ties to, say LA or Atlanta (both of which have excellent prep schools), I can't say I'm super familiar with the schools over there.

DH who grew up in a small, rural town has even less awareness of this shit than I do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I dunno, I feel like I'm pretty aware of the world. I've lived in a number of cities, went to a SLAC where a lot of people were from prep schools, have a professional career, and now as an adult, I have met and am generally aware of people who went to Dalton, Choate, Andover, Exeter, University of Chicago Lab, Sidwell Friends etc. and I have also met several people who attended the top magnet schools in this country, i.e. Stuyvesant, Thomas Jefferson, Lowell, etc. However this general awareness did not happen until adulthood. When I was a teenager, I simply was not concerned with such things--I knew of one person who went to Exeter, one who went to Choate, and one who went to Taft. The most common reason for going to boarding school was to play ice hockey at a higher level than what was available in club sports in our area. I went to a well regarded suburban high school in the Chicago suburbs, and I was generally aware of Chicago prep schools like Lab and Latin. I didn't know or care much about schools in New York or NE boarding schools.

As I've gotten older and I have more college friends, colleagues, and friends whose kids who attend those schools, so I am aware of them. But if you were to choose a random city that I have no ties to, say LA or Atlanta (both of which have excellent prep schools), I can't say I'm super familiar with the schools over there.

DH who grew up in a small, rural town has even less awareness of this shit than I do.

The NE and Mid-Atlantic are very different from the Midwest and other areas where a strong public school system was established at a time that there were not many private schools (apart from parochial schools). Chicago doesn't have the range of non-Catholic private schools we have here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is ridiculous. One simply cannot equate college admittances solely to the school itself. What about the STUDENT???? Regardless of the school, if the STUDENT doesn't have the scores/grades they simply won't get in. HOWEVER, before the knives come out, keep in mind that YES, there will be some legacies getting in spite of their performance. Those of course boost the particular school's profile. Anyone who thinks simply getting into a Big 3 is a ticket into HRP needs to drink some more expensive wine and chill out.

Point is that these are "good" schools -- whether they are NJ publics or DC Top 3 -- that are touting their "good" results -- but when you look at the list, you see too many who are going places out of the top 10/top 25 and you wonder what these schools consider "good."

Maybe, just maybe these kids got into excellent programs in 2nd tier colleges. Maybe they got into honors colleges in the same. Maybe they received spectacular merit scholarships and saved their families a lot of money and ensure that future law or medical school will be paid for.
Or all of the above.

right. Also, maybe they went to the school their girlfriend or boyfriend chose to go to.
Or the one closest to home because they felt more comfortable there.
Or the lowest cost option because they didn't want a bunch of debt.
Lots of possible reasons.

[Anonymous]

21:09 Times have changed. Today's teens, high school and college students, are more aware of these things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is ridiculous. One simply cannot equate college admittances solely to the school itself. What about the STUDENT???? Regardless of the school, if the STUDENT doesn't have the scores/grades they simply won't get in. HOWEVER, before the knives come out, keep in mind that YES, there will be some legacies getting in spite of their performance. Those of course boost the particular school's profile. Anyone who thinks simply getting into a Big 3 is a ticket into HRP needs to drink some more expensive wine and chill out.

Point is that these are "good" schools -- whether they are NJ publics or DC Top 3 -- that are touting their "good" results -- but when you look at the list, you see too many who are going places out of the top 10/top 25 and you wonder what these schools consider "good."

Maybe, just maybe these kids got into excellent programs in 2nd tier colleges. Maybe they got into honors colleges in the same. Maybe they received spectacular merit scholarships and saved their families a lot of money and ensure that future law or medical school will be paid for.
Or all of the above.

right. Also, maybe they went to the school their girlfriend or boyfriend chose to go to.
Or the one closest to home because they felt more comfortable there.
Or the lowest cost option because they didn't want a bunch of debt.
Lots of possible reasons.

I'll add on to this:
Who really is to say those schools don't give a good education? You really think a bunch of editors from US News who sit around Georgetown all day have any idea? Are they in the classrooms comparing? I went to what is considered a top school myself but I don't doubt that you cannot get a good education from a whole variety of places. I think we all know very smart, capable people who went to no-name colleges.

[Anonymous]

To answer the OP's original question, no it doesn't disappoint me. One, why should I be disappointed in where other people's kids go to school? Two, I don't care if my children go to Ivy League schools or not. I care that they try hard and cultivate passions, and then go to schools where they can be both challenged and HAPPY.

My friends who went to state schools and less-prestigious private schools, almost every single one, had a better college experience than my friends who went to Ivies, and we all ended up in the same place.

[Anonymous]

Only a handful of schools send more than one student to the Ivies. And even in top NE prep schools, it does not top 20%. More like 10%. As for schools around DC, it is still only a handful from public. So from a class of 450, there will be 4 going to Ivies. (Not talking about the other 100 top schools) I think TJ, NCS, Holton, GDS send the most from accurate lists that I have seen -- off the top of my head.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now I realize that an education is an education and that if you eventually want to go to med school, there is probably no difference in going to the College of NJ or Harvard for your bio undergrad studies (in terms of what you learn), but like many I am an admitted prestige-whore with 2 ivy degrees.

Just checked out a list of where the class of 2014 from my old public high school is going and while it's fine, it's not anything worth celebrating. Of 500 graduating seniors, a handful are going to "top" (per USNews and the major rankings scales) schools -- 5-6 going to Penn; 1 to Gtown; 1 to Stanford; 1 to Dartmouth. The rest -- the list consists of the College of NJ, Rutgers, Mulhenberg, Millersville, Temple, Drexel, Penn State etc.

Before I get flamed for picking on people because of money -- this is a public HS in a wealthy part of NJ where kids routinely drive 50k vehicles to school; and those who are going to the PA state schools and to private schools like Drexel are paying quite of bit of money still because they are either going out of state or private. Sure some of the kids staying in NJ may be giving up better schools elsewhere for a full ride at Rutgers but lots of them are still spending 40-50k+ on mediocre schools.

Is about 2% of the class at the top schools "normal" -- it could be the top 10 that are going to the above listed schools? Given the acceptance rates, it probably is but why isn't there a greater emphasis to get top grades in high school and get into the highest rank school that you can get into and financially afford? That name/degree sticks with you for life and while I realize it isn't make or break -- there is something about saying that you're an MIT grad that has a credibility for life that you just don't get if you say you're a Millersville grad.

Because most people aren't Ivy material. As someone with two "Ivy degrees," you do realize how low acceptance rates are, correct?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is ridiculous. One simply cannot equate college admittances solely to the school itself. What about the STUDENT???? Regardless of the school, if the STUDENT doesn't have the scores/grades they simply won't get in. HOWEVER, before the knives come out, keep in mind that YES, there will be some legacies getting in spite of their performance. Those of course boost the particular school's profile. Anyone who thinks simply getting into a Big 3 is a ticket into HRP needs to drink some more expensive wine and chill out.

Point is that these are "good" schools -- whether they are NJ publics or DC Top 3 -- that are touting their "good" results -- but when you look at the list, you see too many who are going places out of the top 10/top 25 and you wonder what these schools consider "good."

Maybe, just maybe these kids got into excellent programs in 2nd tier colleges. Maybe they got into honors colleges in the same. Maybe they received spectacular merit scholarships and saved their families a lot of money and ensure that future law or medical school will be paid for.
Or all of the above.

right. Also, maybe they went to the school their girlfriend or boyfriend chose to go to.
Or the one closest to home because they felt more comfortable there.
Or the lowest cost option because they didn't want a bunch of debt.
Lots of possible reasons.

or maybe, just maybe, they got rejected by their first, second and third choice schools and settled for lesser schools. Who knows? I'd expect that it is a mixture of all of the above just as some of the students who end up at Top 25 schools are there for reasons other than the private school they attended. The point really is that there is a significant amount of BS floating around about college matriculation and people who believe it are sometimes disappointed by the reality.

[Anonymous]

The older I get, the more I realize that I am surrounded in my career by plenty of smart, capable, people who have done well for themselves who went to much less "name" colleges than I did. Sometimes I wonder, "Why did I bust my tail to get into that college, when I could have turned out just fine like colleagues x, y, and z, who went to state school u., etc.?" I want my child to do well but I do not think her chances of "doing well" in this life will be limited to going to a top 10 or even a top 25 school. My opinion and outlook on this is much more relaxed, the older I get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The older I get, the more I realize that I am surrounded in my career by plenty of smart, capable, people who have done well for themselves who went to much less "name" colleges than I did. Sometimes I wonder, "Why did I bust my tail to get into that college, when I could have turned out just fine like colleagues x, y, and z, who went to state school u., etc.?" I want my child to do well but I do not think her chances of "doing well" in this life will be limited to going to a top 10 or even a top 25 school. My opinion and outlook on this is much more relaxed, the older I get.

same here. plus I realize the world has changed so much I would not get in to the college I attended today; the scores and grades I had then wouldn't be good enough today.

[Anonymous]

I recently attended an awards ceremony for the kids graduating in the top 5% of their MoCo public high school class (about 30 kids). Of that number, I'd estimate only about 50% (roughly 12-15 kids) were going to Ivies or elite private universities. Most of the rest were either attending UMCP or a 2nd tier university (think SMU, U Alabama, etc) on a full ride scholarship. I've no doubt that money was the prevaling reason, as these kids all had GPA's in the 4.6+ range and many were National Merit Semifinalists. Money talks, unless you are fortunate enough to be wealthy.