Any Parents Privately Disappointed with College Placement?
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Anonymous
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Odd fixation on STA, which has great college results for the area, although I would agree that nobody should pick a private school just for college admissions as it will depend overwhelmingly on your own child's talents, academic and otherwise. Very bright kids come to St. Albans very bright to start with. They do, however, get a great education there, as do kids at pretty much all the independent schools in this area as well as many of the excellent public schools we are fortunate to have as options.
From STA 2013, which had 76 in the graduating class, 29% of the class matriculated at one of the eight Ivies or Stanford. Ivy alone is 27.6 %; Ivy plus Stanford plus University of Chicago is 33% (or 32.8 percent if one does not believe in rounding up). And that's not counting all the students going to highly related SLACs. With numbers these small, the percentages change year from year -- no reason to think next year or the year after that would be the same. And of course there is a benefit from legacy applicants, etc., which confounds the analysis. But to suggest that St. Albans does poorly in college admissions is really silly. |
Anonymous
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Here is a link to a page where a poster put up the full class listing for STA for the class of 2012 (I think it is the third post down):
http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/165/227610.page |
Anonymous
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From the same thread, this page has what looks to be a list of the TJ matriculations from 2011 or 2012 (I think it is the seventh post down). I got a chuckle at seeing a couple TJ kids matriculated at Indiana, given the crazy direction this thread has taken.
http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/45/227610.page |
Anonymous
Looks like last year STA had 30% matriculate at Ivy/Stanford. What the heck, those sound like pretty good numbers to me! I don't have a child at STA, but taught at a well-regarded boarding school once upon a time (and a few . . . ahem . . . pounds and gray hairs ago) and there was still a reasonably wide spread of student ability/achievement. Not every student went to a top US News & World College, by any means. For those concerned with how a school supports college applications, I would check with a good range of current families to see if they were happy with the level of support the college counseling office provides. (And do talk to a range of families, because not everyone can separate the results from the process -- or recognize when their child did not objectively perhaps have the qualifications the parent sees in him/her.) Then try to talk to some alumni families to see if their kids felt well prepared and confident in college with the education they got at their independent school. Question #2 is more important than question #1, but both are reasonable to ask. It is a ton of money to send a child to private school, so it is hard not to tie the "worth" of a private school education (or any high school education) to college admissions, but objectively if we wanted more than anything in the world to get our kids into Harvard or Yale we'd move to North Dakota or Wyoming and send them to the local high school there. They'd have a better percentage chance of getting in, but would they have the preparation, and more importantly, would they have the education we want for them? That's enough being high-minded for now! Off to toast the end of the summer with a cold frosty one. |
Anonymous
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The posts linked don't see consistent with the information on STA's website, unless the class of 2012 had none of the disappointing results.
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Anonymous
The suggestion is NOT that St. Albans does poorly, but rather that results may vary. Jacksonville ( as just one example) is disappointing no matter how many of your classmates attend Harvard. St Albans doesn't hide these less than impressive results, but parents on this forum do. |
Anonymous
The one post lists where everyone in the class of 2012 matriculated. The STA website has a five-year list of all schools at which at least one student matriculated: http://www.stalbansschool.org/page.aspx?pid=722. So I don't think there's any inconsistency. I would argue that given the many students who seem to matriculate at Harvard and Yale, St. Albans' five-year list actually underplays the strength of the results by not giving the aggregate amount of students attending the schools on the five-year list. (If you look at the 2012 list posted privately, the number of very top schools was much higher than schools seen as non-selective.) I would imagine philosophically they are trying to downplay the matriculation issue and not raise expectations unduly. I don't actually think STA parents -- or whomever is posting -- are trying to hide results. Everyone familiar with private schools knows that (1) there is a wide range in student ability even at the most prestigious/rigorous/selective (pick your adjective school); and (2) that the college admissions will reflect that range. People do seem to want to know about the percentage of students who get into top schools, however defined, so generally there is more focus on that. People who want to know about "middle of the pack" results as well as top results are asking good questions, but there is at least one poster (maybe a few?) who seem to say that if anybody at St. Albans goes to a less selective college, that is proof that St. Albans was a waste of that family's money, or doesn't give good college counseling, or whatever. Overall, this is probably a good discussion to the extent it dispels any illusions that merely attending a prestigious/selective high school will automatically get you into a prestigious/selective college (and just attending a selective/prestigious college won't be automatically good enough for grad school, and just attending a prestigious/selective grad school won't automatically get you the job you want). But there seems to be an unpleasant tone pervading it that doesn't need to be there. |
Anonymous
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I suppose the real question for families with "middle of the pack" sons, what is the value of a St Albans education? Has a B-/C+ student with middling board scores (1600-1700) been prepped sufficiently by St Albans to attend non selective colleges without the aid of remedial courses?
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Anonymous
There is not necessarily any inconsistency, but only the 5 year stats are verified, the 2012 list was compiled by so one other than the school. It may be accurate, but we can't be certain. |
Anonymous
Some of these schools aren't bad at all. There is a discussion of Elon in the college forum. GMU is one of the fastest rising schools in the nation. Durham is a UK powerhouse. |
Anonymous
Talk to the school or families if this is your question. I'm a former independent school teacher at a New England school and I can say that students from good independent schools are very well prepared for college -- even your B minus student has written numerous papers and taken full-period essay tests in high school. Some of them even really excel at the next level and it is great to see their confidence when they do so. I can remember some of our recruited ice hockey players, who were more borderline students in high school, proudly talking about how they were Dean's List in college and seen as some of the best students in the athletic department at places like Boston College. Where independent school grads run into trouble in college it tends to be a substance issue (drugs or alcohol) and/or an illness (i.e. depression) where the student stops attending class/turning in their work. |
Anonymous
Here is another important point. St. Albans gives a significant amount of financial aid -- something like 1 in 4 STA students receives financial aid. I have a number of peers and co-workers with accomplished kids who chose a "lower ranked" school over a more "name" school because of financial aid or merit scholarships. (In my own family, a sibling turned down a top 10 law school in favor of a 100% scholarship to a law school that was probably top 50.) I know for sure that a couple of the schools listed above have merit programs -- University of Maryland Baltimore County offers a full-ride to draw highly selective students, for example (our neighbor's child, a National Merit Semifinalist, received one and is going there) -- so it is very possible that that went into the mix. I also know people whose kids wanted to play Division I sports and chose a school that was lower ranked academically in order to pursue a more intense athletic experience (e.g., choosing a Division I school over a Division III NESCAC school with a higher academic profile). It might not be the choice I would make or would hope a child of mine would make, but people do make those choices all the time. To give examples of two schools on the list above, both Jacksonville and Furman have established Division I lacrosse programs in the last five years. The Furman Head Coach is the former Navy head coach, and is recruiting a lot of IAC lacrosse players (a co-worker's son who attends an IAC school is going to Furman, as are several of his teammates). Lastly, where your family has roots makes a difference. I know a number of folks here in DC who are loyal to the Crimson Tide (Alabama) or War Eagles (Auburn) or Bulldogs of Georgia, for example, because generations of their families have gone there. I fully expect their kids will consider those schools when it comes time to apply for college -- and again, many of the state schools have very attractive honors programs that are well-regarded. These ramblings are not meant to be specific to the reasons why families/grads of St. Albans attended colleges on the list above, but to give a sense of all the different factors that go into college choices. Sometimes it really isn't just about which school ranks higher on US News & World report. A good example from the non-independent school world would be TJ -- highly qualified students, and many, many choose University of Virginia over Ivy options because of the in-state tuition options. |
Anonymous
[Edited for typos, sorry] Here is another important point. St. Albans gives a significant amount of financial aid -- something like 1 in 4 STA students receives financial aid. Just thinking of those I know with college-aged children, whether grads of a private school or a MoCo school or TJ, I have a number of peers and co-workers with accomplished kids who chose a "lower ranked" school over a more "name" school because of financial aid or merit scholarships. (In my own family, a sibling turned down a top 10 law school in favor of a 100% scholarship to a law school that was probably top 50.) I know for sure that a couple of the schools listed above have merit programs -- University of Maryland Baltimore County offers a full-ride to draw highly selective students, for example (our neighbor's child, a National Merit Semifinalist, received one and is going there) -- so it is very possible that that went into the mix. I also know people whose kids wanted to play Division I sports and chose a school that was lower ranked academically in order to pursue a more intense athletic experience (e.g., choosing a Division I school over a Division III NESCAC school with a higher academic profile). It might not be the choice I would make or would hope a child of mine would make, but people do make those choices all the time. To give examples of two schools on the list above, both Jacksonville and Furman have established Division I lacrosse programs in the last five years. The Furman Head Coach is the former Navy head coach, and is recruiting a lot of IAC lacrosse players (a co-worker's son who attends a different IAC school than St. Albans is going to Furman, as are several of his teammates). Lastly, where your family has roots makes a difference. I know a number of folks here in DC who are loyal to the Crimson Tide (Alabama) or War Eagles (Auburn) or Bulldogs of Georgia, for example, because generations of their families have gone there. I fully expect their kids will consider those schools when it comes time to apply for college -- and again, many of the state schools have very attractive honors programs that are well-regarded. These ramblings are not meant to be specific to the reasons why families/grads of St. Albans attended colleges on the list above (because I don't know), but to give a sense of all the different factors that go into college choices. Sometimes it really isn't just about which school ranks higher on US News & World report. A good example from the non-independent school world would be TJ -- highly qualified students, and many, many choose University of Virginia over Ivy options because of the in-state tuition options. |
Anonymous
| If you wet to Landon or STA and are picking Jacksonville because of its up and coming lax program.... I don't even know what to say. |
Anonymous
Have you met any high school aged athletes? Or their parents? People get very caught up in "playing a Division I sport" in college. (Not that I think this is a good thing -- just that it is pretty common at all schools, even the fanciest.) I have also seen a number of kids (boys and girls) become quickly disillusioned by the Division I experience and transfer thereafter. |