Public School Kid Has MUCH Better Ivy Chances Than Private School Kid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are just as many if not more legacies in public schools than private schools.

Just as many in number, but not as a percentage.

That is the fundamental problem with this thread: no one can agree on whether they want a school that sends the LARGEST NUMBER of kids to Ivies or the school that sends the HIGHEST PERCENTAGE of kids to Ivies.

I think the problem is even more basic: individual people assuming their specific circumstances (or even just their perceptions) apply broadly. Maybe OP's children will have exactly the outcome that OP is predicting here, or maybe they'll have the opposite. But at the end of the day, it's just one example with many other variables in play.

My take: folks on DCUM (of course) fixate on outcomes for the top 5-10% of students. While I personally think my children are the best, I want to feel good with the middle 50% result wherever they go to high school. The non-Big 3 that is our top choice at the moment, all else aside, has an average college outcome that is leagues better than our zoned public high school. Maybe the top ten kids at that public HS have a better shot at Harvard or whatever, but it's illogical to choose a high school on the assumption that my kid will be in that group however many years from now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are just as many if not more legacies in public schools than private schools.

Just as many in number, but not as a percentage.

That is the fundamental problem with this thread: no one can agree on whether they want a school that sends the LARGEST NUMBER of kids to Ivies or the school that sends the HIGHEST PERCENTAGE of kids to Ivies.

I think the problem is even more basic: individual people assuming their specific circumstances (or even just their perceptions) apply broadly. Maybe OP's children will have exactly the outcome that OP is predicting here, or maybe they'll have the opposite. But at the end of the day, it's just one example with many other variables in play.

My take: folks on DCUM (of course) fixate on outcomes for the top 5-10% of students. While I personally think my children are the best, I want to feel good with the middle 50% result wherever they go to high school. The non-Big 3 that is our top choice at the moment, all else aside, has an average college outcome that is leagues better than our zoned public high school. Maybe the top ten kids at that public HS have a better shot at Harvard or whatever, but it's illogical to choose a high school on the assumption that my kid will be in that group however many years from now.

I get this, but I honestly can’t imagine thinking my children would be in the middle 50% of literally any high school, no matter how selective or nonselective. I mean the bottom 20% of kids at JR don't go to college at all! A middling kid at SJC would almost certainly be above average at JR. And so forth.

Still, I think you’re also saying that families choose schools for overall fit and not just for college outcomes. Being an upward outlier can be helpful for college admissions and socially isolating at the same time. And social development in high school is also very important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmmmm...hard to believe.

No it’s fact.

Public’s do better college admissions

I love it when morons pay for Catholic schools and they end up at tiny colleges not ivies not good colleges crap one’s

Your world view is skewed.

[Anonymous]

Your kid’s shot at a T10 from either is going to be difficult even with perfect stats.

At the top private, you will be competing against donors and even if your kid is a stronger student, the richer kid will take the spot from your kid. That doesn’t mean your kid won’t get into Cornell or Emory or other excellent school.

I have kids at both public and private. I expect similar college outcomes for all my children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two kids in high school right now. The oldest is at a top private and the youngest opted for Jackson-Reed. I say they are roughly equal in intelligence, but the private school kid works much harder and has more work. However, the private school kid has managed to pull a 3.8 GPA compared to the J-R sibling with a 4.4 GPA.

According to Naviance, the private school kid has almost no shot at a T10 admission and MAYBE a chance at Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, WashU if they apply ED1. He has good UChicago chances, but he doesn't want to go there. The J-R kid is right on target for Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke, etc. And what's more interesting, is that there are <10 applicants to the absolute top colleges each from J-R every year compared to like 1/2 of the private school kids gunning for the T10.

What’s the JR students unweighted GPA? That 4.4 is meaningless. JR sends a very small percentage of its students to Ivy+ each year.

Btw, at my child’s Big 3, a >3.80 GPA puts you into play at EVERY school, and students are getting into UChicago with a 3.5 GPA.

Fiction.

— Big 3 parent

Not fiction at all if they apply ED and are full pay at Chicago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are just as many if not more legacies in public schools than private schools.

Just as many in number, but not as a percentage.

That is the fundamental problem with this thread: no one can agree on whether they want a school that sends the LARGEST NUMBER of kids to Ivies or the school that sends the HIGHEST PERCENTAGE of kids to Ivies.

I think the problem is even more basic: individual people assuming their specific circumstances (or even just their perceptions) apply broadly. Maybe OP's children will have exactly the outcome that OP is predicting here, or maybe they'll have the opposite. But at the end of the day, it's just one example with many other variables in play.

My take: folks on DCUM (of course) fixate on outcomes for the top 5-10% of students. While I personally think my children are the best, I want to feel good with the middle 50% result wherever they go to high school. The non-Big 3 that is our top choice at the moment, all else aside, has an average college outcome that is leagues better than our zoned public high school. Maybe the top ten kids at that public HS have a better shot at Harvard or whatever, but it's illogical to choose a high school on the assumption that my kid will be in that group however many years from now.

I get this, but I honestly can’t imagine thinking my children would be in the middle 50% of literally any high school, no matter how selective or nonselective. I mean the bottom 20% of kids at JR don't go to college at all! A middling kid at SJC would almost certainly be above average at JR. And so forth.

Still, I think you’re also saying that families choose schools for overall fit and not just for college outcomes. Being an upward outlier can be helpful for college admissions and socially isolating at the same time. And social development in high school is also very important.

Also a kid who can thrive academically and hold leadership and the other things that matter outside of school to top colleges, while also managing life as a student at a large urban school shows they have more “grit” than those who attend “elite” smaller schools. They also are seen have a broader, less privileged, world perspective and colleges like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two kids in high school right now. The oldest is at a top private and the youngest opted for Jackson-Reed. I say they are roughly equal in intelligence, but the private school kid works much harder and has more work. However, the private school kid has managed to pull a 3.8 GPA compared to the J-R sibling with a 4.4 GPA.

According to Naviance, the private school kid has almost no shot at a T10 admission and MAYBE a chance at Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, WashU if they apply ED1. He has good UChicago chances, but he doesn't want to go there. The J-R kid is right on target for Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke, etc. And what's more interesting, is that there are <10 applicants to the absolute top colleges each from J-R every year compared to like 1/2 of the private school kids gunning for the T10.

What’s the JR students unweighted GPA? That 4.4 is meaningless. JR sends a very small percentage of its students to Ivy+ each year.

Btw, at my child’s Big 3, a >3.80 GPA puts you into play at EVERY school, and students are getting into UChicago with a 3.5 GPA.

Fiction.

— Big 3 parent

np here - UChicago LOVES full pay kids from top DC privates.

OP, I don't think you understand this process. 4.4 GPA is weighted. That's not that high for a weighted GPA. To get into Stanford etc from a public school in the mid Atlantic, the gpa needs to be a 4.0 or 3.98 unweighted and the weighted GPA more like 4.8. 4.4 weighted at JR is not that impressive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two kids in high school right now. The oldest is at a top private and the youngest opted for Jackson-Reed. I say they are roughly equal in intelligence, but the private school kid works much harder and has more work. However, the private school kid has managed to pull a 3.8 GPA compared to the J-R sibling with a 4.4 GPA.

According to Naviance, the private school kid has almost no shot at a T10 admission and MAYBE a chance at Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, WashU if they apply ED1. He has good UChicago chances, but he doesn't want to go there. The J-R kid is right on target for Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke, etc. And what's more interesting, is that there are <10 applicants to the absolute top colleges each from J-R every year compared to like 1/2 of the private school kids gunning for the T10.

What’s the JR students unweighted GPA? That 4.4 is meaningless. JR sends a very small percentage of its students to Ivy+ each year.

Btw, at my child’s Big 3, a >3.80 GPA puts you into play at EVERY school, and students are getting into UChicago with a 3.5 GPA.

Fiction.

— Big 3 parent

np here - UChicago LOVES full pay kids from top DC privates.

OP, I don't think you understand this process. 4.4 GPA is weighted. That's not that high for a weighted GPA. To get into Stanford etc from a public school in the mid Atlantic, the gpa needs to be a 4.0 or 3.98 unweighted and the weighted GPA more like 4.8. 4.4 weighted at JR is not that impressive.

You have no ideas how each school across the country weights things, or doesn’t, so that is not true about 4.8! Also gpa is only one part of the app at top schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two kids in high school right now. The oldest is at a top private and the youngest opted for Jackson-Reed. I say they are roughly equal in intelligence, but the private school kid works much harder and has more work. However, the private school kid has managed to pull a 3.8 GPA compared to the J-R sibling with a 4.4 GPA.

According to Naviance, the private school kid has almost no shot at a T10 admission and MAYBE a chance at Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, WashU if they apply ED1. He has good UChicago chances, but he doesn't want to go there. The J-R kid is right on target for Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke, etc. And what's more interesting, is that there are <10 applicants to the absolute top colleges each from J-R every year compared to like 1/2 of the private school kids gunning for the T10.

What’s the JR students unweighted GPA? That 4.4 is meaningless. JR sends a very small percentage of its students to Ivy+ each year.

Btw, at my child’s Big 3, a >3.80 GPA puts you into play at EVERY school, and students are getting into UChicago with a 3.5 GPA.

Fiction.

— Big 3 parent

np here - UChicago LOVES full pay kids from top DC privates.

OP, I don't think you understand this process. 4.4 GPA is weighted. That's not that high for a weighted GPA. To get into Stanford etc from a public school in the mid Atlantic, the gpa needs to be a 4.0 or 3.98 unweighted and the weighted GPA more like 4.8. 4.4 weighted at JR is not that impressive.

You have no ideas how each school across the country weights things, or doesn’t, so that is not true about 4.8! Also gpa is only one part of the app at top schools.

I know how JR weighs things, and 4.4 W at JR is less impressive than 3.8 UW at Sidwell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are just as many if not more legacies in public schools than private schools.

Just as many in number, but not as a percentage.

That is the fundamental problem with this thread: no one can agree on whether they want a school that sends the LARGEST NUMBER of kids to Ivies or the school that sends the HIGHEST PERCENTAGE of kids to Ivies.

I think the problem is even more basic: individual people assuming their specific circumstances (or even just their perceptions) apply broadly. Maybe OP's children will have exactly the outcome that OP is predicting here, or maybe they'll have the opposite. But at the end of the day, it's just one example with many other variables in play.

My take: folks on DCUM (of course) fixate on outcomes for the top 5-10% of students. While I personally think my children are the best, I want to feel good with the middle 50% result wherever they go to high school. The non-Big 3 that is our top choice at the moment, all else aside, has an average college outcome that is leagues better than our zoned public high school. Maybe the top ten kids at that public HS have a better shot at Harvard or whatever, but it's illogical to choose a high school on the assumption that my kid will be in that group however many years from now.

I get this, but I honestly can’t imagine thinking my children would be in the middle 50% of literally any high school, no matter how selective or nonselective. I mean the bottom 20% of kids at JR don't go to college at all! A middling kid at SJC would almost certainly be above average at JR. And so forth.

Still, I think you’re also saying that families choose schools for overall fit and not just for college outcomes. Being an upward outlier can be helpful for college admissions and socially isolating at the same time. And social development in high school is also very important.

Also a kid who can thrive academically and hold leadership and the other things that matter outside of school to top colleges, while also managing life as a student at a large urban school shows they have more “grit” than those who attend “elite” smaller schools. They also are seen have a broader, less privileged, world perspective and colleges like that.

Even if this is true, it’s true because it’s harder to “thrive academically” while also “managing life as a student at a large urban school.” There are no points for trying to manage it and becoming overwhelmed or otherwise derailed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are just as many if not more legacies in public schools than private schools.

Just as many in number, but not as a percentage.

True but irrelevant.

If private school legacy admissions are discredited, why aren't the just as many if not more public school legacy admissions similarly discredited?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two kids in high school right now. The oldest is at a top private and the youngest opted for Jackson-Reed. I say they are roughly equal in intelligence, but the private school kid works much harder and has more work. However, the private school kid has managed to pull a 3.8 GPA compared to the J-R sibling with a 4.4 GPA.

According to Naviance, the private school kid has almost no shot at a T10 admission and MAYBE a chance at Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, WashU if they apply ED1. He has good UChicago chances, but he doesn't want to go there. The J-R kid is right on target for Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke, etc. And what's more interesting, is that there are <10 applicants to the absolute top colleges each from J-R every year compared to like 1/2 of the private school kids gunning for the T10.

What’s the JR students unweighted GPA? That 4.4 is meaningless. JR sends a very small percentage of its students to Ivy+ each year.

Btw, at my child’s Big 3, a >3.80 GPA puts you into play at EVERY school, and students are getting into UChicago with a 3.5 GPA.

Fiction.

— Big 3 parent

np here - UChicago LOVES full pay kids from top DC privates.

OP, I don't think you understand this process. 4.4 GPA is weighted. That's not that high for a weighted GPA. To get into Stanford etc from a public school in the mid Atlantic, the gpa needs to be a 4.0 or 3.98 unweighted and the weighted GPA more like 4.8. 4.4 weighted at JR is not that impressive.

You have no ideas how each school across the country weights things, or doesn’t, so that is not true about 4.8! Also gpa is only one part of the app at top schools.

I know how JR weighs things, and 4.4 W at JR is less impressive than 3.8 UW at Sidwell.

But then you went on to make sweeping statements about “public schools in the mid Atlantic.” Which is absurd. Weighted GPAs are not even comparable between MCPS and FCPS (because MCPS gives more of a bump for honors).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your kid’s shot at a T10 from either is going to be difficult even with perfect stats.

At the top private, you will be competing against donors and even if your kid is a stronger student, the richer kid will take the spot from your kid. That doesn’t mean your kid won’t get into Cornell or Emory or other excellent school.

I have kids at both public and private. I expect similar college outcomes for all my children.

Donors get special slots, we all agree. The problem you fail to recognize is that in DC, there aren’t donor class families even at private. We just don’t have that kind of money. BigLaw partners don’t qualify for the special donor class. It’s over a million at most of these schools we are all talking about. It’s not happening for 99% kids in DC — public or private.

[Anonymous]

Exactly. A legacy whose parents donated four or five figures per year is not getting the same admissions bump as one whose parents or family has donated millions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are just as many if not more legacies in public schools than private schools.

Just as many in number, but not as a percentage.

That is the fundamental problem with this thread: no one can agree on whether they want a school that sends the LARGEST NUMBER of kids to Ivies or the school that sends the HIGHEST PERCENTAGE of kids to Ivies.

I think the problem is even more basic: individual people assuming their specific circumstances (or even just their perceptions) apply broadly. Maybe OP's children will have exactly the outcome that OP is predicting here, or maybe they'll have the opposite. But at the end of the day, it's just one example with many other variables in play.

My take: folks on DCUM (of course) fixate on outcomes for the top 5-10% of students. While I personally think my children are the best, I want to feel good with the middle 50% result wherever they go to high school. The non-Big 3 that is our top choice at the moment, all else aside, has an average college outcome that is leagues better than our zoned public high school. Maybe the top ten kids at that public HS have a better shot at Harvard or whatever, but it's illogical to choose a high school on the assumption that my kid will be in that group however many years from now.

I get this, but I honestly can’t imagine thinking my children would be in the middle 50% of literally any high school, no matter how selective or nonselective. I mean the bottom 20% of kids at JR don't go to college at all! A middling kid at SJC would almost certainly be above average at JR. And so forth.

Still, I think you’re also saying that families choose schools for overall fit and not just for college outcomes. Being an upward outlier can be helpful for college admissions and socially isolating at the same time. And social development in high school is also very important.

Also a kid who can thrive academically and hold leadership and the other things that matter outside of school to top colleges, while also managing life as a student at a large urban school shows they have more “grit” than those who attend “elite” smaller schools. They also are seen have a broader, less privileged, world perspective and colleges like that.

I know you believe this and want it to be the truth of how the world works, but it just isn’t born out by the numbers. Per capita and on a percentage basis, elite private school kids take up an insanely disproportionate number of slots at these tiny elite institutions. So, that’s not telling me that your gritty public school kid managing a large urban school has an “advantage.”