Do you think it is easier to get into a top college from public or private?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big advantage of a private is the college counseling advice. The big suburban publics give you no individualized support, and, indeed, frequently give counterproductive class selection guidance! Poor little teen complaining about how hard foreign language is? "Oh, poor dear, you should drop it next year and take something fun like ceramics!" Also, the competition is fierce and secretive. No one knows where anyone is applying!

As a reader for a college scholarship committee, I will also say that the recommendations from private school couseling offices are typically vastly superior. Public school recs tend to be Timmy is an excellent student, he took the hardest courses, he was a valuable member of our school. It is usually clear that the writer doesn't know the student all that well. Private school recs tend to be way more personal and detailed, highlighting accomplisments, leadership, special circumstances, and framing the candidate in a way that complements the rest of the application package. It is a huge advantage.

Op here. I worry about this for my HS kid. He is a strong student and the counselor absolutely does not know him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big advantage of a private is the college counseling advice. The big suburban publics give you no individualized support, and, indeed, frequently give counterproductive class selection guidance! Poor little teen complaining about how hard foreign language is? "Oh, poor dear, you should drop it next year and take something fun like ceramics!" Also, the competition is fierce and secretive. No one knows where anyone is applying!

As a reader for a college scholarship committee, I will also say that the recommendations from private school couseling offices are typically vastly superior. Public school recs tend to be Timmy is an excellent student, he took the hardest courses, he was a valuable member of our school. It is usually clear that the writer doesn't know the student all that well. Private school recs tend to be way more personal and detailed, highlighting accomplisments, leadership, special circumstances, and framing the candidate in a way that complements the rest of the application package. It is a huge advantage.

I disagree. College admissions committees know this and take it into account. You're not on an admissions committee. You're on a college scholarship committee, and I'm guessing you're not actually employed by the college. It's not the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big advantage of a private is the college counseling advice. The big suburban publics give you no individualized support, and, indeed, frequently give counterproductive class selection guidance! Poor little teen complaining about how hard foreign language is? "Oh, poor dear, you should drop it next year and take something fun like ceramics!" Also, the competition is fierce and secretive. No one knows where anyone is applying!

As a reader for a college scholarship committee, I will also say that the recommendations from private school couseling offices are typically vastly superior. Public school recs tend to be Timmy is an excellent student, he took the hardest courses, he was a valuable member of our school. It is usually clear that the writer doesn't know the student all that well. Private school recs tend to be way more personal and detailed, highlighting accomplisments, leadership, special circumstances, and framing the candidate in a way that complements the rest of the application package. It is a huge advantage.

Op here. I worry about this for my HS kid. He is a strong student and the counselor absolutely does not know him.

Colleges know this. You don't have to worry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big advantage of a private is the college counseling advice. The big suburban publics give you no individualized support, and, indeed, frequently give counterproductive class selection guidance! Poor little teen complaining about how hard foreign language is? "Oh, poor dear, you should drop it next year and take something fun like ceramics!" Also, the competition is fierce and secretive. No one knows where anyone is applying!

As a reader for a college scholarship committee, I will also say that the recommendations from private school couseling offices are typically vastly superior. Public school recs tend to be Timmy is an excellent student, he took the hardest courses, he was a valuable member of our school. It is usually clear that the writer doesn't know the student all that well. Private school recs tend to be way more personal and detailed, highlighting accomplisments, leadership, special circumstances, and framing the candidate in a way that complements the rest of the application package. It is a huge advantage.

Op here. I worry about this for my HS kid. He is a strong student and the counselor absolutely does not know him.

My DC went to a public. The worse thing is that they absolutely don’t care to know you.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Fo course it’s easier, at least from the most academically rigorous private schools going to private colleges, especially when you look at admissions on per capita basis. Also disagree with the last poster, my spouse gets sent the results for our region as an interviewer for one of Y/P/H/S and the private schools do better.

For large public colleges, probably a wash.

Because of legacies. And there's nothing more annoying than an Ivy alumni interviewer. They can't get over their "glory days" and it's pretty pathetic.

Also, it's obvious you're not posting from the DMV and don't know anything about Langley High School.

All of this is false, and you are clearly triggered. Perhaps step away until you can participate in a rational, as opposed to crazy emotional, manner.

Are you posting from the DMV or not?

Yes, I am in the DMV.

And you and your husband now parse the limited data from the "glory days" college that your husband attended years ago and make broad generalizations from it.

Got it.

Says the person whose offered zero data, but plenty of hostility and rudeness.

You're not offering data. You're offering anecdotes. If you ran your "data" by your husband's "glory days" college admissions office and what the two of you are concluding from it I bet they'd disagree with you.

Actually I offered the data that 35 to 45 percent of the class at H and Y are from private schools. What data have you supplied? Zilch. Just bile from you.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It will depend on the school. Private schools obviously have an advantage bc they choose their students. That’s not the case at public high schools that educate everyone in their district. That’s their mission.

But the top 10-20 percent of students at well resourced public schools like Langley and the Ws do just as well as the elite private school students when it comes to college admissions. And the STEM kids at public schools are usually much stronger than the private school students. Which is no small thing these days.

Do they all get into top20 schools? This is the question. I don't know as I'm a private school parent. At STA and Sidwell they do. 100%.
Do 100% of the top 20% at Langley and the Ws get into top20 schools?

Langley has a class of 525 kids. I don’t even need to look at the data to know that there are not 104 kids at Langley each year admitted to a T20 school.

Because you don't have access to the data, for one thing. But this much is obvious: dozens of Langley students get admitted to UVA every year, and virtually all of them could likely be admitted to a top 20 as well.

You think private school kids don’t get into UVA? That isn’t what we mean by T20.

You're missing the point, moron. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is that most of the kids at Langley admitted to UVA could have also gotten into a top 20 but either didn't apply or did apply and got in and didn't go.

Clearly there are many posters on this thread who underestimate the impact that the existence of UVA has on college applications and matriculations from NOVA public high schools. If a NOVA public high school kid thinks their Ivy material, sure, they'll apply to an Ivy, but if they're thinking they're just top 20 material they'll either just apply to UVA or apply to a top 20, get in, and decide on UVA anyway. So the numbers are skewed.

The mindset of the typical public school family when it comes to college admissions and matriculation is just plain different.

Op here. Many kids do go to UVA, VT and W&M. My kid is only a junior so I only know a handful of kids who went to college in the past few years from Langley. There seem to be a lot of going to good publics like UVA, Berkeley, UMich, etc. I don’t know where else they applied or got in.

I do think money makes a difference. Not everyone can pay $90k per year for college. Our professional colleagues can afford the $50k tuition for private and then $90k for college and grad school.

This. You don't know and you can't know. But we can be pretty confident that many of the kids attending the outstanding public schools that you have identified could have gotten into excellent private colleges. They're either not applying or getting in and not going.

My kids didn't go to Langley. But they did attend another top ranked public school. One went to UVA over a top 20 private admit. Another went to William and Mary over a top 10 private liberal arts college admit. We're not unique. This happens all the time in NOVA publics. It's why you have to consider the actual matriculations being reported with a grain of salt.

But op is worried about the actual matriculations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big advantage of a private is the college counseling advice. The big suburban publics give you no individualized support, and, indeed, frequently give counterproductive class selection guidance! Poor little teen complaining about how hard foreign language is? "Oh, poor dear, you should drop it next year and take something fun like ceramics!" Also, the competition is fierce and secretive. No one knows where anyone is applying!

As a reader for a college scholarship committee, I will also say that the recommendations from private school couseling offices are typically vastly superior. Public school recs tend to be Timmy is an excellent student, he took the hardest courses, he was a valuable member of our school. It is usually clear that the writer doesn't know the student all that well. Private school recs tend to be way more personal and detailed, highlighting accomplisments, leadership, special circumstances, and framing the candidate in a way that complements the rest of the application package. It is a huge advantage.

I disagree. College admissions committees know this and take it into account. You're not on an admissions committee. You're on a college scholarship committee, and I'm guessing you're not actually employed by the college. It's not the same thing.

I suspect that you aren't on an admissions committee either so you are just guessing. They don't tell us we have to consider the source and I try not to give too much weight to the rec, but it is still apparent. Admissions committee members are human too, and they could be told to discount private school recs I suppose, but it isn't that easy to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It will depend on the school. Private schools obviously have an advantage bc they choose their students. That’s not the case at public high schools that educate everyone in their district. That’s their mission.

But the top 10-20 percent of students at well resourced public schools like Langley and the Ws do just as well as the elite private school students when it comes to college admissions. And the STEM kids at public schools are usually much stronger than the private school students. Which is no small thing these days.

Do they all get into top20 schools? This is the question. I don't know as I'm a private school parent. At STA and Sidwell they do. 100%.
Do 100% of the top 20% at Langley and the Ws get into top20 schools?

100 percent of students at STA and Sidwell do not go to top 20 schools. If you're talking about the top 10-20 percent at STA and Sidwell, sure. But you're talking about a few dozen students at most who all went through a competitive admissions process just to go to high school. That's not the case at public schools, where everyone can attend.

The other thing to remember is that STA and Sidwell parents tend to be rich. They don't think about merit scholarships. There are a lot of great students at Langley and the Ws that end up choosing full rides at Maryland or UVA or honors programs elsewhere with significant awards over dropping $400,000 to attend Cornel or Columbia. Most people have more than one kid, and spending $800,000 for college is a big stretch for most working professionals. So professional UMC families make different choices than the STA and Sidwell families who aren't concerned by cost.

But in terms of college admissions, there is no meaningful difference in results between private school students and the strong public school students. And of course there are a lot of wealthy families in the W and Langley districts, so the money issue doesn't apply to everyone. Choose whatever is a better fit for your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It will depend on the school. Private schools obviously have an advantage bc they choose their students. That’s not the case at public high schools that educate everyone in their district. That’s their mission.

But the top 10-20 percent of students at well resourced public schools like Langley and the Ws do just as well as the elite private school students when it comes to college admissions. And the STEM kids at public schools are usually much stronger than the private school students. Which is no small thing these days.

Do they all get into top20 schools? This is the question. I don't know as I'm a private school parent. At STA and Sidwell they do. 100%.
Do 100% of the top 20% at Langley and the Ws get into top20 schools?

100 percent of students at STA and Sidwell do not go to top 20 schools. If you're talking about the top 10-20 percent at STA and Sidwell, sure. But you're talking about a few dozen students at most who all went through a competitive admissions process just to go to high school. That's not the case at public schools, where everyone can attend.

The other thing to remember is that STA and Sidwell parents tend to be rich. They don't think about merit scholarships. There are a lot of great students at Langley and the Ws that end up choosing full rides at Maryland or UVA or honors programs elsewhere with significant awards over dropping $400,000 to attend Cornel or Columbia. Most people have more than one kid, and spending $800,000 for college is a big stretch for most working professionals. So professional UMC families make different choices than the STA and Sidwell families who aren't concerned by cost.

But in terms of college admissions, there is no meaningful difference in results between private school students and the strong public school students. And of course there are a lot of wealthy families in the W and Langley districts, so the money issue doesn't apply to everyone. Choose whatever is a better fit for your kid.

It's not just the top 20 percent who got into T20. The remaining ones also get into many excellent schools, including T30 schools, Top liberal arts schools, and some foreign schools like oxibridge. It's about 40% to 50% of the student body getting really good college results.

Moreover, feeder schools have advantage in feeding their students to certain top schools. Chicago is one example. It's much easier to ED chicago at a feeder private than at a public school.

[Anonymous]

I am from the Bay Area and what I can tell you from my experience is that the 5-10% top students at both the excellent (e.g. Gunn and the like) and the high quality independent privates do very well. Most, though not all will be accepted to a T20, assuming that is what they are trying for and that they have the EC's and character to match their GPA and scores.
The difference I have observed is where the next 10% of the class is accepted. In the case of my DC's private school those students got into Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt and Georgetown (none were legacies). That was not the experience of the kids from the public high school-

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am from the Bay Area and what I can tell you from my experience is that the 5-10% top students at both the excellent (e.g. Gunn and the like) and the high quality independent privates do very well. Most, though not all will be accepted to a T20, assuming that is what they are trying for and that they have the EC's and character to match their GPA and scores.
The difference I have observed is where the next 10% of the class is accepted. In the case of my DC's private school those students got into Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt and Georgetown (none were legacies). That was not the experience of the kids from the public high school-

If you are talking about Harker Nueva BISV then it's not 10% 20%, far more than that goes to T20. Harker probably sends 40% to T20 equivalent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It will depend on the school. Private schools obviously have an advantage bc they choose their students. That’s not the case at public high schools that educate everyone in their district. That’s their mission.

But the top 10-20 percent of students at well resourced public schools like Langley and the Ws do just as well as the elite private school students when it comes to college admissions. And the STEM kids at public schools are usually much stronger than the private school students. Which is no small thing these days.

Your first point is important. You should really be looking at the outcomes for the top 10-20% of public students vs. private school students as your comparison. I don't have an answer on the outcomes, but this would be the comparison to do.

It’s an easy analysis. The top 20 percent of class at Langley is 104 kids, they aren’t all going to T20s.

Np. From outside DMV.
I took our schools admissions data (from CCO) and matriculation data (last 5 years) and input it into paid Claude for analysis. Very helpful to see a summary of trends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The big advantage of a private is the college counseling advice. The big suburban publics give you no individualized support, and, indeed, frequently give counterproductive class selection guidance! Poor little teen complaining about how hard foreign language is? "Oh, poor dear, you should drop it next year and take something fun like ceramics!" Also, the competition is fierce and secretive. No one knows where anyone is applying!

As a reader for a college scholarship committee, I will also say that the recommendations from private school couseling offices are typically vastly superior. Public school recs tend to be Timmy is an excellent student, he took the hardest courses, he was a valuable member of our school. It is usually clear that the writer doesn't know the student all that well. Private school recs tend to be way more personal and detailed, highlighting accomplisments, leadership, special circumstances, and framing the candidate in a way that complements the rest of the application package. It is a huge advantage.

Agree with this. I've seen them from our non-DMV private. They are 5+ pages long and filled with detailed anecdotes.
50% of the class goes to T25.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am from the Bay Area and what I can tell you from my experience is that the 5-10% top students at both the excellent (e.g. Gunn and the like) and the high quality independent privates do very well. Most, though not all will be accepted to a T20, assuming that is what they are trying for and that they have the EC's and character to match their GPA and scores.
The difference I have observed is where the next 10% of the class is accepted. In the case of my DC's private school those students got into Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt and Georgetown (none were legacies). That was not the experience of the kids from the public high school-

This is it. If you are top 5% in public or top 5-10% in private, same outcomes - most likely.
If you are top 20-40% (depending on how "feeder" the private is), you'll have T20 outcomes. Just have to be at the "right" private school. They aren't all equal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am from the Bay Area and what I can tell you from my experience is that the 5-10% top students at both the excellent (e.g. Gunn and the like) and the high quality independent privates do very well. Most, though not all will be accepted to a T20, assuming that is what they are trying for and that they have the EC's and character to match their GPA and scores.
The difference I have observed is where the next 10% of the class is accepted. In the case of my DC's private school those students got into Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt and Georgetown (none were legacies). That was not the experience of the kids from the public high school-

I'm in the greater Seattle area and from what I have observed, the top 3% of public school kids and the top 20% of the top private school kids will get into T20 schools. My kids could have gone either direction, but the commuting time getting to a top private school from our house (45 minutes each way) would have made for a miserable high school experience, and would have made it difficult for me to work full time. Also, we saved a lot of money by not paying for private school tuition for all of these years.