Which DC area private school have the highest acceptances to Harvard?

[Anonymous]

For the earlier poster, Standford and Princeton do focus much more on their undergraduate students than Harvard does. Harvard is great for law school, med school, or public policy at the Kennedy School. Of course, it is still elite for undergrad, but for a more focused and cherished experience, when someone has the choice they may likely prefer Stanford or Princeton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is it that Harvard is no longer the top choice among students in the DMV? It seems that every Stanford or Princeton student I know turned down Harvard. I don’t know a single student who turned down Stanford or Princeton for Harvard. It seems that Stanford and Princeton are now in a class by themselves among DMV students. I know it’s splitting hairs because all of the top 5 schools are terrific, but the emergence of Stanford and Princeton as the “top of the top” is a bit surprising.

Agree! DC refused to even tour Harvard, although we were in Boston to check out BC and BU. DC is now at another one of those schools that accepts 6-7% of graduates. DC reports that Harvard elicits a lot of eye-rolling from kids in DC's school, who assume (rightly or wrongly) that the kids who do apply to Harvard are status-chasers. Now you could argue that the same kids who instead attend different USNWR top 5 or top 10 schools are status-chasers themselves. I'm just reporting the attitudes that have been reported to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust did an Aspen Ideas Festival speech last week on how to raise a child to get into Harvard. Faust's top tip for raising a Harvard man or woman: “Make your children interesting!” She pretty much dismissed the grinds and helicopter parents who focus on fighting for every little honor or EC title to build up high school resumes. There are lots of very smart, studious, obedient children out there. Instead, she encouraged parents to help their children develop a holistic sense of self and build a passion for something meaningful. As a side benefit, you might actually end up with a interesting child, regardless of whether they go to Harvard or not!

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/06/how-to-get-into-harvard/373726/

And if you succeed in raising an interesting child, as opposed to the cookie cutter kids the competitive parents churn out, he probably won't want to go to Harvard.

The best thing a DMV parent can do to rear an interesting child is to get them out of the DMV bubble. Trips to the National Parks, other regions of the country, travel abroad will all increase awareness of how different the rest of the world is.

Amen, brother!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust did an Aspen Ideas Festival speech last week on how to raise a child to get into Harvard. Faust's top tip for raising a Harvard man or woman: “Make your children interesting!” She pretty much dismissed the grinds and helicopter parents who focus on fighting for every little honor or EC title to build up high school resumes. There are lots of very smart, studious, obedient children out there. Instead, she encouraged parents to help their children develop a holistic sense of self and build a passion for something meaningful. As a side benefit, you might actually end up with a interesting child, regardless of whether they go to Harvard or not!

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/06/how-to-get-into-harvard/373726/

And if you succeed in raising an interesting child, as opposed to the cookie cutter kids the competitive parents churn out, he probably won't want to go to Harvard.

The best thing a DMV parent can do to rear an interesting child is to get them out of the DMV bubble. Trips to the National Parks, other regions of the country, travel abroad will all increase awareness of how different the rest of the world is.

This is true to some extent. However, college admissions officers aren't big on parent-funded mission trips to impoverished countries, or the resulting essay about how the child learned that we're all the same (cue "It's a Small World"). I know, it doesn't seem fair, but apparently they've read too many of these essays. That said, it's hard to know what else to recommend. Colleges these days are looking for kids with "passions" instead of the well-rounded kid of our day.

[Anonymous]

To return to the question on the table, I am sure that the answer is GDS does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To return to the question on the table, I am sure that the answer is GDS does.

If they did they'd publish their matriculation list, me thinks.

Actually, the only report available shows that STA and NCS were tops, followed by Sidwell and Maret. That report is, however, suspect since most of the schools don't release the type of matriculation data you'd need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To return to the question on the table, I am sure that the answer is GDS does.

If they did they'd publish their matriculation list, me thinks.

Actually, the only report available shows that STA and NCS were tops, followed by Sidwell and Maret. That report is, however, suspect since most of the schools don't release the type of matriculation data you'd need.

Perhaps they don't believe that sending their graduates to Ivy League schools is the ultimate goal of high school education, and prefer not to encourage others to think that way.

[Anonymous]

haha ...that's funny pp. NO, if people are paying $35-$40k a year, they have much higher expectations for their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I presume its the largest. The question you should be asking is which school has the highest percentage in proportion to those that apply who are not legacies.

The best site for this but does exactly answer your question is below. You will note that the ones with the highest % that get into HYPMS (Harvard, Yale Princeton, MIT, STanford) in the DC area are
national cathedral, st albans and then Maret in that order.

http://matriculationstats.org/day-schools-outside-of-nyc

It appears that you've been duped. The so-called matricualationstats.org is a website run by one person who claims to have compiled stats by himself. The site doesn't detail HOW this person acquired the confidential data that few schools share. At least with respect to the DC area schools there is no way an individual can get all the information needed for the "stats" presented.

Huh? All the DMV-area schools PUBLISH their stats, with the exception of Sidwell. I don't see Sidwell on his list, so that fits the picture.

All he needs is an Excel spreadsheet, knowledge of how to construct indices, and lots of time. I could do this myself, including building the indices, except that I don't have the time.

Also... you bumped this 2-year-old thread to say this? Why?

"All the DMV-area schools PUBLISH their stats, with the exception of Sidwell" <== This is flat out wrong. Some schools publish nothing, others publish 5 year stats or "acceptance" stats that would not allow for the analysis the matriculationstats author would need to ACCURATELY perform the analysis. The author may have some date, but remember "garbage in" = "garbage out" [even when presented in Excel]. To my knowledge, Holton-Arms and Landon are the only two schools that publish an annual matriculation list that names students and schools for each student.

I'm not condemning schools that keep that information private, I'm just calling BS on anyone (especially someone in NYC) who claims to have access to information that is not available.

[Anonymous]

What are the schools that don't publish trying to hide??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are the schools that don't publish trying to hide??

I think the schools -- correctly -- don;t want to play into the competitive parenting game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are the schools that don't publish trying to hide??

I think the schools -- correctly -- don;t want to play into the competitive parenting game.

Unfortunately, at least within the school, publishing or not publishing the acceptance/matriculation rates isn't going to change anything. Everybody in a particular grade already knows who is going where, and whether they were legacy or athletic recruits. Some schools even publish internal lists that aren't available on their websites for the general public to see. That's my experience, anyway.

The only thing publishing vs. not publishing affects is what people on the outside know about the school.

But I'm not sure refusing to publish is about taking some sort of high ground here. There are probably two things going on.
(1) Lower ground: Schools may be afraid they will be passed over for schools with more impressive exmissions.
(2) Higher ground: parents shouldn't be chosing schools based on exmissions stats. In the extreme, this would force schools to vie for the legacy kids and the 99.9% SSAT kids in order to boost their own exmissions.
(3) We're Sidwell, we don't need to tell you anything, we can herd you into the media center during tours, and you'll still apply in droves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To return to the question on the table, I am sure that the answer is GDS does.

Well, they generally (althought not always) trail Sidwell and St. Albans in percentage of national merit semifinalists, so I'm not sure I'd make that assumption.

Stanford is very hot but how hot Princeton is varies -- at our school the better students tend to pick Harvard, Yale and Stanford. That may be self-perpetuating because a lot of students have gotten in to those three so students perceive a good chance of success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To return to the question on the table, I am sure that the answer is GDS does.

If they did they'd publish their matriculation list, me thinks.

Actually, the only report available shows that STA and NCS were tops, followed by Sidwell and Maret. That report is, however, suspect since most of the schools don't release the type of matriculation data you'd need.

The students at GDS are truly amazing and a lot of the parents have very high-powered jobs and Ivy degrees themselves, It doesn't surprise me that GDS does superbly well at the Top Ivies.

[Anonymous]

OK GDS mom. You have no stats to back up your claim.