Harvard, Yale "feeders"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is both sad and silly. Sad that any parent would research Harvard "feeder" schools for their child, and silly in that there is just no such thing as a "feeder" anymore. There are just too many factors in play, and as a previous poster said, the pool from which colleges draw is just so much larger than it was 20 years ago. I would never get into the college I attended (Yale) now. And my children almost certainly won't either, despite the fact that they are exceptionally bright, attend an excellent school, and have five generations of HYP in both my and my husband's families. And you know what? I don't care. They will get a great education at a great college (of which there are many besides HYP) and hopefully go on to lead happy, productive and fulfilling lives.

Everybody just needs to relax and stop fantasizing about their kids going to Harvard. It's stupid.

I agree with your opinions, but I'm curious why you think your kids wouldn't get into HYP if they tried?

It's because from the point of view of college admissions staff, who probably review hundreds of applications a day, there are a lot of children just like mine - bright, well-educated white kids who attend a top DC private and whose parents are the highly educated products of elite Ivy League colleges. My children are wonderful and will be a terrific part of whatever college community they join. But realistically, if I worked in the admissions office at Harvard, I'd be far more interested in the straight-A daughter of Afghan refugees who live in Michigan, or the multilingual son of a powerful Chinese family, or the Latina from a working-class family in Florida who is the first in her family to attend college. Twenty years ago, college admissions officers rarely saw applications from these kids. Now they do - and it's a good thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Actually I ran the numbers and chances are better coming from Whitman, BCC and Wilson.

That is completely false, at least from BCC and Whitman. Bethesda Magazine recently posted the college acceptances for the class of 2015. Both schools had less Ivy, and especially HYP, than mid-tier local privates, with much larger class sizes. It seems that magnet schools like TJ, Blair, Poolesville, and R Montgomery do better than other publics. Especially TJ, although again they have large class sizes. I think that it is exceedingly hard to get into the top schools, including the Ivys, because of the large number of kids applying, augmented by the growing number of international students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is both sad and silly. Sad that any parent would research Harvard "feeder" schools for their child, and silly in that there is just no such thing as a "feeder" anymore ....

I think you and many others here are ignoring OP's actual question, and instead getting your jollies attacking a straw argument. The very first sentence of OP's posts noted that 'no school is truly a "feeder" anymore.' So yes, we all know there are no true feeders -- OP herself said it, and now dozens of others have said it.

It's pretty obvious that what OP was really asking about is much more nuanced. It almost seems as if no one knows the actual answer to OP's question, so instead everyone is just shouting out an answer to some different question, in order to look smart. Can anyone answer OP's actual question?

[And no, I'm not OP. Just a bystander irked at how threads like this generate lots of heat, but so little light.]

[Anonymous]

I think some of the private schools have excellent college admission staff. They may be especially good at working the wait list. read any book about college admissions and they will say this. This could apply to Harvard or Gettysburg.

[Anonymous]

I agree that some of the college counselors at the Big 3 are excellent and really go the extra mile to help. They also know the admissions directors so that is helpful too. ( Some are not so good). None of this amounts to a "pipeline" however. I think one advantage that students at these smaller private schools may have is the relationships they form with their teachers. They travel with their teachers, work on special projects, etc. so when the teachers write their recommendations they can make it very personal.This all helps get a kid into a college that is a good fit for them, but that doesn't mean HYP. Just like finding a good high school for your kid, the key is to find a college where your child can thrive and learn. There are many many wonderful colleges out there. Also the idea that all the parents at Big 3 are all rich and legacies and only want there kids to follow in their footsteps is silly. They may be wealthy or on FA but the vast majority of the parents I know at our school are very level headed and want their kids to be happy and to attend a college where they feel they can continue to learn and be successful both academically and socially.

[Anonymous]

I feel like one thing that gets overlooked a lot in these discussions about which school gets the most kids into HYP or has the most National Merit Finalists is that so much depends on the raw material they're working with.

Kids that score in the 98th+ percentile when they test into Sidwell or St. Albans are likely to be the same kids scoring into the 98th+ percentile on their SATs.

The kids that ultimately end up with a realistic shot at acceptance at HYP were probably going to have that regardless of where they go to high school. And if your kid isn't at that 98th+ percentile when he's applying to school, he probably won't be when he's applying to college either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, while I may know nothing about the ten Sidwell kids going to Yale, you are never going to convince me that the majority did not have any kind of family connection or hook.

"Seldom right, but never in doubt"

Sorry if the truth hurts. Sidwell is full of well connected families and Ivy League legacies. That none of the ten Yalies have any? Laughable.

Know the kids well. Two are is legacies, sorry. Playing against type, four are Harvard legacies. Four are Presidential Scholarship semi-finalists. Five were multiple sports team captains. Two were the consistent stars of the musicals. One was the Editor of the school newspaper. Three were URMs, each with overlap in two of the preceding categories. Only a few come from a families of significant means. All are exceptional students with at least one national-level strength: debate national finalist, published author, math team champion. Each of the group that applied to more than just Yale, was accepted by at least one of Harvard, MIT or Stanford as well. Put together the Venn diagram with overlapping strengths and you will not conclude that legacy and influence were the driving factors.

[Anonymous]

Oh wow. You sound like a mom at my dd's class at Holton. You know way to much about these students pp. Get a life or a job. You sound like a scary stalker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh wow. You sound like a mom at my dd's class at Holton. You know way to much about these students pp. Get a life or a job. You sound like a scary stalker.

THIS. That's some pretty scary stalker sh*t right there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh wow. You sound like a mom at my dd's class at Holton. You know way to much about these students pp. Get a life or a job. You sound like a scary stalker.

This is a ridiculous and preachy statement. It sounds like the PP was stating facts to put to rest the previous jealous statements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh wow. You sound like a mom at my dd's class at Holton. You know way to much about these students pp. Get a life or a job. You sound like a scary stalker.

This is a ridiculous and preachy statement. It sounds like the PP was stating facts to put to rest the previous jealous statements.

WRONG. The PP even know that four of the ten had PARENTS who went to Harvard! That's stalky as all get out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh wow. You sound like a mom at my dd's class at Holton. You know way to much about these students pp. Get a life or a job. You sound like a scary stalker.

This is a ridiculous and preachy statement. It sounds like the PP was stating facts to put to rest the previous jealous statements.

WRONG. The PP even know that four of the ten had PARENTS who went to Harvard! That's stalky as all get out.

Ahh, the old DCUM double-cross!: Whenever someone tries to disprove a ridiculous accusation with actual facts and detail, she gets accused of being overly-involved and nosy for having tracked those details about the school and its students. I'm not the person you're double-crossing here, but I've been double-crossed here before. Typical bullshit from people who don't like to admit their ridiculous assertions were wrong in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WRONG. The PP even know that four of the ten had PARENTS who went to Harvard! That's stalky as all get out.

It's a small class at a k-12 private school. PP has probably been attending endless school functions with half those parents for over a decade. Of course she knows where they went to college. Heck, she probably knows where they live, what they do for a living, and all sorts of other details. It's called knowing your kid's classmates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WRONG. The PP even know that four of the ten had PARENTS who went to Harvard! That's stalky as all get out.

It's a small class at a k-12 private school. PP has probably been attending endless school functions with half those parents for over a decade. Of course she knows where they went to college. Heck, she probably knows where they live, what they do for a living, and all sorts of other details. It's called knowing your kid's classmates.

I agree. You'd have to have your head in the sand not to know this stuff about the kids after so long. The school is not that big. How would you not know this information?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WRONG. The PP even know that four of the ten had PARENTS who went to Harvard! That's stalky as all get out.

It's a small class at a k-12 private school. PP has probably been attending endless school functions with half those parents for over a decade. Of course she knows where they went to college. Heck, she probably knows where they live, what they do for a living, and all sorts of other details. It's called knowing your kid's classmates.

I agree. You'd have to have your head in the sand not to know this stuff about the kids after so long. The school is not that big. How would you not know this information?

Sidwell is not THAT small. It's 1200 students overall. And while my kids went to bigger, public schools they largely had the same friends from first grade on, and I have to tell you: I couldn't tell you what half their best friends' parents went to school and what they did for a living, and I certainly could recite every extracurricular activity in which the friends engaged. And I was a very involved parent.

Some of us have a life beyond our children's schooling.