Class of '26 Instagram College Decisions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Fairly easy”? Cmon now, let’s not be silly

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving on - I haven't looked at some of the Coed TT schools. How have they done compared to this school? (SS TT). the $$, hooks, etc should be similar i assume.

5: Cornell, Chicago
4: Penn
3: Harvard, Northwestern
2: Princeton, Brown, Duke, Williams, Georgetown, Emory, Howard
1: Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst, Vanderbilt, Rice, Notre Dame, Michigan, Barnard, Colgate, Middlebury, Bowdoin, St Andrews, Haverford, Oberlin, Spelman, Rutgers, UCLA

I think there are very good results and they are consistent with HM. College counsellors might be recommending to save time and mental energy, ED Cornell or Chicago and be done with college admissions earlier during the year.

A caveat here is that TT kids getting into less prestigious colleges (think San Diego State) are less likely to post on Instagram but there are always a few students who end up in less popular schools.

I have a senior at HM. This is exactly what they do. These kids aren't on DCUM wringing their hands over rankings or perceived prestige . . . they are figuring out their next steps and communicating with the older kids who have had or are having good experiences at schools other than the five or so that are DCUM Approved®.

Those are both great and very prestigious places so I don’t follow what you’re saying. Having been through this at another TT though, I’m a big believer in applying where you want and not gaming things too much at the ED stage just to maximize chances of getting into a top 10 school if it’s not the school you actually want. But that requires being ok with the possibility your top choices won’t work out. In my experience though, even those kids still had great choices at RD so there’s want much opportunity cost.

NP but -- there has been a recurrent observation on this thread that while HM does remarkably well with those schools (>40 students are going to those two this year?), the rate at which is sends to HYPS is noticeably lower than Brearley etc. This may or may not be of significance to different families, but the pattern exists and it's not exactly clear what the cause of it is. If ED to Chicago etc. is what counselors regularly advise everywhere, why do we see these differences? If it's legacies mainly, why aren't they similarly distributed across all TT schools? Trinity is supposedly very big on legacies, but again, noticeable difference to Brearley. Etc. Some viewpoints on this upthread.

Traditionally Brearley has been the training ground for young ambitious ladies from prestigious families. The most connected and wealthy families send their children to Brearley. If I am merely rich and have no connections to a T50 university, I can get my dc into HM fairly easy. Many wealthy and famous people have had to pull favors to get their child into Brearley.

I don't know about HM but I don't think Trinity is that difficult to get into for high school if you have the grades/scores and are full pay. I know many kids who have gotten in this year that are pretty ordinary and have no connections. The smartest kid in our 8th grade class is actually going somewhere that most would consider 2T or 3T. I think Trinity is much easier than some of these schools that don't open up much in 9th.

They get 500+ applicants for 9th. Your definition of difficult must be different than mine. 😵‍💫

How do you know how many apps they receive. I know quite a few pretty ordinary 8th graders that got in this year, including one that is definitely not top of their class. No one we know got into Dalton or Brearley. I think if you have good grades and ISEEs you have a chance. Dalton only takes like 20 new kids so getting in at 9th is much more difficult.

Just read the annual report. Application numbers are listed.

Dalton is “easier” in k and harder in 9th because it doesn’t expand much. But is Dalton “easy” to get into in k? Apply the same logic to Brearley.

Trinity doubles in size— so it adds 30ish girls and 30ish boys in 9th. Do you really think that means it’s “not that difficult” to get into? Asking as the parent of a 7th grader on the verge of applying. They get 500+ applicants for those spots.

I would say that if you have your heart set on TT and your kid has great middle school grades and high ISEE scores your best bet is probably Trinity and HM. I’ve heard Trinity accepts about 90. Not everyone accepts the offer. I’m not saying it’s easy but I know a good handful of totally unconnected kids that have gotten in this year and none with impressive hooks.

I’m not arguing with you, but rather the poster who said it wasn’t that hard to get into Trinity for 9th. Of course unconnected kids get in. But when you look at the applicant pool, it’s not an easy bet. Talk to a 7th grade parent like me at any k-8 boys school and ask them if they feel Trinity is a sure thing, even with good grades and ISEE.

Just saying I think it’s a little easier than some of the other schools. Nothing is a sure bet. I just went through this process myself. Just like college, you need a balanced list of schools. Honestly, I think a lot of these schools even 2T and 3T get a lot of applicants. There were certainly hundreds and many of the open houses.

We went to the open house at Packer and it was packed! Also saw 100+ kids at Chapin’s open house while Chaplin only admits like 5-6 kids at 9th grade. Riverdale had multiple open house dates and each was packed.

The application process in the city is crazy. But overall for unhooked families 9th is a lot more predictable than K if your kids score high in ISEE and have good grades. All the kids at our middle school who got 8 and 9s in their ISEE got into very good high schools.

[Anonymous]

My kid had 8s and 9s, top grades, very good extra-curriculars, great recs, a compelling story, and we made clear that we are very involved at our TT college alma maters so our kid should have a better chance of getting in.

We only applied to one TT. We knew several people there who likely could have helped but since we weren't sure we would attend if accepted we didn't call in those favors. Rejected.

I thought we would at least get a wait list. But it is a numbers game. And we didn't particularly like the school, particularly admissions people. Though it would have been hard to decline if accepted. Very happy where we ended up. The TT has better exmissions which is hard to ignore, but my kid is top of their class where they are and top of class at 2T and 3T do largely as well as TT. Generally with less drama and stress.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid had 8s and 9s, top grades, very good extra-curriculars, great recs, a compelling story, and we made clear that we are very involved at our TT college alma maters so our kid should have a better chance of getting in.

We only applied to one TT. We knew several people there who likely could have helped but since we weren't sure we would attend if accepted we didn't call in those favors. Rejected.

I thought we would at least get a wait list. But it is a numbers game. And we didn't particularly like the school, particularly admissions people. Though it would have been hard to decline if accepted. Very happy where we ended up. The TT has better exmissions which is hard to ignore, but my kid is top of their class where they are and top of class at 2T and 3T do largely as well as TT. Generally with less drama and stress.

. Would you be comfortable sharing the schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Fairly easy”? Cmon now, let’s not be silly

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving on - I haven't looked at some of the Coed TT schools. How have they done compared to this school? (SS TT). the $$, hooks, etc should be similar i assume.

5: Cornell, Chicago
4: Penn
3: Harvard, Northwestern
2: Princeton, Brown, Duke, Williams, Georgetown, Emory, Howard
1: Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst, Vanderbilt, Rice, Notre Dame, Michigan, Barnard, Colgate, Middlebury, Bowdoin, St Andrews, Haverford, Oberlin, Spelman, Rutgers, UCLA

I think there are very good results and they are consistent with HM. College counsellors might be recommending to save time and mental energy, ED Cornell or Chicago and be done with college admissions earlier during the year.

A caveat here is that TT kids getting into less prestigious colleges (think San Diego State) are less likely to post on Instagram but there are always a few students who end up in less popular schools.

I have a senior at HM. This is exactly what they do. These kids aren't on DCUM wringing their hands over rankings or perceived prestige . . . they are figuring out their next steps and communicating with the older kids who have had or are having good experiences at schools other than the five or so that are DCUM Approved®.

Those are both great and very prestigious places so I don’t follow what you’re saying. Having been through this at another TT though, I’m a big believer in applying where you want and not gaming things too much at the ED stage just to maximize chances of getting into a top 10 school if it’s not the school you actually want. But that requires being ok with the possibility your top choices won’t work out. In my experience though, even those kids still had great choices at RD so there’s want much opportunity cost.

NP but -- there has been a recurrent observation on this thread that while HM does remarkably well with those schools (>40 students are going to those two this year?), the rate at which is sends to HYPS is noticeably lower than Brearley etc. This may or may not be of significance to different families, but the pattern exists and it's not exactly clear what the cause of it is. If ED to Chicago etc. is what counselors regularly advise everywhere, why do we see these differences? If it's legacies mainly, why aren't they similarly distributed across all TT schools? Trinity is supposedly very big on legacies, but again, noticeable difference to Brearley. Etc. Some viewpoints on this upthread.

Traditionally Brearley has been the training ground for young ambitious ladies from prestigious families. The most connected and wealthy families send their children to Brearley. If I am merely rich and have no connections to a T50 university, I can get my dc into HM fairly easy. Many wealthy and famous people have had to pull favors to get their child into Brearley.

I don't know about HM but I don't think Trinity is that difficult to get into for high school if you have the grades/scores and are full pay. I know many kids who have gotten in this year that are pretty ordinary and have no connections. The smartest kid in our 8th grade class is actually going somewhere that most would consider 2T or 3T. I think Trinity is much easier than some of these schools that don't open up much in 9th.

They get 500+ applicants for 9th. Your definition of difficult must be different than mine. 😵‍💫

How do you know how many apps they receive. I know quite a few pretty ordinary 8th graders that got in this year, including one that is definitely not top of their class. No one we know got into Dalton or Brearley. I think if you have good grades and ISEEs you have a chance. Dalton only takes like 20 new kids so getting in at 9th is much more difficult.

Just read the annual report. Application numbers are listed.

Dalton is “easier” in k and harder in 9th because it doesn’t expand much. But is Dalton “easy” to get into in k? Apply the same logic to Brearley.

Trinity doubles in size— so it adds 30ish girls and 30ish boys in 9th. Do you really think that means it’s “not that difficult” to get into? Asking as the parent of a 7th grader on the verge of applying. They get 500+ applicants for those spots.

I would say that if you have your heart set on TT and your kid has great middle school grades and high ISEE scores your best bet is probably Trinity and HM. I’ve heard Trinity accepts about 90. Not everyone accepts the offer. I’m not saying it’s easy but I know a good handful of totally unconnected kids that have gotten in this year and none with impressive hooks.

I agree with this. Trinity is the hardest for K because it’s mostly siblings and legacies, but for high school it becomes more likely because of how many students they add.

Agree. And they get a lot of strivers with zero chance of getting in applying because of the brand name, so that increases the denominator a lot. Trinity takes a lot of kids for HS. It is still very hard to get into, but not impossible. For K, it is virtually impossible. Horace Mann is fairly similar.

. Trinity generally takes 2-4 kids from Anderson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid had 8s and 9s, top grades, very good extra-curriculars, great recs, a compelling story, and we made clear that we are very involved at our TT college alma maters so our kid should have a better chance of getting in.

We only applied to one TT. We knew several people there who likely could have helped but since we weren't sure we would attend if accepted we didn't call in those favors. Rejected.

I thought we would at least get a wait list. But it is a numbers game. And we didn't particularly like the school, particularly admissions people. Though it would have been hard to decline if accepted. Very happy where we ended up. The TT has better exmissions which is hard to ignore, but my kid is top of their class where they are and top of class at 2T and 3T do largely as well as TT. Generally with less drama and stress.

. Would you be comfortable sharing the schools?

This was our story too but we got waitlisted from the TT we applied to. If I could do it again maybe I would have applied to Trinity. On the other hand, there were reasons we only applied to the TT we did and it’s likely my kid wouldn’t have liked Trinity, even if they had been admitted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Fairly easy”? Cmon now, let’s not be silly

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving on - I haven't looked at some of the Coed TT schools. How have they done compared to this school? (SS TT). the $$, hooks, etc should be similar i assume.

5: Cornell, Chicago
4: Penn
3: Harvard, Northwestern
2: Princeton, Brown, Duke, Williams, Georgetown, Emory, Howard
1: Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst, Vanderbilt, Rice, Notre Dame, Michigan, Barnard, Colgate, Middlebury, Bowdoin, St Andrews, Haverford, Oberlin, Spelman, Rutgers, UCLA

I think there are very good results and they are consistent with HM. College counsellors might be recommending to save time and mental energy, ED Cornell or Chicago and be done with college admissions earlier during the year.

A caveat here is that TT kids getting into less prestigious colleges (think San Diego State) are less likely to post on Instagram but there are always a few students who end up in less popular schools.

I have a senior at HM. This is exactly what they do. These kids aren't on DCUM wringing their hands over rankings or perceived prestige . . . they are figuring out their next steps and communicating with the older kids who have had or are having good experiences at schools other than the five or so that are DCUM Approved®.

Those are both great and very prestigious places so I don’t follow what you’re saying. Having been through this at another TT though, I’m a big believer in applying where you want and not gaming things too much at the ED stage just to maximize chances of getting into a top 10 school if it’s not the school you actually want. But that requires being ok with the possibility your top choices won’t work out. In my experience though, even those kids still had great choices at RD so there’s want much opportunity cost.

NP but -- there has been a recurrent observation on this thread that while HM does remarkably well with those schools (>40 students are going to those two this year?), the rate at which is sends to HYPS is noticeably lower than Brearley etc. This may or may not be of significance to different families, but the pattern exists and it's not exactly clear what the cause of it is. If ED to Chicago etc. is what counselors regularly advise everywhere, why do we see these differences? If it's legacies mainly, why aren't they similarly distributed across all TT schools? Trinity is supposedly very big on legacies, but again, noticeable difference to Brearley. Etc. Some viewpoints on this upthread.

Traditionally Brearley has been the training ground for young ambitious ladies from prestigious families. The most connected and wealthy families send their children to Brearley. If I am merely rich and have no connections to a T50 university, I can get my dc into HM fairly easy. Many wealthy and famous people have had to pull favors to get their child into Brearley.

I don't know about HM but I don't think Trinity is that difficult to get into for high school if you have the grades/scores and are full pay. I know many kids who have gotten in this year that are pretty ordinary and have no connections. The smartest kid in our 8th grade class is actually going somewhere that most would consider 2T or 3T. I think Trinity is much easier than some of these schools that don't open up much in 9th.

They get 500+ applicants for 9th. Your definition of difficult must be different than mine. 😵‍💫

How do you know how many apps they receive. I know quite a few pretty ordinary 8th graders that got in this year, including one that is definitely not top of their class. No one we know got into Dalton or Brearley. I think if you have good grades and ISEEs you have a chance. Dalton only takes like 20 new kids so getting in at 9th is much more difficult.

Just read the annual report. Application numbers are listed.

Dalton is “easier” in k and harder in 9th because it doesn’t expand much. But is Dalton “easy” to get into in k? Apply the same logic to Brearley.

Trinity doubles in size— so it adds 30ish girls and 30ish boys in 9th. Do you really think that means it’s “not that difficult” to get into? Asking as the parent of a 7th grader on the verge of applying. They get 500+ applicants for those spots.

I would say that if you have your heart set on TT and your kid has great middle school grades and high ISEE scores your best bet is probably Trinity and HM. I’ve heard Trinity accepts about 90. Not everyone accepts the offer. I’m not saying it’s easy but I know a good handful of totally unconnected kids that have gotten in this year and none with impressive hooks.

I agree with this. Trinity is the hardest for K because it’s mostly siblings and legacies, but for high school it becomes more likely because of how many students they add.

Agree. And they get a lot of strivers with zero chance of getting in applying because of the brand name, so that increases the denominator a lot. Trinity takes a lot of kids for HS. It is still very hard to get into, but not impossible. For K, it is virtually impossible. Horace Mann is fairly similar.

. Trinity generally takes 2-4 kids from Anderson.

And Speyer! Tons from Speyer.