Big 5 = "most desired" schools, not necessarily "the best"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has actually been a fascinating thread with lots of interesting new perspective once you get beyond the tired old mean-girl Big 3 dynamics, which the OP intended. Underlying it all, it seems to me, is the eagerness of some parents of young children to find a school that will actually TURN THEIR CHILDREN INTO National Merit finalists or ivy league students. My own background with older children and education tells me that this does NOT happen, and I concur with those who have said that the crucial question is how schools deepen and expand the educational experience for children that are naturally one-rung down (or even more) from super brilliant. It's hard for parents of young children, who all see their children as full of unlimited and spectacular potential, to accept that the super brilliant, the merit finalists, the truly exceptional students are born, not made, and they reveal themselves slowly in relation to their peers as they develop. We should all focus our analytical attention instead on how some of the various private schools manipulate their SAT/Merit/Ivy statistics by cherry-picking ivy legacies and high scorers at all entrance points, to the detriment of high-potential "normal" kids and kids who offer a more unique mix.

I am not hoping to find a school to turn my DS into a NSM finalist or ivy league student --- his scores are fine. I am trying to find a HS that will provide my DS with a high achieving and hard working peer group and individual attention by faculty. For that purpose the medain SATs of the graduating class and the number of NSM semi-finalists are a good initial screen when looking at schools. I would also argue, but I am too busy to look up the references, that most kids perform better when with peers who are slightly more motivated and competent than they are, so I also think that these schools are actually good for many kids.

I am totally with you on this. For better or worse my son is very competitive and will definitely work harder to get to the top quartile of whatever his peer group is. So the peer group ends up being important. While I am leaning towards public school for HS I am concerned that he could end up in a lower peer group and not achieve as much as he could in a private school that's been pre screened.

[Anonymous]

This thread has been fascinating, and I want to thank the "statistics diggers" for producing the information. I take at face value (and agree with) their assertions that they aren't trying to promote the # of national merit scholarship semifinalists as the be-all-and-end-all of school rankings, some opinions to the contrary. (And I have absolutely no interest in the GDS vs. Maret fight!)

However, this is one hard statistic in a pool of myth, opinion and hysteria. I agree that the figures on demand for private HS are less useful. Demand is a factor in financial and real estate bubbles, and in those cases demand was recently shown to be a really poor indicator of value. I wish more such stats were easily available. For example, data on AP & IB scores (not just the number of AP and IB tests taken) or exmissions (adjusted, perhaps, for whether the kids going to Ivies were Ivy legacies). Impossible to get, unfortunately.

One minor point -- Blair is not a magnet unto itself, like TJ. Instead, it's a large school with two of MoCo's three high school magnets (math/science and communication arts) housed within a much larger school. Many kids at Blair don't apply to college, and others don't apply to colleges that require the SATs. So perhaps Blair's numbers should be adjusted by the number of kids that go on to college (it's probably fair to assume that 99% of TJ and elite private kids go on to college). If I have time and/or are able to dig this out tomorrow, I'll see what I can come up with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also don't agree that the quality of these schools can be reduced to a simple popularity contest of which is "in greatest demand." There are real differences between the schools, and some will be better or worse than others for each individual family and/or in different categories of comparison.

I agree with you - but do recognize that the top college rankings like US News are exactly that. They survey people to find out who they think are "the best". Again, I don't agree... I think that just makes them the most in demand/most popular.

I'm glad we're in agreement that mere numbers of applications is not really relevant. But I don't think your statements about US News are quite correct. US News uses surveys of college provosts, etc for some aspects, but also relies on quantitative data. http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/08/19/how-we-calculate-the-college-rankings.html

[Anonymous]

The point of the original post is that you CAN measure demand for certain schools (# of applications), but you cannot measure "the best" (because it's a highly subjective determination, and it's multifactoral with different weights for different factors for different families... ie. I might weigh 'excellence in athletics' in a top school much more than you do). You can measure the question "Which schools, on a % basis, have the most Merit scholars", as one discrete data point, but we must be very careful not to imply that this in turn creates a best schools ranking.

I read OP as suggesting that the measure of demand somehow relates to which schools are "best." I think demand has very little relation to which schools are "best," and certainly less than Nat'l Merit numbers might.

[Anonymous]

The unequivocal "Big 3" , thus rightly, are Thomas Jefferson (TJ), Blair Math and Science Magnet and Sidwell Friends. Coup d'etat duly noted!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The point of the original post is that you CAN measure demand for certain schools (# of applications), but you cannot measure "the best" (because it's a highly subjective determination, and it's multifactoral with different weights for different factors for different families... ie. I might weigh 'excellence in athletics' in a top school much more than you do). You can measure the question "Which schools, on a % basis, have the most Merit scholars", as one discrete data point, but we must be very careful not to imply that this in turn creates a best schools ranking.

I read OP as suggesting that the measure of demand somehow relates to which schools are "best." I think demand has very little relation to which schools are "best," and certainly less than Nat'l Merit numbers might.

You are thus making the argument that the majority of students/families applying to private school are acting irrationally and should be applying to a different set of schools. I disagree.

[Anonymous]

They could be acting rationally, but their goal would be something different than putting their kid in the best school. They might, for example, want a school that shelters their kid from cutthroat competition. Or a school that maximizes their ability to network with other parents. Or the school that lets him play on the best lacrosse team that would have him. Or lets him stay with his friends. Or is an easy commute. Or reinforces their religious values. Or....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The point of the original post is that you CAN measure demand for certain schools (# of applications), but you cannot measure "the best" (because it's a highly subjective determination, and it's multifactoral with different weights for different factors for different families... ie. I might weigh 'excellence in athletics' in a top school much more than you do). You can measure the question "Which schools, on a % basis, have the most Merit scholars", as one discrete data point, but we must be very careful not to imply that this in turn creates a best schools ranking.

I read OP as suggesting that the measure of demand somehow relates to which schools are "best." I think demand has very little relation to which schools are "best," and certainly less than Nat'l Merit numbers might.

You are thus making the argument that the majority of students/families applying to private school are acting irrationally and should be applying to a different set of schools. I disagree.

Perhaps if this were a truly "free market" situation, you might be right. But I agree with PP that there are many variables affecting the number of applications that are completely unrelated to the strength of the school. I also think measuring demand by where Norwood grads applied in one year if far too small a sample size to draw any meaningful conclusions. However, if you (or others) think the number of applications might correlates strongly with the strength of the schools (ie, the more applications the better the school), then one easy way to approach the problem might be to get the actual total number of applicants to each school from somewhere like that Georgia Ervin book. I think the book might list that statistic, but I'm not sure. If you want to adjust the number of total applicants to take into account the size of the school, you could divide applicants by class size to get a percentage. I think that might actually be an informative measurement.

Does anyone involved in this discussion have access to the Georgia Ervin book, or know where to get the total-number-of-applicants stats?

[Anonymous]

PP here. I googled for admission stats and found this article (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200311/peck). Not useful to the question I raised, but it's a good analysis, and also points out the limitations with measuring the number of applicants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
(2) I sense an unwarranted bias against private schools in your last sentence. I don't think it's quite correct that private schools pick "high scorers" or Ivy legacies for admission just to boost their stats. I'm also not sure how you differentiate the "high scorers" supposedly getting preference from the "high-potential normal" kids that you want to benefit. Finally, I'd note that to the extent it's fair to criticize "cherry picking" (i.e., giving extra opportunities to kids that demonstrate high potential), those exact same accusations could be leveled at public magnet schools like Thomas Jefferson and Blair, probably even more damningly than they could be leveled at any private schools.

Actually, at Blair about 160 kids in each class are in one of the two magnet programs, out of a total class size of about 650. So by your criteria, the majority of Blair kids aren't cherry-picked, in fact many come from low income families who could never afford a fancy private. Which makes the % of NMSSFs even more impressive, in my view.

Not all private schools ask where the parents went to college, but some of the top ones do (hello, Sidwell). Why would they care, otherwise? Possibly they are practicing some sort of "reverse discrimination" where they give a tip to kids with parents who didn't attend college, but I rather doubt that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You are thus making the argument that the majority of students/families applying to private school are acting irrationally and should be applying to a different set of schools. I disagree.

Dutch tulip bulbs, cults, financial bubbles.... Unfortunately, there have been periods of time when people get caught up in trends that aren't rational at all.

[Anonymous]

This discussion about national merit scholarship semi-finalists has been really illuminating. Many posters have made the point that this isn't the only criterion for picking a school, however it's the only hard indicator we have at the moment.

So are there any other hard facts or stats out there that can also be explored to compare schools? Some privates have eliminated APs, which could otherwise have been a good indicator for comparison purposes. Publics have NCLB and privates have the ERBs, but the latter aren't publicly available. The percent of kids going to top colleges would need to be adjusted for legacies, which is impossible. So is there anything else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You are thus making the argument that the majority of students/families applying to private school are acting irrationally and should be applying to a different set of schools. I disagree.

Dutch tulip bulbs, cults, financial bubbles.... Unfortunately, there have been periods of time when people get caught up in trends that aren't rational at all.

Whoa, there. You are getting way too philosphical.

When I think of a best school I think of a school where the kids achieve a great deal. In the same way that the best travel soccer team is the one that wins the most games. It may not be a good fit for my kid if he is not a top player, but I would not dream of arguing that his rec team is the "top" team in town, even if it is great for him and he has fun (and he might be miserable on the travel team where he might never get the ball).

Otherwise we need to start qualifying "best" --- "best for kids in the middle of the pack" or "best for kids that require more repetition" or whatever ...
Of course, there is the question of whether the "best" schools perform well because the school's methods are superior or whether it is just a selection effect. But that is much more difficult question to quantify , and it may not matter providing that the peer group is good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not all private schools ask where the parents went to college, but some of the top ones do (hello, Sidwell). Why would they care, otherwise? Possibly they are practicing some sort of "reverse discrimination" where they give a tip to kids with parents who didn't attend college, but I rather doubt that.

Gives you a sense of family background/education and puts test scores in context. If a kid was borderline on test scores and came from a home where she or he would be the first generation to go to college, an admissions officer would look at that differently than if a kid with those scores had two Ivy-educated parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Otherwise we need to start qualifying "best" --- "best for kids in the middle of the pack" or "best for kids that require more repetition" or whatever ...
Of course, there is the question of whether the "best" schools perform well because the school's methods are superior or whether it is just a selection effect. But that is much more difficult question to quantify , and it may not matter providing that the peer group is good.

Which raises an interesting question: where does your 90th percentile (gradewise and/or testwise) kid do best? In a public school, where they are truly 90th percentile? Or in a top private where they may be 50th percentile (in a range of kids who were selected from the 80th -- 99.9th percentiles, and depending on grade the distribution, but I have no idea what that would be so I'll go with 50th). And with "average" soccer talents, not college recruitment material.

I honestly have no idea what the answer to this is, or if there is one that could even be documented.

I would guess that the kid has similar college prospects coming from the 90th percentile of Wilson or Whitman, compared to the alternative of being in the 50th percentile in a top private. Probably a private school offers more nurturing to individual kids, although a kid who's in the 90th percentile nationwide may not need so much. If it's quality of education you care about (who knew?), then there may be more electives in the private, unless you're doing TJ. And so on....