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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]   [quote=Anonymous][url]https://www.instagram.com/phillipsexeter26decisions/?g=5[/url]
You won't find a cluster of more than 2, 3 kids for a same school.  They are steered to a WIDE range of ivy league and plus and top lac schools.
[b]No rat race, everyone finds somewhere they are happy. [/b]
Well done![/quote]

We know the Exeter college process well. this isn't true whatsoever. About 50 kids apply for Harvard each year. About 10 will be admitted, but it's not the best 10 applicants. Usually, it is a combination of legacies, athletes, URMs, FGLI, etc. Exeter is wealthier than most colleges, so they have many scholarship students with great personal stories. During college admissions season, they are heavily encouraged to lean on these stories in their applications.

The counseling process looks [b]very[/b] different for hooked and unhooked kids. A low-income black student with a B+ average could be encouraged to ED to Penn. I've seen Exeter black kids with C's or worse in math class get into Yale over the years. Meanwhile, an unhooked kid with a 10/11 GPA (very strong at Exeter) will be encouraged to shoot for Cornell or Dartmouth ED.

I guarantee you that many of these kid admitted to places like Colby, Tufts, or Wesleyan had Ivy ambitions which were shot down by their college counseling office and they were encouraged to aim lower. Most of the kids are not happy with their outcomes, and many kids feel like they would've had better odds applying from their local public school because the pool is much less competitive. Instead of competing against 50 driven Exonians, they might be competing against 4 kids that aren't that impressive. [/quote]

I graduated from Exeter in 98, and got in everywhere I applied except deferred at Brown. I was a strong, but not top student, with an A- average from a middle class immigrant Indian family. My choices were skewed bc I wanted a large school in a great city or college town. Ended up at nyu stern, and transferred later to Barnard. A great place for me!

I turned down Penn (didn’t get into Wharton program), Michigan and Berkeley.)

Lol at the people here who think everyone at Exeter is a billionaire scion or is connected. My parents were IBMers.[/quote]

My understanding it that, because of their size, Andover and Exeter have always been a little more meritocratic than some of the other schools. When I applied to Andover back in the 80's there was a strong international presence there, one that would be normal today but was noteworthy back then.

Sure, both E and A have always attracted some old money (see: Bush family), but has never been on the level of St. Paul's or Hotchkiss. And these days, Deerfield seems to be the preferred school of the billionaire crowd. [/quote]

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