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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]GDS, Sidwell, STA/NCS.[/quote]

This May be true but the schools promote athletes , female stem, under represented minorities , legacies because they will have the easiest time getting in. So maybe your kid is getting a great education but if s/he has those other things they can be from any school and it doesn't matter[/quote]

Not sure that this holds up under actual inspection.  The students I know getting into the most selective colleges from our independent run the gamut, and the mix is pretty consistent with the overall school demographics.  Further, there are almost no athletic recruitts to Ivy schools.   A few division III athletes to SLACs, but very few otherwise.  The female STEM bias is in direct response to the expressed demand by the colleges themselves, and the fact that tracking is much more prevalent in these subjects, allowing the high flyers to develop a transcript with lots of advanced level courses (BC calc, multivariable, Physics 2), which is less the case in the humanities where there is less opportunity for differentiation.  I actaully disagree pretty strongly with this policy.  In practice, when you ask the kids who are the strongest students they almost always talk about the kids who got bumped two levels in math and rarely about the best poet in the class.[/quote]

The kids might not talk about the poet, but I know a student who achieved at very high levels in STEM, but who was much more heavily recruited by the most selective schools because of her similarly high level accomplishments in poetry. Nationally recognized at high level for both. Given that private schools in this area don't typically provide kids with the acceleration and support they need to succeed at a national level in STEM, a good poet should fare as well as anybody. [/quote]

Your STEM poet sounds just like the kind of future graduate student I would typically look for.  As a long-time science educator at the undergrad/grad level, I have seen way too many wonder kids who profess expertise in their fields by the age of 18 - or earlier on occasion - simply because they won such and such high school award.  All you have to do is look at the resumes of some of these kids with lists of "substantial" research accomplishments to understand the utter lack of humility.  Most significant research can only happen once the work and thinking of predecessors is digested, dissected, discoursed and frequently disputed; In other words, at a post doctoral level.  Once sufficiently accomplished, the best scientists can then apply their own personal creativity to the problem at hand, which is where the poetry comes in.  Most areas of science require deep understanding and above all patience.  Demonstrated interest at a young age is an important indicator of future success.  The mistake is in thinking that it is a sprint instead of a marathon.  Further, a deep level understanding and foundation in math at the calculus level in high school is a very good start.[/quote]

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