Reply to New STA parent seeking advice, suggestions, or just plain "I wish I had known X" info

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I know from reading the bulletins that the STA grads place well at the Ivies.  As a s/o of the "bottom half" private school thread, I wonder whether there are non-Ivy schools where the other half of the class typically place/feed/[/quote]

STA grads do place well in the Ivies.  But you have to realize that most are legacies.  It's a cycle of sorts: many kids get into STA because of their parents (wealthy and/or somehow connected) and continue to top colleges via legacy admissions and/or those same connections.  So you do have to look beyond the simple statistics.  Once you do, you'll see that a school like TJ, for example, has a far more impressive Ivy admissions rate.        [/quote]

I don't want to make this about TJ -- I think for what TJ offers (high level math science surrounded by an unbelievably talented cohort for the STEM subjects, and for FREE no less) is unparalleled, as there National Merit Semifinalist rates suggest.

However, I can say from first-hand knowledge of the last couple of years that the "most are legacies" argument about St. Albans admissions is not accurate.  It is a fair point that some are legacies, and it is a fair point that legacies get a big boost so that the college exmissions are favorably influenced by that.  By my tentative count, in the last 2 years maybe 75-80%  of the Ivy/Stanford/MIT admits have not been legacies.  Moreoever (and this is a point that has been made), a lot of the students who are legacies are top students in their own right and would qualify for admission to the most selective schools without Ivy status.  One young man who comes to mind attended the very selective Ivy where he was a legacy, but was such a stirling candidate that he had been offered a Morehouse Scholar.

So, in brief -- legacy matters, but it's not the whole story.  STA attracts a very strong cohort (as the NMSF totals also suggest) and they do well in college admissions mostly on the numbers (grades and GPA).  They get a boost with some athletic admits and some legacies, too, no doubt about it.  But, again, the "most are legacies" argument really overstates the case.[/quote]

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