Reply to Stay at TT or Retire to Suburbs

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Back to op’s original question.  Op, you seem to have a belief that your kids will have a better chance of attending a T10 coming from Princeton High than your private, because you think the class will be less competitive.  Last year, Princeton high school had 371 AP scholars (students who scored at least a 3 on three or more ap tests).  Assuming this number is spread equally among sophomores, juniors and seniors (since freshman won’t have data)meven though more likely to be concentrated among juniors and seniors, that’s one hundred and twenty kids per class that will be gunning for highly selective colleges.
   Further, 84 kids applied to Princeton U from Princeton High two years ago.  https://www.towntopics.com/2025/10/29/matriculation-report-helps-phs-counselors-discover-student-trends/  That is roughly the number of kids who  think they are Ivy level applicants, the number is maybe 30 kids at my kid’s private.  
  19 of those kids were accepted which seems like a huge number.  But we know that three quarters will usually be faculty kids.  Let’s assume only two thirds are faculty kids.  That’s assume only one other kid is hooked in any way, also probably an underestimate.  That gives us an unhooked acceptance rate to Princeton from Princeton High of 7 percent.  You can compare that to your current school, but my guess is that they are similar.  Princeton High sends zero to two kids to other Ivies and about 3 to 5 to Cornell.  That isn’t better than my private, and the pool of competitive applicants at Princeton High is at least twice as large.

So it’s a nice place to live and you should give it a try if you want a suburb with a high quality of life.  But don’t move because you think it will improve your kid’s odds of getting into an Ivy, it won’t do that.[/quote]

Thank you for this well thought out post. I think we would make the move if we felt that we weren't hurting the quality of our kids' education (it's bad enough that they would have to say goodbye to many close and good friends). Princeton is somewhat unique because there does seem to be a very well-qualified pool of undergrads who are active in tutoring local kids. So we don't expect any issues in terms of supplementing to make up for any not so great teachers when that occurs. We expect the peer set to lean more towards STEM which actually we welcome.

With regards to colleges, I agree with the 7% you backed into for Princeton specifically. Thank you for sharing the AP Scholar stat as I wasn't aware of it before and it's a very instructive metric. With that said I think the kids who are really in the running for Ivy's are going to be in the range of 8 to 10 AP's and are going to need all 5's. From a base of let's say  180 AP scholars per class I feels plausible (but this is a total guess) that maybe half or less are in that category. So let's call this a base of 90 kids in the true "AP crowd". Excluding the 15 or so hooked seniors who matriculate to Princeton each year, it gets to something like 20 to 25 kids going to Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke and UChicago out of a base of 75. That's not so bad if the assumptions I've made aren't just completely off. We're also double legacy at a mid-range Ivy and are pretty certain applying ED from Princeton High will be a lot more meaningful than doing that coming out of our current TT. But who knows is legacy is evening going to be a thing in 10 to 15 years.

All this is to say that we think (whether correctly or incorrectly) that Princeton public has comparable and certainly not worse matriculation odds than any other non-magnet (e.g. Bergen County Academies) public. We also think that it will in fact be less competitive academically than our current TT. So in our minds it's kind of a wash from a college exmissions perspective.

In terms of rigor and how competitive things are academically, if given the choice between the type of writing that's demanded from TT classes vs. scoring well in a rote AP test I think it's way easier (though far less beneficial educationally) to ace the AP test. Our biggest concern is that the kids truly do lose something in the teaching approach that a school like Princeton high is forced to structurally take compared to the discussion and Socratic? approach that can be offered by top privates. We could of course apply to Lawrenceville or boarding school later but we view that as applying to a worse version of where we are already at with exmissions being more competitive relative to Princeton public.

I invite everyone to please poke holes and ruthlessly tell me where I am completely wrong in all of this. [/quote]

Ap scholar is three or more aps with no upper limit.  The three is a minimum. And in fact there was 695 kids enrolled in ap classes at Princeton that year.  So I think you continue to underestimate the number of kids operating at a high level.[/quote]

exactly - to think that these 700 kids (even if it's like 250 per graduating class) aren't going to be shooting for Top 50 schools.  it's gonna be very competitive.   Outside of Princeton U - is harvard really going to take 15 kids out of a class of 500?   they will take 3 kids out of a class of 100 at a TT.[/quote]

But it is probably the same kid regardless if the student studied at Princeton hs or at a private school.   Both places give enough opportunity that the top motivated nerds can make it to Princeton from either [/quote]

The opportunity is there in both places but the math shows the odds are much better at a TT Private .   (although Princeton from Princeton might be the exception) -

If you disagree with that statement then the whole discussion point is pointless.     [/quote]

Not sure.  Princeton wants the students it wants.  If those students decide to go to Princeton HS or elsewhere instead of an elite nyc private,   Princeton still wants them.  If Princeton doesn't get them, their competitors will.

[/quote]

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