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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm pretty sure it is easier to get into top colleges from a public high school.  I am an SFS parent and I believe that to be true.  I just know my kids are getting a great education and hope it will serve them well regardless of where they go to college.  [/quote]

It's so hard to answer this question.  I think it's true that it's easier to get into top colleges from a public high school in an area that's underrepresented.  But I'm not sure it's easier to get into a top college from Whitman/BCC than from a top private.  It seems to me the problem is an overrepresentation (from the college's perspective), which is present at either Sidwell (or similar) or Whitman.  But at least at Sidwell you have built-in test prep and college counseling.  And teachers that know you well enough to write recommendations.
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Good post.  The overrepresentation thing is real, as colleges for this generation are interested in geographic diversity as a subset of socio-economic diversity.  There is also the issue that the same admissions rep presents to the committee the applications that come from any one school, and the more experienced the rep is, the more they can draw distinctions between applications that might look similar on the surface (this applicant ducked the hardest courses; this applicant got a great rec letter from a teacher who is very sparing with over the top praise; etc.).

With that said, a kid with all As and great scores (National Merit Semifinalist) will get into top colleges -- an Ivy, if not "the Ivy" that person is fixed upon -- whether they come from public or private school in the D.C. area.  If you transplant your A student with 2300 SATs to North Dakota, will he/she stand out even more?  Of course!  The fact that the National Merit corporation has to set different award thresholds for different states makes this very clear (and this region is up at the top along with Massachusetts).  But, as the prior poster said, the quality of the education at the North Dakota public high school is probably not as strong.  If you transplant that same student to Whitman from Sidwell/NCS/STA/Holton/GDS/Maret, they will just join a different cohort of highly talented students with great grades and great scores.  At Wilson in DC?  They will stand out a bit more, but there will be some opportunities (small class sizes, getting to play sports, stronger arts programs) lost from the private school experience.

Most people come around to realizing when it comes to their child's high school education, it's better to focus on the journey (a challenging, stimulating education at a place where they are happy) than the hoped-for destination.  Given the expense of private school, of course, I get that some people start getting antsy if they think that the choice of private school did not materially change the child's college outcome (or they think that it put the child at a disadvantage).  For those people, I will just repeat: once the student is in college, s/he needs to do the work.  If they excel, they will have excellent opportunities.[/quote]

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