Reply to Where are all the Ivy admits coming from you wonder? Dalton NYC 2023 Matriculations

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m not upset with the kids or their parents, they have figured out the system and are playing the game. What I find appalling is the elite colleges who claim to want socioeconomic diversity, racial diversity, cultural diversity, regional diversity, etc etc, but then take all these kids from one school. An elite upper class private in NYC.[/quote]

Wealthy, smart kids concentrate in the same place.  What did you expect?[/quote]

Wealthy, yes. Smart tends to be defined in a way to be synonymous with wealthy in this country, especially by the time you get to high school seniors. Are the kids at Dalton "smart" because they are inherently more intelligent than children elsewhere? [b]Or are they smart because they are of average to above average intelligence and then have had exposure to the best possible education money can buy[/b]?

I am always fascinated by how often this argument is made among private school families (of which I am one, but I personally grew up middle class and attended mediocre public schools all the way through college). The smart kids at elite privates are not smarter than the smart kids at even just okay publics. They are more sophisticated (better traveled, more well-spoken, more comfortable with adults, etc.) but that's a different metric. And it's entirely based on exposure, not inherent qualities.

What I've learned is that wealthy people have a coded way of speaking and interacting that they ascribe to intelligence or simply superior choices but are just a form of gatekeeping (to keep people like me out, I think, but being very perceptive I've learned the code and how to fake what I need to fake so that people accept me when that's what I need, for instance in private school circles where this matters so much to people). The children at Dalton are not inherently more intelligent than the upper half of a class at a good suburban public school. In many ways the kids at the public school are more worldly because they have experienced a much wider range of people and usually have not been raised to believe they belong to a special class of humans who deserve more and better of everything. But they are less sophisticated in the ways that count to rich people, so they will be deemed less intelligent. It's all just a self-protective stance.[/quote]

Right, exactly. I wish UrbanBaby was still around. The exposure starts from birth and you have to be in the know. You sign your baby up for Free to Be Under Three and Diller Quaille and Madison Avenue Playgroup and Carousel of Languages. They help you get to your "Baby Ivies" - 92 Street Y, Episcopal, Brick Church, Temple Emanu-El, etc. If you get the interview with "Babby" at Dalton, you're in. You have to send an ILY letter or you're shut out. Your top tier nursery school brokers admissions to get the kids in. Then comes exposure to everything a millionaire or billionaire in NYC can afford - travel, sports, extra-curriculars, a hamptons house with access to summer camps of all types, then onto the $12,000 a summer sleepaway camp. Private tutors throughout the school year and summer (some sleepaway camps even provide them to you at an extra charge!) This + a substantial donation and/or legacy status puts your kid well on their way to getting into a top college. It's all money and connections.[/quote]

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