Reply to Is B/B+ the average GPA at top privates?

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Is B/B+ the average GPA at top privates? "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So, DCUM is my secret addiction these days (it's better than Ben and Jerry's!).[/quote]  :lol:

You're not making an apples to apples comparison. The average student at an academically strong DC private (with a typical A-/B+ gpa, not B/B+) is not a straight A student at most local public high schools. They're average because they perform at a level typical of most of their classmates. In a public school, they would be average among the subset of students who take a challenging AP/IP curriculum (typically weighted to well over 4.0 gpas) and end up at better state schools (UVA, Michigan) and good SLACs (Wesleyan, Colby).

Where the privates do well is among academically strong students, especially those interested in the humanities and social sciences. The A student at strong private will have written literally hundreds of pages more than their public school counterparts and be engaged in far deeper, small group discussions than what's usually possible at a very good public school with 2-4x as many students per class.  There are teachers at private school who can write very personalized, detailed recs and say things like "the best writer/thinker in my class since [famous author/intellectual]" that make a difference.  The advanced academic electives at StA/NCS/SFS/GDS/Maret/Potomac are a lot like college seminars on purpose. As a result, the strong students arrive on college campuses steeped in contemporary academic debates which are very difficult for high school students to navigate on their own.  Some of it is just arty intellectual posing, but most of it is knowing a lot more than what's on the AP exams.

Then you need to add in the extra level of privilege the private school students possess. Almost all of the top students at my DC's school are legacy at elite schools. They're not super wealthy development cases, but their parents have PBK keys and multiple elite degrees. These are children born on the academic version of 3rd base. My DC's friends from families of modest means have parents who are academics and teachers and public servants and nonprofit types with lots of cultural and intellectual capital. They are adept at "intellectual achievement," so the odds are their children would "win the (college) game" no matter where they went to high school.

[/quote]

Also an excellent post.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics