Anonymous wrote:Yeah, that's great but how many of these kids are legacies? It's one thing to be admitted to a school that accepts less than 1 out of 10 applicants but for legacies, it's 1 out of 3, which is a completely different ball game and a school like St Alban has plenty of Ivy legacies.

Shouldn't there be lots of legacies at all of these well-regarded local independent schools (e.g. GDS, Maret, Sidwell, Holton, Potomac, etc.)? I can't really think of why there would be more Ivy parents at STA. Yet these numbers are really high from what I've seen (and from what the "matriculation stats" spreadsheet indicates, see link: http://matriculationstats.org/). In other words, I'd argue that common sense supports the idea that it is an "apples to apples" comparison.

Conversely, I would guess that at top Catholic schools like Prep/Visitation/Gonazaga, etc., there might be (a) more students who want to go to a Catholic school; and (b) fewer Ivy alum parents, so that it probably wouldn't be an apples to apples comparison if you just measured how many of their students were accepted into Ivies.

In the end, I believe college matriculations is of limited utility in judging a high school, since it depends so much on the native aptitude of the given student (and other factors like legacy/athlete come into play). I would say that this does show that St. Albans has a strong academic cohort (so if you want your kid to be surrounded/pushed by high achieving peers, you might look at this) and that it appears to have a strong reputation among college admissions committees.

The kids' analysis: just a lot of smart guys this year (STA had about a dozen national merit finalists this year and scads of commended students), with a smattering of very smart athletes (a baseball player going to Princeton, a couple of rowers at other schools). I think there are some legacies, but someone pointed out to me that one student this year who was admitted to an Ivy early as a legacy was academically strong enough that he also won a Morehead Scholarship. So although my impression is that the "legacy" thing wasn't a major factor (the kids who got into a parent's school also got into other non-legacy Ivies, for example), it sounds like those who are legacies also have the objective stats (GPA and SAT scores).

Apparently this really is unusually good and nobody (okay, the kids, but they seem to know what they are talking about in this regard!) expects next year's college admissions picture to be anything like it. That does comport with my observation that at these smaller schools there can be a big difference year to year in just how strong the graduating class is.

Still, I was impressed.

That's pretty darn impressive...

So are they braniacs, athletes, artists, or just all arounders?

Anonymous wrote:Well, it helps that a St. A parent is on the board of Princeton...

I believe only 3-4 out of the overall group are Princeton admits, if that many (only one early admit to Princeton out of the early application bumper crop, from what I heard). Lots of Harvard and Yale and Dartmouth and Columbia and Penn, from what the teen rumor mill says (and never underestimate the accuracy of info from motivated teenage boys wielding the power of Facebook).

[I know it is odd for an adult poster to reference the teen rumor mill; all I can say is never underestimate the tendency of teenagers to assume the non-existence or lack of hearing of any adult who is either (a) driving a car; or (b) fixing them food.]

Yeah, that's great but how many of these kids are legacies? It's one thing to be admitted to a school that accepts less than 1 out of 10 applicants but for legacies, it's 1 out of 3, which is a completely different ball game and a school like St Alban has plenty of Ivy legacies.

Anonymous wrote:When I graduated from high school 65 of 121 kids got in to an ivy from my class. Just an FYI.

When was that, about 1980? Hate to burst your bubble, but while the SAT may be easier, all of these Ivies are significantly more selective now in admissions than in the pre-iPod, pre-cell phone days. I'm still proud of my ivy degree, but recognize I probably wouldn't be accepted if I applied with an analogous profile today.