Duke, Wash U, Cornell, Tulane, NYU, Carnegie - all great schools

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top Enrollments from 2017

U of MD 54
Montgomery College 14
U of Wisconsin 11
PSU 10
Tulane 9
U of Vermont 9
Towson 8
Wash U 7
U of South Carolina 7
Duke 7
U of Delaware 6
NYU 6
Occidental 5
Indiana U 5
Wake Forest 5
Carnegie Mellon 5
American U 5
Cornell 5

Outside of Carnegie, nary a competitive institution.

I think Duke and Cornell would beg to differ. Whitman actually did well with those schools -- 28% got into Duke and 15% got into Cornell.

Anonymous wrote:Top Enrollments from 2017

U of MD 54
Montgomery College 14
U of Wisconsin 11
PSU 10
Tulane 9
U of Vermont 9
Towson 8
Wash U 7
U of South Carolina 7
Duke 7
U of Delaware 6
NYU 6
Occidental 5
Indiana U 5
Wake Forest 5
Carnegie Mellon 5
American U 5
Cornell 5

Outside of Carnegie, nary a competitive institution.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last years data but I assume they will publish again this year.
http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Magazine/September-October-2017/College-Bound/index.php?cparticle=3&siarticle=2#artanc

So by and large, the overall acceptance rates for competitive colleges for the Bethesda area HS are no better than the overall acceptance rates for those colleges.

Very telling. So an education from these schools, overall, confers a kid little to no advantage in college admissions.

Why would it?

This no telling at all. Geographic diversity needs have been around for decades. They can’t fill up the whole ivy class with top performing Coasties.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last years data but I assume they will publish again this year.
http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Magazine/September-October-2017/College-Bound/index.php?cparticle=3&siarticle=2#artanc

So by and large, the overall acceptance rates for competitive colleges for the Bethesda area HS are no better than the overall acceptance rates for those colleges.

Very telling. So an education from these schools, overall, confers a kid little to no advantage in college admissions.

Why would it?

I think most people would assume that going to a better school improves one’s college admissions prospects at least a tiny bit. This proves it really doesn’t.

For public schools it is a complete disadvantage. Now if you compare public to private, the privates yield better college outcomes. The school is known and regional college admissions works directly with those schools.

Two factors at most elite privates: high numbers of legacy students and ability to pay full price.

Incorrect

25-35% of kids at top private schools receive financial aid

Whitman kids are just as wealthy

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would love to see lists like this for all Montgomery county high schools

Me too. That would be most revealing, though it’s surprising to see these schools not really outperform the overall acceptance rates for the colleges.

Bethesda magazine publishes the list for 6-7 of the area high schools. While Whitman may not outperform the acceptance rate of the selctive colleges, it usually outperforms the other high schools for admission to selective schools. Of course there are lots of reasons for that, including affordability. But even acceptance at UMDCP tends to be higher at Whitman (and Churchill) than the other schools.

If you are only worried about college acceptance then one of the top privates is a good bet. But in my experience (with kids at both private and at Whitman) the performance of the top quarter of the Whitman class is pretty much the same as the private schools. There are some kids in that group who choose UMD over more selective schools for cost reasons, which is less common at private schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would love to see lists like this for all Montgomery county high schools

Me too. That would be most revealing, though it’s surprising to see these schools not really outperform the overall acceptance rates for the colleges.

I think what would be most revealing would be to see direct comparisons that controlled for SES.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last years data but I assume they will publish again this year.
http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Magazine/September-October-2017/College-Bound/index.php?cparticle=3&siarticle=2#artanc

So by and large, the overall acceptance rates for competitive colleges for the Bethesda area HS are no better than the overall acceptance rates for those colleges.

Very telling. So an education from these schools, overall, confers a kid little to no advantage in college admissions.

Why would it?

NP. When we were trying to decide what high school pyramid in which to buy I got so many comments about how I should send my kids to a "W" school for college admissions purposes, basically the notion that you should send your kid to X school so that they have a better chance of getting into prestigious colleges. So I guess it's just interesting to me that there is really no evidence that going to "top" public school has any effect on your college admissions.

Those Whitman results are pretty impressive to me. There are a lot of kids attending top 20 Universities and top 10 SLACs., and a whole lot attending very good in/out of state publics. It's also kind of surprising to me that so many kids are interested in traveling far from Bethesda for college.