Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm also a former admissions staffer at a top SLAC (small world, PP) and a 3-time veteran of the college application process as a parent. While I would agree with much of what the other former admissions staffer says -- e.g., the middle of the class benefits most from the college counseling services offered by many independent schools, parents need to inform themselves and ask questions of college counselors -- I would hesitate to describe independent school counselors as hand-holding families through the application process. Independent school counselors do a great service to the applicants by coordinating the flow of transcripts and recommendations -- a service that public schools cannot offer due to the number of students. Similarly, independent school counselors can write more detailed and nuanced school recommendation letters for students -- again because of class size as well as the availability of detailed teacher reports. In our experience (at a "Big 3" school), however, the counselors did not provide much help at all on essays, nor, more fundamentally on developing a list of colleges to visit or, ultimately, to apply to. Perhaps that's not the case at every independent school, but that's what we found.

"Parents need to inform themselves and ask questions of college counselors."

After going through NCS' college application process, I completely agree. Basically all my DD's counselor did was coordinated submitting transcripts and recs. There were no special calls to schools. DD learned during a meeting that her counselor hadn't placed any followup calls on her behalf and was asked if she had received any emails/feedback from her schools. We figured that we were on our own, it was around January at this point. Fortunately, my DD was in the top third of her class. We did a lot of the footwork ourselves, she was accepted at her first choice school.

Anonymous wrote:How do you know if your in the top third? Is there really any way to tell between bottom of the top third and top of the second third?

Anonymous wrote:I'm also a former admissions staffer at a top SLAC (small world, PP) and a 3-time veteran of the college application process as a parent. While I would agree with much of what the other former admissions staffer says -- e.g., the middle of the class benefits most from the college counseling services offered by many independent schools, parents need to inform themselves and ask questions of college counselors -- I would hesitate to describe independent school counselors as hand-holding families through the application process. Independent school counselors do a great service to the applicants by coordinating the flow of transcripts and recommendations -- a service that public schools cannot offer due to the number of students. Similarly, independent school counselors can write more detailed and nuanced school recommendation letters for students -- again because of class size as well as the availability of detailed teacher reports. In our experience (at a "Big 3" school), however, the counselors did not provide much help at all on essays, nor, more fundamentally on developing a list of colleges to visit or, ultimately, to apply to. Perhaps that's not the case at every independent school, but that's what we found.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The college counselors at schools (StA's is in that bunch) would call us practically begging on some of the students, but we can always tell who is at the bottom of a class. Selective schools get somewhat snobby when independent schools try to push their bottom third on them and usually WL or flat out deny those students. For example, a school like Davidson may WL StA's top boy bc they know he is a double Harvard legacy and his record is Strong enough to get in, so he isn't coming to Davidson. It isnt worth wasting an admit on that student. Then, they admit the kid in the middle third who is strong and has expressed high interest. When the kid in the bottom third applies, they have to deny him since they did not admit the top boy. Even if they need another boy, they will take him from another school at that point so that decisions seem somewhat consistent within a single school community.

If I had a child who was average, by the standards of a school like StA, I would send him elsewhere. Probably public, because it is not worth the cost if the child won't even end up at a top school. Save the money to give to the child for graduate school.

This is really interesting, thanks. We're going through the admissions process right now. I suppose another question is, if a kid can make the top 3rd at StA's, this kid would probably also be in the top 3rd at public (and I realize the top kids at public schools like Whitman, Potomac, TJ et cetera are very strong too). So this again begs the question of whether private is worth it *iff* your main criteria is college acceptance (flame protection: I'm not agreeing that's the only reason for private). So in this case, I would imaging the kid in the top 3rd at public is out to sea with an admissions person who doesn't know who he is, while the kid in StA's top 3rd has a school counselor who is calling Cornell on his behalf.

Anonymous wrote:

The college counselors at schools (StA's is in that bunch) would call us practically begging on some of the students, but we can always tell who is at the bottom of a class. Selective schools get somewhat snobby when independent schools try to push their bottom third on them and usually WL or flat out deny those students. For example, a school like Davidson may WL StA's top boy bc they know he is a double Harvard legacy and his record is Strong enough to get in, so he isn't coming to Davidson. It isnt worth wasting an admit on that student. Then, they admit the kid in the middle third who is strong and has expressed high interest. When the kid in the bottom third applies, they have to deny him since they did not admit the top boy. Even if they need another boy, they will take him from another school at that point so that decisions seem somewhat consistent within a single school community.

If I had a child who was average, by the standards of a school like StA, I would send him elsewhere. Probably public, because it is not worth the cost if the child won't even end up at a top school. Save the money to give to the child for graduate school.