I'm hunting for a specific metric and wondering if anyone has any intel. There's no doubt that many/most NYC independent schools have excellent college placements, but I'm curious how many of those are legacy/HNW admits vs unhooked kids. I.E. Brearley is know for a lot of Harvard admits, but how many of those girls are legacy vs how many got in because Brearley has an excellent relationship with Harvard and can push to get "normal" girls in? I've also heard, for example, that Riverdale has great placements, but that it's partially because there is a larger than normal amount of legacy kids there, so it eases the process.
I don't know how true any of those anecdotes are, but was just curious if certain schools are more known for getting unconnected kids into schools vs others where they have great stats because many of the kids come from legacy families/a lot of money. If there's one thing I've learned from the K admissions process, it's that if a school routinely sends like 8 kids per year to one TT, it's generally because there's a legacy pipeline, not because they're able to get that many in without a hook. Thoughts?
ITA. Looking at the parents at our TT, about 40-50% of the kids have at least 1 parent who went to an Ivy and that mirrors the college exmissions rates.
This data is not available anywhere because there's no list of "connected" kids at each school.
Right, not expecting to find it on a school's website, but just wondering if there are ways to dig it up, I guess?
OP I have the same question. May be some parents here can help us understand based on what they see in their schools.
Here is who gets the 'most coveted' spots from our school in this order: Big $$$ (hundreds of millions+), Children of celebs, legacies (though this year they didn't really), Under-represented minority kids who are all-around stellar. The typical, super smart, impressive, well-rounded kids are going to top 25 schools but not HYPMS and typically not an Ivy
I think the top schools are more helpful to the kids at the bottom than the top. The kids at the "bottom" are still going to top 50 schools.
It just sounds like $$$ and minorities.. because what you wrote is Big $$$, children of celebs (and celebs in private school have $$$), and under represented minorities. So "he typical, super smart, impressive, well-rounded kids are going to top 25 schools but not HYPMS and typically not an Ivy" may have been better off in public?
@Anonymous I do think they receive a better education, but yes they'd have probably been a star in their public and gotten into higher ranked schools. And put these same kids in Kansas and they can go anywhere.
Which groups are considered URM? How much does that help (eg when compared with a ORM kids - meaning, both kids have the same stats, but one is URM, the other is ORM)?
What about athletic recruiting?
I assume URM is African American, Latino. Remember the Boston judge who said its perfectly acceptable to assume Asians have terrible personalities that would disqualify them from college acceptances.
@Anonymous From my cursory look into this, Asians are the largest "minority" group on any TT campus by far.
Yes, underrepresented minority is generally black or Latina/o, but of course it depends on the school. And there's not a whole lot of recruited athletes from TT NYC schools, but yes that helps too.
The thing that struck me as curious is the very high number Brearley grads going to Harvard (over 10% of class). I doubt Brearley has more super-rich or Harvard legacies than other TTs (though I guess it's possible, particularly the latter).
They have a TON of legacies. Harvard is huge, so they probably have a fair number of two-parent legacies whether first level (undergrad) or second level (grad school).
@Anonymous I don’t think a Harvard graduate degree counts as legacy. Tons of Harvard MBAs in NYC privates.
@Anonymous Sure, there are definitely a ton of Harvard legacies at Brearley. But more than at Collegiate, Spence, and Chapin -- all of which are approximately the same size? They send almost as many kids to Harvard each year (~6) as Horace Mann (~7), which is over three times the size.
The TT have a long history of placing their students at top schools and their reputations are sterling. Their students are uniformly smart and serious, and they challenge each other to achieve. If you think your kid is better off in a random suburban public HS you go right ahead and give that a shot.
I know a couple who met an Ivy undergad, not HYP. She graduated from a private NYC TT, he from a borough public. He always said that if she had gone to his school she would have gotten into HYP, etc. that her SATs and everything else blew away anyone from his high school. It's like the nature vs nurture argument so who knows but it is a valid perspective.
Consider the premise of this thread- counting how many Brearley grads get into Harvard. You should know that the average public HS gets exactly ZERO into Ivies each year.
@anonymous and probably has no legacies either. though i went to a pretty average public and remember at least 6 kids in my grade went to an Ivy, plus one to MIT, and others going to Rice, Duke, and other top schools. Of course tons went to state schools and others didn't go anywhere.
If you are a star student at B and your parents are legacy yes you are getting into H
We have discussed this too- there was an article somewhere that graduating from styvesant or brooklyn tech gives.you a better chance of getting into hyp-
Def graduating from an unknown school In small town america would also be an advantage. But you'd have to have had the push inspiration academics etc all those years to be a top student. Small fish big pond vs big fish small pond etc.
Maybe if you move senior year to that unknown hs and small town you have the best chance? But who can really do that,?
I don’t understand why states like Kansas would give such a relative advantage? There’s not just one star kid that graduates each year and surely kids from Kansas apply HYP also? can someone explain the relative advantage to me?
@Anon This may surprise you, but colleges don't actually care about the kids who go there. They will all be qualified given they can cherry pick from a large applicant pool (that is very marketing driven; how many colleges do kids apply to these days, I hear its 10-20!). So they like statistics to show diversity (as they are b.s. non profit/social missionaries), hence you can have an Elizabeth Warren check off the box she is Native American and the school doesn't really care even when the rest of the world is like WTF. There are less applicants from Kansas than California, so an applicant from Kansas has a much better chance to get in than California. Checks off that geographical diversity box.
What about TT hs, then ed University of Chicago for college?
So far as I can tell, UofC loves, loves, loves NY private graduates (and probably their full-tuition-paying parents). My impression is that there's where very smart kids without any particular hook go.
You could google the parents and see where they went to college, but who has time for that.