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A representative from Harvard was recently at my school and I asked her, "why are so many students from prep schools accepted into Harvard?"

Her answer: She used Andover as an example. "Almost 3/4 of the Andover class applies to Harvard in any given year. And only 15-17 are usually admitted. Going to a prep school does not increase your chances of admittance. When so many well-qualified people apply, naturally many will be admitted."

Make sense?

By Stanfordhopeful (Stanfordhopeful) on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 01:36 am: Edit

Or because many of the kids are very, very wealthy and privileged (future donors), often have legacies and double legacies and have their high school careers "tailored" towards getting into HYP?

By Lamronba412 (Lamronba412) on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 01:38 pm: Edit

3/4??? more like 1/4...last year, 72 applied and 17 got in. From those 17 students, 15 matriculated this year. This is out of a senior class of around 300. This Harvard rep needs to get her facts straight. But it is true that many more students apply to Harvard from Andover than from public schools.

By Nemom (Nemom) on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 01:55 pm: Edit

It's complicated - many prep school kids are legacies or double legacies. Most or all (from the 'big name preps' are very intelligent and have been working hard for at least a few years. They and their parents have been aiming at the Ivies. And yes, some are hugely wealthy and have parents who will be big donors. But does this mean YOUR chances of getting into an Ivy are better if you attend a big name prep school? That's an entirely different question.

By Jawaad87 (Jawaad87) on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 03:08 pm: Edit

it all has to do with family influence, personal connections (*cough*George Bush-Jeb Bush*cough*), money, etc.

Essentially, ifyou don't have money, it's going to be a lot tougher for you to get in.

By Gianscolere (Gianscolere) on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 06:13 pm: Edit

well a groton student who was unofficially ranked 60th (she was at the bottom of the class) was accepted at harvard meanwhile the 4th-ranked kid was not. she was poor but was given the scholarship to attend groton...so harvard must have trusted that groton did a good job of preparing her. there were lots of other kids that were rejected that year.

well i think that prep schools send more kids to the ivies because prep school classes are very well-crafted in the first place...these kids were selected out of a couple hundred...400 were taken in out of 2,400 applicants at andover for instance...and 130 were taken out of 1,300 at milton. having been selected shows that these kids have great potential to succeed and if they do indeed do well in high school, there's a high likelihood that they will also attend a highly-ranked unversity.

but you're right...having a parent who's a major donor also helps.

By Nemom (Nemom) on Thursday, October 16, 2003 - 02:03 pm: Edit

A quick history lesson for Jawaa87 and others - the function of most NE prep schools as recently as the 1950s was largely to prepare the sons (and to a lesser degree) daughters of the elite to go to the colleges of the elite (aka the Ivies). Both the prep schools and the Ivies were very different in the past - neither was necessarily what might be considered demanding by today's standards (to be precise - they were at once more and less demanding - those heavy loads of the classics would be hard for today's students, but math and science tended to be weaker).
It's difficult, however, to compare the preps and Ivies of the past and present - too much has changed. Grades are one example - in GWB's day, Cs and Bs were quite respectable grades at Harvard - lately Harvard's been revealed to have a huge degree of grade inflation - somewhere over 85% of all grades are As - which is very different from Yale.