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SInce everything in this world is ranked, I can't believe I am having such a hard time finding rankings for private boarding and day high schools. Is there such a web site or book?
And what does one make of such rankings? Do they matter>

By Nemom (Nemom) on Tuesday, October 05, 2004 - 09:22 pm: Edit

I don't think such rankings are terribly valid. To use a local example - Roxbury Latin (private day) ranks very high generally , in part because of the high numbers of kids that go to Ivies. But many of the students are also legacies,well off, and all are very bright - who can say how many would have gone to the same schools even if they had attended a different high school? ANother local example - Boston University Academy ranks lower than some other schools because it has , in essence, no AP classes. That's because kids take classes at BU - they are 'real college classes' but not APs - so does it make sense for BUA to be lower than a school with APs? Boston Magazine does some ranking for local privates which include quite a few boarding schools as well as day high schools, but they are somewhat based on guesses - not all information requested is provided by all the schools. For local private day schools, you'll find out plenty by getting printed info from the schools, visiting and talking to parents and students. FOr private boarding schools, if you search around, a small set of mostly NE schools will show up again and again. Folks here will probably list them for you too.

By Lfill (Lfill) on Wednesday, October 06, 2004 - 02:05 am: Edit

Actually the best info I got on this topic was here, given by poster admissionsrep. You can check the archives. She lists the top "super elite" prep schools as Andover, Exeter, St. Paul's and Deerfield. The site she recommends is boardingschoolreview.com. It was somewhat helpful for us.