if your kid is handsome and a great athlete, and goes to a top private, not being rich will hinder them a bit, but it won't totally decimate them.

but yeah, if you have a normal dopey kid who can't fit in at all because of economics, then yeah he will seem like a fish out of water.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4275476&forum_id=2#38333323)

i would actually really love to send my future son(s) to all-boys private schools, but even though I make a lot of money, $40k per kid per year is just so much. if it were half that i'd do it in a heartbeat.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4275476&forum_id=2#38333374)

I know legit poors who attended (sons and daughters of laundromat owners from Chinatown etc) on a full ride. Yeah they can’t go on some ski vacation but they still get the network and make friends and use the network later. Plus I imagine now there’s more guilt than ever so the rich prob want to be friends with the token poors.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4275476&forum_id=2#38333572)

if your dad is a biglaw partner pulling down 7 figs, you're fine

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4275476&forum_id=2#38333337)

I still think the more important threshold is, "your friends are going to Killington for the long weekend to ski in a rented house and want you to join, can you afford it?"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4275476&forum_id=2#38333456)

EDIT: also i wasn't a faggot

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4275476&forum_id=2#38334452)

i presume you make a lot of money. would you rather go to Vegas for a bachelor party with a bunch of average to below average income bros from your hometown, or with a group of guys who all make around what you do or more? which do you think will afford you more options, and will expose you to more cool shit?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4275476&forum_id=2#38333515)

not really following your point about diversity... you mean socioeconomic or ???

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4275476&forum_id=2#38333495)

Another underrated downside is that you'll potentially do way, way shittier grades-wise. I also got a high-1500s score w/o studying, but I was literally in the bottom half of my class, largely because of the lack of true idiots/burnouts that'll propel any reasonably smart kid, no matter how cool/lazy, to the top quartile of a public. Literally 100% of my hs class went to *a* 4-year college (and over a dozen to HYP). If you want the vaunted "top 10%" ranking that seems like it's basically a threshold requirement these days for going somewhere good, your kid's at a huge advantage just going to a good public school.

Guess you gotta buy a house in a Good School District now!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4275476&forum_id=2#38333510)

Steel sharpens steel. Kids shouldn't be punished for that. We should WANT kids to go up against the brightest.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4275476&forum_id=2#38333519)

I'm talking about the way things are, where they just want to see your unweighted gpa (better be a 4.0 or damn close to it) and your class rank.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4275476&forum_id=2#38333558)

and that's what my valedictorian comment was alluding to, but i think my other point is important, too: the quality of education is pretty damn good at some public schools. (once again using SAT as an example: another person from my year got 1600 and plenty got 1500+)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4275476&forum_id=2#38333522)

1. Of course there were some idiots/burnouts in your private school class (moronic children of the very rich; kids who could have done OK but got into hard drugs young; kids with psych problems that broke out during HS years). Some of them didn't graduate with you but some of them did. Where do you think that Bard College students come from?

2. Did they teach you how to count and divide at this elite institution? If 100% went to a 4-year college and 12 to HYP, I am guessing that more than 10% went somewhere good (unless your class was huge or good means only HYP).

3. If you were a lazy private school student you probably would have been an even lazier public school student (less competition/pressure/attention). Many people gravitate towards the median and it is generally better to put yourself in a stronger group if possible.

4. As you slide down the public school class ranks, college outcomes deteriorate rapidly (there is not a good college option for the median public school student; I would estimate median student at your private went to an OK 4-year state school or an acceptable LAC if you can get past how shameful all LACs outside the top handful are from an objective point of view).

5. Class rank means different things in different schools, and every intelligent person as well as people who work in college admissions knows this. The mix at a public school is 10% future dropouts, 30% kids who graduate HS and get a job/start a heroin habit, 40% kids who start at a noncompetitive BS college and are not likely to graduate on time with a bachelors in a real major, 10% kids who can do OK at a state school, and 10% (or less) actual smart kids who should consider competitive 4-year colleges. The mix at a private school is overwhelmingly people who belong at a competitive 4-year college and will go there (as you note).

6. Private school is a huge leg up because colleges will go much deeper in the class knowing that they are protected by the students being (a) pretty well prepared, (b) probably rich, (c) probably comfortable in a college environment, (d) probably in a social circle where everyone is going to college. These factors make students much more likely to pay full tuition, show up to campus and meet basic requirements, graduate, get a decent job, and donate, which is really all that college administrators care about. Do you think they give a fuck about the prestige points of admitting a member of the top 10 students in the graduating class of 63 at West Bumfuck HS over the median Andover student?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4275476&forum_id=2#38336170)

Most parents were C-suite, family money, finance, medicine, or law. Many kids were from families with actua businesses like lighting manufacturing or pipe fittings or something else boring that makes $$$. Every class had a few kids with sketchy overseas ties where it wasn’t clear where the money came from. But there are tons and tons of scholarship kids these days and given that no one has any cars or shit, there is a dress code, and you are actually busy all the time with academics and sports, not to mention stuck in relatively rural New England (where there is nothing to buy and nowhere to go out), people really didn’t clique that much around money. The only time you’d really notice it is when you came back from break and the kids are being dropped off in limos and talking about all the celebs they saw in St Bart over Xmas. And wealthy kids who brought friends home to NYC or on family vacations always treated the people they invited, scholarship kid or not.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4275476&forum_id=2#38334423)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4275476&forum_id=2#38334723)