St. Mark's Admission for 9th Grade (Dallas, Paris: middle school, colleges, calculation)

[Grlmomdallas]

Originally Posted by rabbit33

It's one of the ten or twenty best secondary schools in the United States, that's what. On par, for academic rigor and selectiveness, with the Phiilips Academies, St. Grottlesex, etc. Kids who leave St. Mark's near the bottom of their class frequently end up as valedictorians at local public schools.

It’s a good school but when kids end up at community college (Austin) it will never truly compete with the elite Northeast schools. SM’s college acceptances will never be that good.

[debtex]

Originally Posted by rabbit33

There's not going to be any graduate of SM that doesn't have a high SAT.

If you graduate from SM without black marks on your record, you'll be pretty much an automatic admit at UT or A&M.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! No.

UT and A&M are not backup schools for SM seniors. Nor are they backup schools for Plano, HPHS, Pearce...etc. UT Admissions is different - the goal isn't to let in the smartest/best, it's to get a diverse cross section of the smartest/best. To do that they must limit admissions from the best schools. All of this is backed up by the admissions/attendance data released each year by those universities, which I have scrutinized since I'm an alum with 2 college-aged kids.

Last year most (materially more than half) of SM applicants to UT were capped. Capped kids ended up at schools like Duke, Vanderbilt, Brown, Northwestern...you get my drift. A few die-hards who were all-in on UT chose to attend ACC for their cap year. No shame in that, it shows a level of commitment that is pretty admirable.

If you choose to submit your son to the rigor of a SM education you should be doing it because of what it buys him in terms of preparation for life, not a golden ticket to some unnamed institution in the future. Because graduating from SM doesn't guarantee admission to UT/A&M/Ivy's/T20 universities.

[rabbit33]

Originally Posted by Grlmomdallas

It’s a good school but when kids end up at community college (Austin) it will never truly compete with the elite Northeast schools. SM’s college acceptances will never be that good.

OK, so I'll stand corrected on UT's admissions policies, but your post still doesn't make sense. If UT is turning down highly qualified St. mark's seniors because UT's admission policies have changed to rate diversity above pure academic excellence, how does this mean SM "won't truly compete with the Northeastern schools"?

You're also assuming that the value of a secondary school is purely judged by the nature of the colleges the graduates choose to attend, but there are a lot of reasons why college admission from St. Grottlesex is going to be skewed Ivy League and SM skewed toward UT, A&M, Sewanee, W&L, and so on.

I'll stand by my statement that St. Mark's is in the top 20 or so secondary schools in the US in terms of academic rigor.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by Grlmomdallas

It’s a good school but when kids end up at community college (Austin) it will never truly compete with the elite Northeast schools. SM’s college acceptances will never be that good.

I have several counterpoints to your thesis.

I've got an ancient axe to grind with Saint Marks...........not a fan particularly etc. That said every time I read a post like yours I can't help but ask do people simply not understand or maybe refuse to acknowledge the overwhelming geographical biases that, "elite" schools employ? Harvard will accept more kids from MA. this year than Texas over the next 8-9yrs. Harvard's acceptance map was so NE US and CA heavy they stopped publishing acceptances by state.

Broadly speaking if a TX kid wants to be an engineer in what universe would it make more sense to attend an Ivy over UT or A&M? If a kid wants to become a doctor why in the world would a kid want to attend say Harvard over UT? When every single year for many years UT has trailed only UCLA in the number of students who actually get into medical school?

Mix in a couple of street level issues. Many private school kids/families from around here are looking at paying full retail for Ives and other "name" schools and for outsized numbers of SM kids undergrad as a stepping stone not the end game ergo there is little to no cost rationality to a name BA/BS.

To wit......all in it will cost us less to send our son and daughter to TX schools for university and UTSW and Baylor College of Medicine than it would have cost to send our son to Brown for UG and medical school.

Also, ironically enough a couple of studies spearheaded by the deceased Princeton professor Alan Krueger demonstrated for top notch students there is no long term additional value to a prestige undergraduate degree over others.

Please excuse the typos.

[Grlmomdallas]

Originally Posted by EDS_

I have several counterpoints to your thesis.

I've got an ancient axe to grind with Saint Marks...........not a fan particularly etc. That said every time I read a post like yours I can't help but ask do people simply not understand or maybe refuse to acknowledge the overwhelming geographical biases that, "elite" schools employ? Harvard will accept more kids from MA. this year than Texas over the next 8-9yrs. Harvard's acceptance map was so NE US and CA heavy they stopped publishing acceptances by state.

Broadly speaking if a TX kid wants to be an engineer in what universe would it make more sense to attend an Ivy over UT or A&M? If a kid wants to become a doctor why in the world would a kid want to attend say Harvard over UT? When every single year for many years UT has trailed only UCLA in the number of students who actually get into medical school?

Mix in a couple of street level issues. Many private school kids/families from around here are looking at paying full retail for Ives and other "name" schools and for outsized numbers of SM kids undergrad as a stepping stone not the end game ergo there is little to no cost rationality to a name BA/BS.

To wit......all in it will cost us less to send our son and daughter to TX schools for university and UTSW and Baylor College of Medicine than it would have cost to send our son to Brown for UG and medical school.

Also, ironically enough a couple of studies spearheaded by the deceased Princeton professor Alan Krueger demonstrated for top notch students there is no long term additional value to a prestige undergraduate degree over others.

Please excuse the typos.

Agreed - I think the value of a “name” school is completely over-inflated. I just don’t understand why people go through the trouble of going to a name high school (in this case SM) to end up at a community college or A&M.

Yes you can get a great education at any state school but the same goes for Woodrow Wilson IB program/HPHS, etc.

And secondary school is definitely a stepping stone to a BA/BS so why not just go to your local public school.

[debtex]

Originally Posted by Grlmomdallas

I just don’t understand why people go through the trouble of going to a name high school (in this case SM) to end up at a community college or A&M.

They are taking advantage of a program at UT called the CAPS program. Students do freshman year at one of a handful of schools (UTA, ACC, several others) and then you start at UT sophomore year. If they choose ACC, they can rush UT fraternities and live in Austin, and feel like they're already students at UT. FOr the truly devoted, this is how they get in.

A&M has a similar program called Team Blinn. And as much as it pains this Longhorn to say it, equating A&M with a community college is downright odd. A&M is extremely rigorous and difficult to get into.

Originally Posted by Grlmomdallas

And secondary school is definitely a stepping stone to a BA/BS so why not just go to your local public school.

Well, a larger percentage of the graduates of SM attend UT than most public high schools. Even if half the applicants don't get in, a lot still do.

But again, an education at SM isn't about the "name brand." If it ever was, it isn't now.

[rabbit33]

Originally Posted by Grlmomdallas

Agreed - I think the value of a “name” school is completely over-inflated. I just don’t understand why people go through the trouble of going to a name high school (in this case SM) to end up at a community college or A&M.

Yes you can get a great education at any state school but the same goes for Woodrow Wilson IB program/HPHS, etc.

And secondary school is definitely a stepping stone to a BA/BS so why not just go to your local public school.

The "IB" public schools, Highland Park, etc. can deliver a good high school education. Schools like St. Mark's, Hockaday, Phillips Andover, Groton, Sidwell Friends, etc., deliver something much closer to the quality of university education. The difference is both qualititative and quantitative. Look at how many National Merit finalists come from the 75 kids in each class at SM vs. the several hundred in each class at WW, Plano, HP.

The whole argument of "why would someone go to SM and then to A&M?" is pretty spurious. There are many other purposes to attending a high quality private secondary beyond just getting admission to a university with supposed prestige. Of my classmates at SM many attended UT, a few attended A&M, and there were a host of smaller schools like Washington & Lee, Sewanee, Tulane, Swarthmore. The individual student's goals were what drove where he matriculated. There were several that went to Harvard, Princeton, etc. as well. I doubt very much that any of my classmates who didn't attend a top-prestige university would claim that their time at St. Mark's was wasted. That seems to be a new perspective being promoted on this forum by people who for one reason or another don't like the idea of private schools, or who seem to have a purely instrumental view of each stage in education - that the purpose of kindergarten is to get you into the best elementary, the purpose of high school is to get you into the best college, the purpose of college is to get you into the best grad program, the purpose of the graduate school is to get you into the best job - well, where does it end?

Why don't you ask some actual graduates of St. Mark's, Hockaday, Greenhill, ESD, Casady, FWCD, etc., who did attend "less selective" colleges, whether they think their time at the private schools was wasted - rather than just speculating?

[rabbit33]

I will also point out that a very large number of St. Mark's graduates go into law or into local business. In both of those cases, attending UT or A&M can have very definite advantages to an out-of-state school that may be perceived as "higher status"; no matter where you went to high school.

[astropath]

Thanks so much for everyone's thoughts on my question! Really appreciate it!

[barnicles]

Originally Posted by Grlmomdallas

It’s a good school but when kids end up at community college (Austin) it will never truly compete with the elite Northeast schools. SM’s college acceptances will never be that good.

https://www.niche.com/k12/st-marks-s...xas-dallas-tx/

Check out this link. This is the rating site that nearly every person I know (including educators when looking at employment) looks at/trusts. There are other similar publications that rate schools as well so I'm not suggesting this is the only one, just a prominent one.


St. Mark's school of Texas:
#2 Best Private School (k-12) in America (behind only Trinity School in New York, last year it was #1)
#1 All boys high school in America
#5 Best College Prep High Schools in America (this is High School Specific and the competitors are Harvard-Westlake in LA, Phillips Andover, Choate etc. Not all schools in this top tier even have lower grades and can focus on the High School. )

of course:
#1 high school in texas for stem
#1 private high school in texas
#1 College Prep school in texas
#1 k-12 school in Texas
etc....
You may think that being the best in Texas doesn't matter but being the 2nd most populous state, I would argue that it does. St. marks may not be Trinity or Andover or Phillips Exeter but it is DEFINITELY competitive with those schools, and the students are considered similarly by college admissions deans.

It's not the school for everyone and it's not a perfect place but your comment that it isn't seen on par with those Elite Northeastern schools isn't fact based and just sounds snooty.