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Education Your Tuition Dollars at Work

What do costly private-school tuitions buy in the college-admission sweepstakes, and how do public schools compare? To find out, Weekend Journal studied this year’s freshman classes at 10 selective colleges—including seven Ivy League schools—and compiled a list of students’ high-school alma The Price of Admission maters (see “Behind the Numbers” for details). The survey ranked schools based on the number of students they sent to these 10 colleges divided by the high school’s class size in 2003, limiting results to high schools that had a graduating class of 50 and sent at least 20 students to our chosen col- Continued From Page W1 Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology leges. To find schools that delivered the most value, the survey looked at the ratio of tuition to success rate; the top 10 performers are noted with a 4. student—some 11,000 kids in all—and Tuition-free public schools are denoted by a l. came up with a list of high schools that had graduating classes of at least 50 students and sent at least 20 of them to our chosen colleges. For each high school, we then cal- culated what percentage of its graduates HIGH SCHOOL CLASS SIZETOTAL STUDENTSSUCCESS SENT RATETUITION ($) BANG FORCOMMENTS THE BUCK went on to those colleges. Finally, we com- Saint Ann’s School 74 30 41% 20,500 4 The highest success rate on our list. School has no grades; students get writ- pared tuition costs. Brooklyn, N.Y. ten evaluations. Though all the high schools in our sur- 57 22 39% 23,800 4 Girls’ school says two-thirds of grads attend highly selective colleges. vey have outstanding reputations, the suc- cess rates at some were astonishing. The Trinity School 120 44 37% 23,475 4 Additional fees—for lunch, parents’ association dues, etc.—run about $1,250 best-performing high school on our list sent New York City per year. a staggering 41% of its senior class to our 10 4 colleges—30 kids out of a class of 74. (Hint: Horace Mann School 175 61 35% 24,500 Upper Division Head Dr. Lawrence Weiss has just been named the new head- Riverdale, N.Y. master at Saint Ann’s. It’s the private school where Academy Award-winner Jennifer Connelly went.) 300 91 30% 23,400 Both President George W. Bush and his father are alums. And that high school wasn’t nearly the most Andover, Mass. expensive on our list. 199 60 30% 23,005 Tuition is all-inclusive; boarding students pay $29,960 per year. Indeed, among private high schools, Deerfield, Mass. Weekend Journal found some surprising Nat’l Cathedral School 73 22 30% 21,850 4 Seven 2003 grads from this girls’ school are freshmen at the University of bargains. Germantown Friends School, a Washington, D.C. Pennsylvania this year. Philadelphia Quaker institution dating Dalton School 103 31 30% 24,680 Tuition is all-inclusive; only additional fee is $75 for parents’ association dues. back to 1845, charges $16,675 in base tuition Marty Katz New York City (plus an estimated $675 more for Hunter College High 186 53 28% 0 l A typical course: “Physics and (Post)Modern Culture.” books and senior fees). But it did Saint Ann’s School School, New York City even better in our review than St. Paul’s School* 144 41 28% 31,125 Prospective Democratic nominee John Kerry graduated in 1962. Buckingham Browne & Nichols of Concord, N.H. Cambridge, Mass., where tuition mances. Though originally started St. Albans School 81 22 27% 21,837 Tuition includes lunch, but extra fees for certain classes such as science labs, runs nearly $8,000 higher. as part of an Episcopal church, the Washington, D.C. computer science or art and photography can run $75-165 per class. Determining tuition requires a school is now secular. 4 balance, says Richard Wade, head “Nothing is a lot of money if Germantown Friends 88 23 26% 16,675 Seniors can pay an additional $675 in fees (mostly for books). Philadelphia of school at Germantown Friends, you’re educating a child,” says the School, who adds that schools “struggle 76-year-old Mr.Bosworth, who is re- Episcopal Academy 104 27 26% 18,800 4 Founded in 1785 by Pennsylvania’s first Episcopal bishop, the school has two not just with what parents can af- tiring at the end of this school year. Merion and Devon, Pa. chapels. ford, but also what teachers can af- Lakeside School 111 28 25% 18,400 4 Students (after this year’s senior class) are required to have a laptop, which ford to live on.” In the case of Ger- Heavy on Ivies Seattle they can purchase from the school for about $2,200. mantown, the school made a deci- No approach to ranking schools Sidwell Friends School 116 29 25% 20,975 This Quaker day school has a 14-acre campus in the Tenleytown section of sion in the 1970s to increase the is perfect, of course. In setting up Washington, D.C. Washington and attracts political elite. Chelsea Clinton went here. number of students per classroom this study, Weekend Journal picked 322 79 25% 22,800 Boarding students pay $30,000. (the average is now about 18) in or- as our 10 colleges a group that in- Exeter, N.H. der to raise faculty salaries while cluded but wasn’t limited to the Ivy 123 29 24% 21,550 Fifty-one percent of its senior class this year are National Merit Scholars. keeping tuition down. Of course, it League. Based on recommenda- New Haven, Conn. doesn’t hurt to have money in the tions from admissions experts and Pingry School 132 32 24% 22,290 Eight members of the class of 2003 went to Cornell; seven went to the Univer- bank: Germantown has an endow- guidance counselors, plus lists of Martinsville, N.J. sity of Pennsylvania. ment totaling $27 million. SAT scores and acceptance rates, 170 41 24% 24,325 T.S. Eliot graduated from this in 1906. we narrowed our choices to seven Milton, Mass. Costs Add Up Ivies—Harvard, Yale, Princeton, At Buckingham Browne & Dartmouth, the University of Penn- 224 53 24% 22,940 School says it gives away $5.3 million in financial aid each year. Wallingford, Conn. Nichols, spokesman Woodie sylvania, Cornell and Brown—sup- Haskins says the school’s tuition in plemented by three of the most ex- Univ. of Chicago Lab. 112 26 23% 16,125 4 Sophomores, juniors and seniors have access to all University of Chicago part reflects its expensive region, clusive colleges in the West, Mid- Schools, Chicago libraries. and the need to keep faculty sala- west and South. These were 148 34 23% 25,450 Students pay $350 technology fee. School is building a new music and arts ries competitive. “The cost of liv- Pomona, the University of Chicago, Lakeville, Conn. center—and plans an arboretum.

ing in the Northeast is certainly Holger Thoss and Duke. (We were unable to get Noble and Greenough 102 23 23% 24,150 This boarding and day school has a 187-acre campus and an average class high,” Mr. Haskins says. In addi- data from an eighth Ivy, Columbia School, Dedham, Mass. size of 11. tion, he says, the school’s endowment is less Ultimately the family chose a public University, or from one of the most exclu- Harvard-Westlake 268 60 22% 20,000 Highest number of National Merit Semifinalists in the state for the past 17 than some of its competitors, since the school, Millburn High School, even though sive colleges on the West Coast, Stanford School, N. Hollywood, Calif. years. school—founded in 1974 after a merger of they figured houses in the district cost 40% University. However, Pomona also has im- Delbarton School 118 26 22% 19,600 All-boys school is run by Benedictine monks, on a campus of almost 400 two other schools—is younger than some of more at the time than similar homes in pressive selectivity rates and SAT scores.) Morristown, N.J. acres. those competitors. Finally, he says, the cost neighboring suburbs. “Twenty thousand For matriculation data from the high- Durham Academy 97 21 22% 14,600 4 Seniors pay a $650 activity fee covering items such as class trips, phys-ed of running Buckingham’s three campuses seemed like a heck of a lot of money to pay school class of 2003, we relied on college face Durham, N.C. T-shirts and commencement expenses. adds up, including such expenses as utili- for high school,” says Leslie Marsden. Al- books and interviews with colleges and high Head-Royce School 94 20 21% 20,360 $320 activity fee. Five members of the class of 2003 went to Brown; five went ties and shuttle buses between locations. ready, their gamble seems to have paid off: schools. However, a handful of high schools Oakland, Calif. to the University of Pennsylvania. Yale accepted the Marsdens’ daughter, Jes- didn’t return our calls or wouldn’t confirm sica, during the “early action” process in our numbers. Our decision to include only 221 47 21% 24,610 Seminar-like approach here has students sitting with faculty at oval table in- Lawrenceville, N.J. stead of sitting in rows in most classes. ‘Nothing is a lot of December. (Other Yale hopefuls were able schools that sent 20 or more students to our to log on to the college’s Website beginning choice colleges was made to help the survey Buckingham Browne & 113 24 21% 24,600 School’s annual giving campaign has tripled in past decade, to $1.7 million. money if you’re last night to learn their fates; Yale also be more manageable. Nichols, Cambridge, Mass. Students have free admission to Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. mailed out letters yesterday. Online notifi- As an additional check, we compiled the Georgetown Day School 110 23 21% 21,472 Sent four grads each to Harvard, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania educating a child,’ cation by colleges is increasingly common.) admissions data for three prestigious small Washington, D.C. this year, all from the class of 2003. Millburn High School did well in the colleges across the country, Williams, Am- Fieldston 127 25 20% 23,900 Founded in 1878. Its early name was the Workingman’s School, providing edu- says the head of one Weekend Journal survey too. Of its graduat- herst and CalTech, to see if our survey re- Bronx, N.Y. cation to children of the “working poor.” ing class of 245 last year, 32 kids—or sults would change significantly with those T. Jefferson H.S. for Sci. 401 74 18% 0 l This public magnet school has 12 labs for everything from robotics to astron- $20,500-a-year school. 13%—went to our college picks, including six schools included. They didn’t. and Tech., Alexandria, Va. omy. It’s also state champion in girls’ and diving. to Princeton, three to the University of Chi- Our numbers thresholds, to be sure, ex- 154 27 18% 22,500 Ten students from this boarding school’s class of 2003 went to Cornell. cago and two each to Brown and Dartmouth. cluded some small schools that had an ex- Watertown, Conn. Public schools obviously offer the better tremely high admissions success rate. For Extra Fees Ransom Everglades 138 24 17% 18,000 The alma mater of humor columnist Dave Barry, it’s celebrating its 100th birth- bang for the buck—assuming you don’t example, New York’s Collegiate School— School, Coconut Grove, Fla. day this year. count the high housing costs generally asso- The cost of a private education has which John F. Kennedy Jr. once attended— Stuyvesant High School 719 119 17% 0 l This magnet school sent the highest number of students to our 10 colleges, ciated with better-performing districts. But soared to unprecedented levels. According fell just below our minimum class-size re- New York City including 21 to Harvard. in our survey, public schools were in the dis- to the National Association of Independent quirement, with a graduating class last tinct minority, with the best-performing Schools, the average tuition at private year of 49 students. However, a whopping 25 Ithaca High School 336 52 15% 0 l Forty-four members of the class of 2003 are freshmen at Cornell this year— Ithaca, N.Y. many of them children of the college’s faculty. school sending fewer than a third of its grad- schools increased an inflation-adjusted of them, or 51%, went to our college picks; uates to our choice colleges. And a number 4.2% for the academic year 2003-2004, to that would have made it No. 1 in our study. Scarsdale High School 278 41 15% 0 l Guidance department has nine counselors, meaning more one-on-one atten- of the better-performing public schools $16,298. That’s up more than a third from a Among the other elite schools with famous Scarsdale, N.Y. tion for kids. were small, highly selective “magnet” decade ago (also inflation-adjusted). And tu- names that fell below our class-size cutoff Roslyn High School 204 30 15% 0 l School says Howard Dean’s wife, Judith Steinberg Dean, went here. schools, meaning that students whose fami- ition figures don’t tell the entire financial were in West Rox- Roslyn Heights, N.Y. lies live and pay taxes in the area don’t nec- story. Nearly all private schools charge bury, Mass., and Nightingale-Bamford and Horace Greeley High 279 41 15% 0 l Class of 2003 sent eight students each to Cornell and Yale; seven each to essarily get to attend. For example, Tho- some variety of extra fee, whether it’s for Brearley in New York. All had impressive School, Chappaqua, N.Y. Duke and the University of Pennsylvania. mas Jefferson High School for Science and books, meals, laboratory materials or even acceptance rates that would have put them Westminster Schools 175 25 14% 14,392 School’s $75 million capital campaign helped build a new science facility, Technology, in Alexandria, Va., last year mandatory laptop computers. These inevi- high in our rankings. Notably, Roxbury Atlanta 400-seat theater and athletic facilities. sent 10 graduates to Harvard alone. tably add more to parents’ bills—some- Latin, with tuition of $15,200, is also an ex- Pine Crest School 183 24 13% 15,350 Tuition includes books and lunch. Thomas Jefferson, which had a graduat- times a lot more. At New York’s Trinity ceptional deal among private schools. Its Fort Lauderdale, Fla. ing class of 401 last year, draws students School, for instance, parents paying $23,475 40% acceptance rate was almost as high as Millburn High School 245 32 13% 0 l School says Cornell has been recruiting more heavily here in past two years. from five counties and two cities in North- in tuition can expect to spend about $1,250 in Saint Ann’s. Millburn, N.J. Currently, 10 Millburn students are freshmen there. ern Virginia, based on their performance fees for meals, parent-association dues and Then again, it’s important to remember 189 20 11% 0 l The students at this boarding school run math, science and technology sum- on aptitude tests covering both mathemat- other services. that a secondary-school education Illinois Math and Sci. Academy, Aurora, Ill. mer camps for elementary kids. ics and verbal skills. The high school has The schools attribute the rise in prices to shouldn’t just be judged on whether it gets seven full-time guidance counselors, who efforts to raise teachers’ salaries and other you to the gates of Harvard Yard. Even as Boston Latin School 337 32 9% 0 l Former terrorism czar Richard A. Clarke is an alum. Boston are assigned to students when they enter as improvements. Many schools say they high schools tout their admissions suc- freshmen and stay with them for all four spend huge resources on the college-guid- cesses, they also emphasize to parents that Princeton High School 260 24 9% 0 l Location works: Twelve 2003 grads started at Princeton this year. years of high school. Besides Ivy League col- ance process, from hiring more counselors the name at the top of the diploma can never Princeton, N.J. leges and the University of Virginia, engi- to organizing college tours. be a guarantee of entry to a top college. For N.C. School of Science 257 23 9% 0 l For the last two years, school has sent the most semifinalists in the countryto neering schools like Insti- For example, Saint Ann’s School of their part, A-list colleges say they pick stu- and Math, Durham, N.C. Siemens Westinghouse Competition for science, math and technology. tute of Technology and California Institute Brooklyn, N.Y., the school with the greatest dents based on individual merit, and they Great Neck South High 268 23 9% 0 l This public school has its own observatory, plus every year it mounts a full- of Technology are popular with students, success rate on the Weekend Journal list, say they don’t give preference to particular School, Great Neck, N.Y. scale opera, with all music performed by students. says Nina Pitkin, who oversees the guid- says its annual tuition of $20,500 is justified alma maters. Walt Whitman High 467 40 9% 0 l Current senior class has 18 National Merit Finalists. ance program. “We’re encouraging stu- in part by the personalized effort the school Top colleges also say the obsession with School, Bethesda, Md. dents to broaden their search,” she says. makes to help each student get into the best feeder schools has become both excessive Bronx High School of 604 47 8% 0 l Our survey found 19 kids from this school at Cornell, and nine at Dartmouth. For parents, the calculus can be compli- possible college. Headmaster Stanley Bos- and misguided. “We admit students, not Science, Bronx, N.Y. cated. A few years ago, when financial ana- worth says he writes a “personal state- schools,” says William Fitzsimmons, Har- Staples High School 271 20 7% 0 l Five 2003 graduates are at Cornell this year; three more are at Yale. lyst Bruce Marsden was transferred by his ment” for each of Saint Ann’s graduating se- vard’s dean of admissions and financial Westport, Conn. company to New Jersey from California, he niors—who numbered 74 last year—some- aid. “We are looking for the best people we 290 21 7% 0 l Sent five kids to Yale from class of 2003. and his wife, Leslie, spent months looking times mailing the letter separately to col- can get.” Paul D. Schreiber High School, Port Washington, N.Y. at public and private high schools in their lege admissions officers and sometimes in- —Reed Albergotti new state before buying a house. They cluding it in the students’ applications. Mr. contributed to this report. Punahou School 421 30 7% 12,050 School was founded in 1841 by missionaries; has just expanded its center for Honolulu community service. scoured school rankings, interviewed prin- Bosworth says he sometimes telephones ac- cipals and compared SAT scores and ad- ademic departments and even individual Northfield Mt. Hermon 318 22 7% 22,600 Dore Gold, adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and the late vanced-placement class offerings. They professors at certain universities, rather Journal Link: WSJ.com sub- School, Northfield, Mass. pro-Palestinian intellectual Edward Said both went here. looked at highly regarded private schools than leaving matters to the admissions of- 1 scribers can learn what college Richard Montgomery 363 25 7% 0 l School has International Baccalaureate program. Students have average com- like Pingry School in Martinsville, N.J., and fice, to call attention to standout students. rejections meant to CEO Dick High School, Rockville, Md. bined SATs of 1435 Parsons, author Russell Banks and nearby Newark Academy, and tried to as- He has even been known to fly to an out-of- Palo Alto High School 313 21 7% 0 l Located in Silicon Valley, this school has an award-winning robotics team. sess the schools’ college-placement state college to deliver a student’s portfolio others, at WSJ.com/JournalLinks. Palo Alto, Calif. records. of artwork or tapes of musical perfor- Lower Merion High 348 23 7% 0 l Former students include Kobe Bryant, who led the school to a state School, Ardmore, Pa. championship. Lexington High School 396 26 7% 0 l Some students prepare for school’s competitive science fair by studying with We chose to focus on enrollment, not acceptances, in Lexington, Mass. MIT or Harvard scientists. this year’s freshman classes at the colleges—in other Behind the Numbers Newton South High 360 23 6% 0 l School places students in internships in fields such as fashion design and an- words, the high school graduating class of 2003. For infor- School, Newton Centre, Mass. tique-car restoration. RANKINGS OF HIGH SCHOOLS typically focus on SAT mation on students’ alma maters, we relied heavily on 356 22 6% 0 l Takes part in a program to send students to Japan to study history, culture and scores and class size. We set out to examine an addi- “face book” directories that colleges generally distribute to Shaker Heights High School, Shaker Heights, Ohio religion. tional factor: the role tuition plays in getting kids into new students. Four colleges gave us their face books. The prestigious colleges. rest were lent to us by students or were purchased from Ridgewood High School 345 20 6% 0 l Four 2003 grads matriculated at Harvard this fall; four started at Yale. Ridgewood, N.J. We focused on 10 elite colleges—seven Ivies plus one of their publishers. We also called about 130 high schools to the most selective schools in the South, Midwest and verify as many numbers as we could—for a total of nearly Winston Churchill High 451 26 6% 0 l Offers special program to let students focus on either math and science or cre- West—to serve as our benchmark for profiling where the stu- 11,000 students. One caveat: Because both the face books School, Potomac, Md. ative arts. dents came from. These colleges all had SAT scores of ac- and the high schools’ own data on their students’ matricula- Greenwich High School 569 28 5% 0 l Sent six members of class of 2003 to Brown, along with five to Penn. cepted applicants in the 1280-1580 range and an average ad- tion plans were put together over the summer, they may Greenwich, Conn. missions selectivity of 21%. Our schools were Brown, Cornell, not reflect last-minute changes. Newton North High 561 25 4% 0 l Facilities include two theaters. Six hundred students participate in theater pro- Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Pomona, Princeton, the Univer- Some high schools bristled at the idea of what one School, Newtonville, Mass. gram, with ticket sales helping to defray the cost. sity of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania and Yale. school official called “a scorecard,” saying that rankings New Trier Township High 887 31 3% 0 l Theater program includes two theaters and has produced stars such as Ann- There are some notable exceptions to our list. We could not distract kids and their parents from choosing a school School, Winnetka, Ill. Margret, Charlton Heston and Rock Hudson. obtain the high school lists for one Ivy, Columbia, or for the that’s right for them. Others pointed out that the true value Evanston Township High 780 21 3% 0 l School has one-year international education requirement for graduation and most prestigious school in the West, Stanford. (We added of a high school education should not be measured by ad- School, Evanston, Ill. offers classes in Japanese, Hebrew, Latin, Spanish, French and German. Pomona, a school with similar mean SAT scores, in the inter- mission to an Ivy college. Still, almost all schools worked *Tuition for boarding students. In all other cases, day-school tuition is listed. est of including an exclusive West Coast school.) with us willingly to double-check our numbers.

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