Visual Summary / DVFZ Books
One hundred schools, read across instead of down
A directory tells you most when you stop reading it school by school and start asking what the whole list has in common.
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01 What the list is
It is a directory in alphabetical order, not a ranking
Nothing in the book puts one school above another. Belmont Hill is first because it starts with a B, and Winsor is hundredth because it starts with a W. The number beside each name is a position in the alphabet.
The entries are also built differently from one another. All 100 give a website. Ninety-four describe financial aid or a named scholarship. Sixty-three carry an Academic Highlights section, and only 31 carry an Admission Policies section. Five entries carry all three of those headings at once.
So the more you want to compare, the fewer schools you can compare. Two entries side by side often answer different questions, which means the ordering and the depth both have to come from you.
Please note that the list is organized alphabetically and includes a wide range of high schools.The Best High Schools in the United States
The book’s own first instruction is to work out what kind of student your child is before you look at any school. Write that down in three lines, then use it as the sort order the list does not have.
02 Where they are
The list is mostly a map of one corridor
Sort the 100 entries by state and the shape appears immediately. New York holds 22, Massachusetts 15, California 15. Those three account for just over half the book.
Count the whole strip from Massachusetts down to Virginia, taking in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Washington DC, and you have 74 of the 100. California adds 15. The remaining 11 are spread one, two or three at a time across Texas, Florida, Oregon, Ohio, Missouri, Washington, Illinois and Georgia.
Nineteen states and the District of Columbia appear. Thirty-one states appear not at all. For most families the first filter is not academic at all: it is whether you already live near one of these places, or are willing to board.
Consider the school’s location and whether it is convenient for your family.Conclusion
Draw the commute you would genuinely accept every school morning, then cross off every entry outside it. Boarding is mentioned in 23 of the 100 entries, so for the rest the map is the shortlist.
03 The one number
Almost every entry quotes the same statistic, and it barely moves
Seventy-one of the 100 entries state what share of the student body receives financial aid. It is the only quantity the book reports for most schools, and the values cluster hard.
Twenty-one entries say exactly twenty percent. Ten say thirty. Forty-three of the 71 land on a multiple of five, and 56 of the 71 are hedged with about, around, nearly, approximately, over or at least. The median is 23 percent. The lowest stated share is Harker School at 7 percent, the highest is Phillips Exeter Academy at nearly 50 percent.
Read that clustering for what it is. These are approximate figures from school marketing, gathered in one pass, not audited numbers. They are a useful first sort and a poor final answer.
Financial aid is need-based tuition assistance given to qualified families to offset the cost of education. Unlike a student loan, financial aid does not need to be repaid.Conclusion
For any school you are serious about, phone the admissions office and ask for two things the book cannot give you: last year’s actual percentage of students on aid, and the average award in dollars.
04 Two numbers
How many families get help is not how much help they get
Seven entries happen to report both figures, and they come apart every time. St. Mark’s School of Texas aids 13 percent of students, but the awards cover around 90 percent of tuition. Hopkins School aids 25 percent, at a 63 percent reduction.
Where the book gives a range instead of an average, the spread is enormous. National Cathedral School awards run from 4 to 98 percent of the bill. St. Albans School and Winsor School both run from 5 to 99 percent. Marlborough School runs from 5 to 100 percent.
So a school with a high aid share may still leave you paying most of a bill you have never seen printed, and a school with a low share may cover almost all of it for the families it picks. One number without the other tells you very little.
The book warns that listed tuition and fees often exclude transportation, sports clothes, required trips, athletic fees and Internet access. Ask each school for the full annual cost of attendance, then ask what a family like yours actually paid last year.
05 Two gates
Six of the hundred charge nothing, and gate on where you live instead
Bergen County Academies, Boston Latin School, High Technology High School, Hunter College High School, Julia Reynolds Masterman School and Regis High School all cost nothing to attend. They are also the only six entries in the book with no financial aid section at all, because there is no bill to reduce.
What replaces the money is an eligibility rule you either meet or you do not. High Technology High School wants full-time residents of Monmouth County. Bergen County Academies serves students in Bergen County. Hunter takes students from New York City. Boston Latin assigns applicants to socioeconomic tiers based on their home address. Regis wants boys baptized Roman Catholic, nominated by a principal.
Then comes a hard test score. Boston Latin weights GPA at 70 percent and the MAP assessment at 30 percent. High Technology High School sets a minimum of 75 on its admission exam. Hunter asks for the 90th percentile. Regis asks for above 90 percent on CTBS, CAP or ERB.
Regis is tuition-free and merit-based, giving special consideration to families needing financial support.Entry 72, Regis High School
Check the residency rule before anything else on these six. It is a yes or no question that takes one minute and saves you a whole application.
06 The missing half
The Ivy League is in the title, not in the entries
Search the 100 school entries and the Ivy League appears seven times. Five of those are a membership the entry happens to list, the Ivy Preparatory School League. One is the Seven Sisters consortium, which the book describes as giving women the educational equivalent of the Ivy League. None of the seven records an admission.
Exactly one entry says anything about where graduates go. Marymount School of New York notes that its seniors attend colleges including Ivy League, public, private, single-gender, coed, small and large. No number is attached, there or anywhere else. Not one of the 100 entries reports how many students it sent to an Ivy League college.
The same is true of the other two numbers a family would want. No tuition price appears anywhere in the book’s 170 pages. The only sums it prints are family income thresholds at two schools, and one award described as starting at a few thousand dollars. No acceptance rate is given as a number either: six entries call one low, and that is all. What the book is good at is the shape of a school, its state, its size, its faith, its entrance exam. The outcomes you have to go and get.
Even though this is not a guide for school admissions, it provides you with the essential information to start your research with the right tool.Introduction
Email the college counselling office at your top three schools and ask for the last three years of matriculation, by college and by count. That single document answers the question this title asks, and every school keeps one.
07 Recap
Three questions, and a directory you can now use properly
A hundred school names is not a decision. Read the list across instead of down and it resolves into three things you are really choosing between, and one thing you will have to go and ask for.
The corridor decides first
74 of the 100 sit between Massachusetts and Virginia, 15 more in California, 11 everywhere else. Nineteen states and DC appear; 31 states do not.
One share, endlessly repeated
71 entries name a share of students on aid, median 23 percent, 21 of them saying exactly twenty. Six schools charge nothing and gate on residency instead.
The outcome is never printed
No tuition price, no acceptance rate as a number, no Ivy League count anywhere in the 170 pages. One entry mentions where graduates go, and gives no number.
Use the book for what it does well. It gives you a hundred credible starting points, tells you where each one is, what kind of place it is and which entrance exam it wants, and it does that consistently enough to sort on.
Then close it and make three phone calls per school: the real cost of attendance, last year’s aid figures, and the matriculation list. This is the 2023-2024 edition, compiled from 2022 sources, and admissions data goes stale faster than almost anything else in it.
Adapted from 100 Best High Schools for Ivy League Admissions and Scholarships 2023-2024
Gian Pittard · © 2022 DVFZ Training Consultancy Services · 10 cited sources in the source edition