Word: school
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Brown and Nichols has a lower school which starts with the first grade. "Once we accept a boy, we're going to do our darndest to get him through," Headmaster Edwin H.B. Pratt '36 says. "At the same time, when you have a lot of applicants later on, the temptation is to pick the best of the new lot and discard the though nut whom you already have on your hands...
...impact of Ivy League standards extends down to prep schools and the better public schools. "We would like to have an entrance examination," says Mr. Hopkinson at Boston Latin, "but we have to consider anyone who has a B average in grammar school." Private schools become more selective as their numbers grow. Scholarships aim toward providing economic and geographical diversity, as well as financial aid. Some schools, like Exeter, do not wait for outstanding boys to apply, but actively seek them. In Iowa, for instance, Exeter finds out the names of outstanding newsboys from the Des Moines Register and Tribune...
Other private schools, which have a tradition of admissions at the eighth or seventh grade level, find many of the same problems, slightly altered, that Harvard does. The record of a child who has reached the eighth grade is an uncertain thing at best. A boy who starts prep school this early and does not do well scholastically will be outdistanced further and further as outstanding "new boys" come in to his school...
This is not to say that the transfer from public to private school enhances every student's chances of making the grade. In theory, it is only in the marginal cases, where brains and character have been measured to the best of the Committee's ability, that preparation makes the difference. "Other things being equal," reads a now-famous phrase, "Harvard will take the better prepared student...
...predicted rank list and the test scores are an accurate measure of academic ability, they do not exist in a vacuum. They are even less 'fair' measures of basic intelligence than an I.Q. test. Richard King emphasizes the fact that "performance in school, on tests, in activities is directly related to the socio-economic status of parents." Thus, as Harvard gets more selective, the applicant from the depressed area gets passed over. Not only is the poor boy not likely to apply, King points out, but he is not likely to compete well "on paper" with his richer, better...