Do prep schools help or hurt college applicants?
As the college admissions process grows increasingly competitive, students and parents may question whether going to an elite preparatory school might increase their chances of getting into a prestigious college. Counselors at these schools and some prep school alumni attending Dartmouth cited the personal attention given to students and the schools' contacts within college admissions offices as advantages. At the same time, some prep-school counselors suspected that admissions offices evaluate prep school students more harshly than they would students from less prominent schools. Prep-school counselors who spoke with The Dartmouth were quick to note that attending an exclusive prep school by no means guarantees admission to a prestigious college, and that they encourage parents to steer their students to those colleges that fit best, rather than the most prestigious. When asked if Deerfield Academy students have "an unfair advantage" in the college application process, Nicole Hagger '91, college advisor at the renowned private school in Deerfield, Mass., answered flatly, "Yes." Hagger added that she had worked in Dartmouth's admissions office before coming to Deerfield and said that students from prep schools often submitted counselor recommendations that were "one to one and a half pages long," while some public school counselors submitted either brief recommendations or none at all. She also said the close relationships between counselors and students serves as an advantage in the application process. Hagger teaches two academic classes, coaches a team and lives in a dormitory in addition to working as a college counselor, so she knew many of her students well from other contexts before starting to work with them on their college applications. Diamond Hicks '03, who attended Deerfield for three years, also noted that she had an especially good experience with college counseling because of her close relationship with her advisor. All students entering Deerfield are assigned a faculty member as an advisor.