Phillips Exeter Academy 2006 College Profile

22 Oct

Posted by Sam Jackson as CCO, College, Exeter, Teenagers

A week ago I railed against early cum laude, the practice at Exeter where the top 5% of the senior class is recognized early in the year. However, it turns out that that 95% is more directly ranked than I had at first thought. Our dutiful friend Ryan Caro has once again enlightened me–this time, with a link. Ms. Dolan was just finishing this up when last I met with her, and here it is in nicely polished form:

The 2006 Phillips Exeter Academy College Profile.

It details five grade ranges for two, three, and four-year seniors–not comprehensive enough for a complete basis of rank, but enough to get a pretty good picture of where any one student lies. There were also the SAT I and SAT II scores for the class of 2005. A few fun tidbits were thrown in, like the number of National Merit semifinalists and commended scholars for 2006 and a distribution of AP scores (47% 5’s, for example). Complete information available within the 4 page document.

This report is not a surprsie to me because it has been alluded to before–colleges have this as a “picture” of PEA students to complement what they might make for themselves from their Exeter applicant pool. I am not alarmed by this as I would be by exact rankings; each has a wildly different attitude / philosophy behind it, and different possible uses. Nice presentation here.

8 Responses

stephen

October 23rd, 2006 at 5:32 pm
1

as you stated also, nothing here seems too shocking…
ALTHOUGH, i’m surprised that exeter dosen’t weight grades. wouldn’t have somebody have complained about that by now?
by the way, is this profile on the class of ‘06 or ‘05? i realize that it says ‘2006 college profile’, but it seems sort of random that they’d add SAT results for the class of ‘05.
Sam Jackson

October 23rd, 2006 at 8:22 pm
2

The grade-weighting question is one that I asked when I came here; I’m sorry I don’t have a quick answer ready. I’ll look into the reason.

The profile is for the class of 2007, but is current as of this part of 2006, hence ‘2006 profile’ — those grades are for the class of 2007. This is my understanding, at least; the SAT results I guess are ‘05 because a) 07 hasn’t finished its round of testing and b) 06 was skewed by the addition of the writing section?

I’m operating under the assumption that those grades are reported for the class of 2007… it might make just as much sense for them to be 2006 at the end of the year… EXCEPT that there are 325 people in the class of 2007 (including those PGs) and I think that that number would be different year to year by at least a little bit. The 295 30 figure cited in the profile leads me to believe that the grading breakdown is for 2007; I don’t know why the scores are for the year they are.
Christine

January 17th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
3

Exeter doesn’t weigh grades because the majority of uper level courses are considered to be APs whether it’s stated this in the course description or not. For example, senior English classes are considered to be APs despite the fact that all seniors are required to take them in their fall and winter terms. Since everyone is required to take them, there’s no real point in weighing them more than any other classes. Same goes for European history and many other non-required APs; so many people take them that there would be no real advatage to weighing them the way they are in public and some private schools. Also, as we all know, Exeter is a highly regarded 226 year old academic institution and it is unneccessary fr the school to inflate students’ grades to compete with the top students from non-prep schools. As they say, a C at Exeter is an A anywhere else. I think these days it’s more like a B or A- elsewhere, but it’s definitely still a cut above.

Hope that helps.
Christine, Exeter ‘03
Chloe

January 22nd, 2007 at 12:57 am
4

I see 12 students are coming to McGill - that’s where I’ll probably be next September! Is there a certain program that draws soon-to-be Exeter alums or is it just that Montreal is pretty cheap?
Sam Jackson

January 22nd, 2007 at 1:00 am
5

Those figures were from the three years 2003-2005, so I guess an average of 4 every year. I know a lot of people this year are applying to McGill because of its affordability, but I’m sure that isn’t the only reason. I am not sure how many people from the class of 2006 went to McGill, but probably a few. I don’t have the numbers yet for 2007, either, so I’m not sure who will be joining you… One way or another, there will be some Exonians to run into, if you look hard enough!
Libs

March 11th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
6

I didn’t know about the profiles, but all of the info is on the coffee table of the CCO office right?
Sam Jackson

March 11th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
7

The information on the table of the CCO is the navizon-type scattergrams for the matriculating class of the year previous–so now, the 2006 data. We have that on our CCO for Seniors blackboard, actually, though apparently the uppers do not. I shouldn’t have sent that PDF to Sekhar, ouch…

This profile data might be on the table, but I haven’t seen it anytime there. It’s just a quick handout-type thing that we give out so that colleges can know what any single student from exeter looks like in the context of the whole (school, country, etc). Since we don’t rank or anything (basically) it’s helpful for them.
Reed

May 4th, 2007 at 9:36 am
8

Dear Sam,

I’m class of ‘69, and would love to see the current college profile and how that changed since the ooooooold days.

Can’t get the link to work.

Could you cut and paste it into an email for me?

Thanks,
Reed

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