From Cookson & Persell's `Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools'--Conclusion

In their 1985 book, Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools, Peter W. Cookson Jr. and Cardine Hodges Persell wrote the following about the U.S. power elite's private school and elite prep school educational system and indicated how elite prep school graduates have, historically, generally lived in exclusive U.S. neighborhoods; and have, historically, undemocratically monopolized—in disproportionate numbers--the most lucrative and powerful executive positions within the U.S. business, media, political and foundation world:

“…In the period between 1962-72, 70 percent of the grooms whose wedding announcements appeared in the New York Times were from private schools. Of those grooms that were listed in the Social Register, 20 percent were from St. Paul’s alone; 8 percent were from Exeter, and 6 percent were old Grotonians. A private school, and particularly a prep school, education appears to be still important in establishing social pedigrees…

“…In some exclusive neighborhoods in New York, Boston, and Washington, preps could be said to have achieved a critical mass, insulating themselves against outsiders through high prices and high taxes. Preps are particularly fond of Connecticut suburban areas such as Darien, Greenwich, and New Canaan. In fact, Connecticut is probably the prep state…

“…Do the interpersonal relationships of preppies become interorganizational and institutional, linking corporate boards, banks, industries, government cabinets, and philanthropic organizations?...Michael Useem’s study (…1984)…found that 13 elite boarding schools [Andover, Choate, Deerfield, Exeter, Groton, Hill, Hotchkiss, Lawrenceville, Milton, St. George’s, St. Mark’s St. Paul’s, and Taft] educated 10 percent of the members of the boards of large American business organizations. Considering that these 13 schools enroll fewer than 1 percent of the population, 10 percent is striking. Even more so is the fact that 17 percent of those who become directors of two large companies (rather than just one) attended one of the thirteen elite boarding schools, as did 15 percent of those who are directors of 3 or more large companies…

“Select 16 boarding schools provide a `booster shot’ for success. Nearly half of the senior corporate managers who achieved the high corporate position…had prep school or social register backgrounds…There is considerable impressionistic evidence to suggest that substantial numbers of boarding school graduates enter banking…In a period of economic scarcity and contraction, we might expect the prep experience to become relatively more important, as those already holding power try to cling to what they have…”

From Cookson & Persell's `Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools'--Part 20

In their 1985 book, Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools, Peter W. Cookson Jr. and Cardine Hodges Persell wrote the following about the U.S. power elite's private school and elite prep school educational system and indicated how some of the tax-exempt and “non-profit” elite prep schools profit from the current U.S. economic system:

“…It is not unusual, for example, for the alumni and wealthy friends of an elite school to give annual gifts in excess of $1 million…Endowments can be impressive; as of 1982, Andover’s endowment was over $82 million, St. Paul’s’ was over $61 million, and Hotchkiss’s over $$20 million…

“Elite boarding schools invest heavily and their cash reserves attract brokers and other money market managers. Exeter’s Third Century Fund was worth $20,453,001 as of September 1981…

“:The collective portfolio of America’s most elite prep schools is impressive…Morgan money helped to finance Groton, Taft was founded by Horace D. Taft, brother of President Taft, Hotchkiss, whose deceased husband perfected the machine gun, and St. George’s School was helped by John Nicholas Brown, the Rhode Island industrialist whose family helped establish Brown University. Choate can count Mellons as benefactors, and a Lowell and a Forbes funded the Middlesex School in Massachusetts. The Kent School was given an early boost by several DuPonts…”

From Cookson & Persell's `Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools'--Part 19

In their 1985 book, Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools, Peter W. Cookson Jr. and Cardine Hodges Persell wrote the following about the U.S. power elite's private school and elite prep school educational system and indicated why student applicants who attended elite prep schools apparently have an undemocratically-obtained advantage over student applicants who attended U.S. public schools in obtaining admission to U.S. power elite universities like Harvard, Yale and Princeton:

“In addition to cooperating with the colleges, a group of select 16 school college advisors cooperate among themselves, sharing information and developing common strategies for dealing with colleges…College advisors, especially those at the select 16 schools, use their close personal relationships with college admissions officers to lobby for their students…

“Most public high-school counselors do not know elite college admissions officers, nor do they have the resources to call them up or drive over to talk with them…The elite prep school advisors are still listened to more closely by college admissions officers than public school counselors…

“…Nationally, only 2 percent of all college students attend the most highly selective colleges in the United States…and much less than 1 percent nationally attend one of the 8 eastern Ivy League colleges…Almost all boarding school students attend 4-year colleges immediately after graduation…Half attend the most highly selective colleges in the United States, and 1 in 5 attends an Ivy League college. The colleges they attend are heavily concentrated on the East Coast and in California…

“When four sets of application pools to Ivy League schools are compared, the acceptance rate is highest for select 16 boarding school applicants…Prep schools, especially the select 16 schools, offer…students…a tremendous boost in gaining acceptance to the colleges of their choice…The organizational support that the schools offer to students is matched by few, if any, public schools…Prep schools open doors for students…

“Compared to their public school peers, prep school students start the race for college with substantial advantages… The advantages prep schools students enjoy raise some complex and disturbing issues. How fair is it to public school students to allow prep school students to be consistently given the competitive edge so that they win a disproportionately high number of coveted acceptances?...”

From Cookson & Persell's `Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools'--Part 18

In their 1985 book, Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools, Peter W. Cookson Jr. and Cardine Hodges Persell wrote the following about the U.S. power elite's private school and elite prep school educational system and indicated how U.S. power elite universities like Harvard, Yale and Princeton apparently favor student applicants who attended elite prep schools over student applicants who attended U.S. public schools:

“…In 1982, 34 percent of the freshman class at Harvard, 40 percent of Yale freshmen, and 40 percent of Princeton freshmen were from nonpublic high schools…

“Being a legacy—having one or more parents or other relatives who attended the college to which one applies—is a decided bonus for admission. 17 percent of the Princeton class of 1983 were alumni children…Several college advisers said that legacies were 2 to 2 ½ times as likely to be admitted to Ivy League colleges as nonlegacies…At Yale during the 1960s about one-quarter of the entering class were legacies, a figure that dropped to 13 percent in the 1970s, but returned to between 20 and 24 percent in 1984…

“The help the elite prep schools give their students…reaches into the informal, interpersonal world of `horse-trading’ that exists in friendly phone calls, beers, and dinner with college admissions officers…The close personal relationships between select 16 college advisors and college admissions officers have been built up over a considerable number of years…

“Often prep school college advisors are invited to sit in on admissions committee decisions, to see how a college puts its class together…Such information…may suggest strategies they can use inputting their candidates forward. They learn other useful information from personal contacts as well, such as which colleges are having an `admissions pinch,’ and hence might be receptive to somewhat weaker candidates…Inside lore about the admissions process helps boarding school college advisors sell their students more effectively than advisors without such knowledge can…”

“…At least one Ivy League college (Harvard) puts the applications from certain boarding schools into different colored folders. Hence, the admissions committee knows immediately which applicants are from certain boarding schools…Being from one of those select boarding schools was positively related to admission to Harvard…”

From Cookson & Persell's `Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools'--Part 17

In their 1985 book, Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools, Peter W. Cookson Jr. and Cardine Hodges Persell wrote the following about the U.S. power elite's private school and elite prep school educational system and their specially privileged student body:

“Preppies are a perfect market for drug dealers because they have the money and the need. The generous allowances many boarding school students receive make it relatively easy for them to buy drugs. If they do not have money, others often share their drugs…Alcoholism is also prevalent at boarding schools….In effect, prep school students come to believe that they are entitled to privilege because they are true aristocrats…”

From Cookson & Persell's `Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools'--Part 16

In their 1985 book, Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools, Peter W. Cookson Jr. and Cardine Hodges Persell wrote the following about the U.S. power elite's private school and elite prep school educational system and indicated why the U.S. power elite continues to maintain an exclusive, undemocratic, separate, private educational system in the United States:

“…As our data [from the early 1980s] show, boarding schools are stil a man’s world [in the 1980s]. In the Porter Sargent sample of 289 schools, 92 percent of the heads are male; even at girls schools, 64 percent of the heads are male [in the early 1980s]…None of the select 16 schools has a woman head [in the 1980s]…

“Male authority is a deeply entrenched tradition of prep school life…In the prep school world, strong women usually find their mobility blocked. Leadership positions within the elite schools are something like a men’s club, where women are not made to feel particularly comfortable nor considered truly acceptable for membership…

“…Preps are taught to camouflage their interests in the rhetoric of morality and community service…There are no…protected enclaves at boarding schools, no unions, and in most cases no tenures. In some schools, there isn’t even a written contract. Teachers are simply invited back or not invited back…

“…Most heads come from middle-class or upper-middle class backgrounds in which a guiding principle is to enhance one’s status, not change the rules of the game…

“…Giving information to the administration that is detrimental to one’s peers is considered a form of treason by nearly all prep school students…

“…While the style of the schools has changed, their missions have not. If they abandon their goal of socializing students for power their very purpose is open to question…Leadership training is as much a part of the prep school mission today as when Endicott Peabody founded Groton to train leaders in 1884…”

From Cookson & Persell's `Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools'--Part 15

In their 1985 book, Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools, Peter W. Cookson Jr. and Cardine Hodges Persell wrote the following about the U.S. power elite's private school and elite prep school educational system and indicated what kind of folks control most elite prep schools:

“…Prep school educators often depict themselves as mentors to the next generation of the power elite…Like other power structures, the prep power structure is hierarchical…

“At the top of the prep school power hierarchy is the board of trustees…These trustees are not elected…Instead, trustees select their own members…Most board members are successful in some area of the business world…The real power of most boards is exercised by an executive committee, which includes the president, the most influential board member…

“…An analysis of available data [from the 1980s] on 538 trustees from 22 schools indicated that 41 percent of the trustees of these schools are listed in either the Social Register, Who’s Who, or both…At a socially elite school like St. Paul’s in New Hampshire, 63 percent of the trustees are listed in the Social Register…

“…Trustees cannot be controlled by the faculty, and quite often they will take the opportunity…to root out difficult cliques or individuals. Part of looking to the future is knowing when to clean house…Much of the power of the trustees is difficult to detect within the school community because they tend to keep low profiles…The unobtrusiveness of most boards is an example of how power can be exercised without publicity; they are indeed the power behind the throne, and many students may only be dimly aware of the board’s importance or even presence…”