From Cookson & Persell's `Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools'--Part 7

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 its undemocratic and secretive admissions process:

“A school filled with `brains’ stands the risk of driving away the less brainy but wealthier families. A school that is entirely `prepped out’ may find its reputation…slipping. Too many `jocks’ make teachers unhappy…

“Part of the screening process is to weed out those who will not fit in…Merit is only part of the criteria for admission…Family wealth and social standing, also count for a great deal…

“…The admissions process remains relatively secretive…Children of alumni have certain advantages…”

From Cookson & Persell's `Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools'--Part 6

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:

"...It was not until 1856 that the idea of founding a great boarding school in New England was rekindled with the establishment of St. Paul's in New Hampshire.

"From the founding of St. Paul's until the end of the century, 61 elite boarding schools were established in the United States...By the beginning of the 20th century...10 percent of the high-school age populatiion was enrolled in private schools, of which less than one percent were in the elite boarding schools...

"The prep schools operated as exclusive clubs--Catholics, blacks, and Jews need not apply. From the 1880s onward the schools develooped their reputation for snobbishness, and that they were is undeniable...

"...Boys schools discovered the virtues of co-education in the late 1960s...The schools became more attractive to boys...and acquired a much larger pool from which to draw students...

"...54 percent of our sample of 2,475 students have at least one relative who attended a boarding school (the figure for Episcopal schools is as high as 73 percent). Among the 54 percent, 53 percent have one or more relatives who attended the same school...

"...The admissions director is the school's most important gatekeeper..."

From Cookson & Persell's `Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools'--Part 5

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:

“…Two schools alone possess land equal to 5 percent of the state of Rhode Island. If all the (often choice) real estate holdings of American boarding schools were added together, total acreage would measure in the hundreds of thousands from coast to coast…

“In effect, the combined real estate holdings of American boarding schools represent a `Prep National Park,’ a preserve free from state and local taxes…

“…Most prep schools can offer facilities and equipment that rival many small colleges…

“…Private schools, including boarding schools, are rarely democratic from the standpoint of admission. Like private corporations, country clubs, and cooperative real estate holdings, private schools have the right to choose whom they will or will not admit…Their student bodies have tended to be homogeneous in terms of family background, religion, and race…”

From Cookson & Persell's `Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools'--Part 4

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:

“E. Digby Baltzell identified 16 boarding schools that `serve the sociological function of differentiating the upper classes from the rest of the population…’ Indeed, the 16 schools [Phillips Acdemy, Phillips Exeter Academy, Episcopal High School, Hill School, St. Paul’s School, St. Mark’s School, Lawrenceville School, Groton School, Woodbury Forest School, Taft School, Hotchkiss School, Choate School, St. George’s School, Middlesex School, Deerfield Academy, Kent School] strike one as predominantly `old, eastern, patrician, aristocratic and English.’ These are core schools of the elite tradition, and they play an important role in socializing their students for power. We refer to these schools as the select 16…

“Others besides Baltzell have developed lists of the most socially prestigious American boarding schools and although they differ on one or two schools, there is a consensus as to which schools are the most elite…

“Aldrich’s list excludes three schools with a heavy southern constituency (The Episcopal High School, The Hill School, and Woodberry Forest School) and includes two New England schools that Baltzell does not (Milton Academy and Brooks School). As Baltzell is interested in those schools that serve a national elite his list has the virtue of including more schools outside of New England.

“Compared to other leading schools, the select 16 schools tend to have been founded earlier, are larger, have many more alumni—and consequently are more heavily endowed, have more buildings and playing fields and are more likely to be located in New England or the Middle or South Atlantic states than other boarding schools…”

From Cookson & Persell's `Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools'--Part 3

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:

“According to Baltzell (1958) the exclusive prep school played an important role in the formation and maintenance of an American upper class…The collective identity forged in prep schools would become the basis of upper-class solidarity and consciousness…

“By camouflaging eliteness in the cloth of common dress, American prep school students generally deflect attention from their privilege. Privilege publicly worn is an affront to democracy, and the American elite discovered that inverse snobbery is more effective in masking social class difference…than flagrant snobbery and public displays of financial superiority. Thus, at the most socially elite schools the dress is often the most casual…”

From Cookson & Persell's `Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools'--Part 2

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:

“…On the East Coast, knowledge about boarding schools is largely confined to the upper class, the upper-middle class, and a small proportion of the middle class…As schools that train the children of such illustrious American families as the Rockefellers, Kennedys and Vanderbilts, prep schools have gained the reputation of being educational country clubs where children of wealthy families are sent to get socially polished and prepared for admission to acceptable colleges…

“[John F.] Kennedy’s call for `prep power’ was not altogether original…President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Dean Acheson were both Grotonians…Adlai Stevenson was a Choate man and Kennedy, of course, became president in 1960…

“…George Bush [I] is a Phillips Andover alumnus and…James Baker III is a Hill School graduate…

“The difference between a public school and an elite private school is, in one sense, the difference between a factory and a club. Public schools are evaluated on how good a product they turn out…

“…To be accepted into a private school is to be accepted into a social club…Because the most exclusive boarding schools have traditionally educated many upper-class children and a large number of children from high status families, they have become what we call `status seminaries’…”

From Cookson & Persell's `Preparing For Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools'--Part 1

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:

"...Less than 10 percent of American high school students attend private school and only 20 to 30 percent of those are enrolled in private residential schools...If we were to reduce our sample even further to include only elite preparatory, or `prep,' schools, then the number of students attending those schools is less than one percent of the total high-school population. The one percent who attend the elite schools are not randomly selected from the population at large. They are overwhelmingly the children of the privileged classes. At one elite school, 40 percent of the 1982 graduating class was drawn from families listed in the Social Register...

"In this book we document how the philosophies, programs, and lifestyles of boarding schools help transmit power and privilege and how elite families use the schools to maintain their social class..."