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In the next two months, some 1,400 teen-age boys and their parents all over the U.S. will tremulously collect the credentials—IQ scores, grades, test results, recommendations, interviews—needed to apply for admission to what they are sure is the nation's best prep school: Massachusetts' Andover. Many applications will come from Eastern boys with good primary education and some wealth and social standing. But not all. Even now, Andover alumni are searching slums and back-country towns for bright boys who may have little money and position but who "need" Andover. Recruiters are grilling newspaper circulation managers for the names of deserving paper boys, asking forest rangers to suggest suitable rural applicants, checking big-city youth clubs for promising kids—and then helping the boys apply.
By Jan. 15 all of the applicants, rich and poor, will be listed on a big chart in Andover's admissions office. Studying each boy's credentials, three faculty men and an admissions director, working individually, will grade the applicant from 1 to 5, with 5 representing total disapproval. The four grades will be added (and a helpful three points will be subtracted from the totals of sons of Andover alumni). About one fifth of the boys—that is, those with low totals—will be accepted. The rest will be turned down.
Then, and only then, will Andover consider whether the applicant has the $1,800 a year that going there costs. Probably three-fourths of the boys will be able to pay full freight. For the rest, rich Andover will dip into its pockets for scholarships and loans tailored to the boys' needs. Thus will be formed the group of next year's new boys at a school that aims by intensity and excellence to be No. 1 in the U.S.*
The Way to College. The increasingly competitive admissions crush at Andover does not mean that public schools are being abandoned: only 2-3% of U.S. schoolchildren go to the nation's 2,400 independent schools (more than half of them day schools). But within that fraction there is room for much experimentation, pacesetting, quality and growth. In Florida and Colorado, the number of independent schools has doubled in five years. In Manhattan, some schools have to turn down eight out of nine applicants.
The big spur toward private schooling is getting into college. The country's 1,708 independent secondary schools, with an enrollment of about 250,000, send 95% of their graduates to college, against 40% from public schools. This faith in private schools is chiefly rooted in their freedom. They can select better students. They can pay teachers by merit, make innovations, borrow ideas from anywhere. On every score they can outpace all but a few crack public schools.