Learning Strategies

Where can Dorchester kids get into college? Anywhere!

Some of my Weston students believe that they are entitled to go to Harvard and BC and Bryn Mawr, but kids who go to public schools in Dorchester and Roxbury certainly aren't in their league. If your parents are rich and well-connected and have provided you with every educational opportunity that money can buy, you deserve to get into Harvard, don't you? But if your parents are low-income immigrants who have sent you to the school formerly known as Dorchester High School, you don't have a chance.

Or do you? Well, admittedly the deck is stacked against you; the odds are in favor of the Weston student. But let's look at some of the 29 high-school seniors who have been attending the Crimson Summer Academy for the last two summers, starting with some of the most competitive colleges:

• Harvard admitted 3. That’s 10% of the class — can’t beat that at Weston.


• Smith admitted an astounding 5 of the 15 girls!


• BC admitted 3.


• MIT admitted 1!


• Brandeis admitted 1, Bryn Mawr 2, Johns Hopkins 1, Penn 1, Pitt 1, Syracuse 6, Union 2, Wellesley 1, Wesleyan 1; Barnard put 2 on their wait-list.


• Some of the remaining six may also be highly competitive schools (I just don’t know about all of them): Denison admitted 1, Lehigh 3, Mass Art 1, Northeastern 8, Regis 3, and Wheaton 3.

OK, they’re not all from Dorchester and Roxbury, but they all attend public schools in Boston and Cambridge, and this college admissions record would be the envy of any public school and even most private schools too. Well done!

Labels: Dorchester, teaching and learning