Boston Private High School Elite College Placement Index

Primary Data Sources

• Official School Profiles & Matriculation Lists: The most reliable and detailed data comes directly from the schools themselves. Many of the schools in this analysis (e.g., Phillips Academy, Milton Academy, Noble and Greenough) publish annual school profiles or multi-year matriculation lists that provide specific college enrollment data for their graduating classes. These are the gold standard for this analysis.
• School Websites and Publications: Additional context and data points are gathered from school websites, official news articles, and alumni magazines which often highlight notable college placements and overall post-secondary trends.

Secondary & Supporting Sources

• Third-Party Data Aggregators: Platforms like Niche.com or Boarding School Review compile data from various sources, including user-reported data and public records. This data is used for cross-referencing and for modeling matriculation patterns for schools that do not publish comprehensive, public lists.

Important Disclaimer

ECPI Score Components & Weighting

The total ECPI score is a weighted average of five components, each scaled to a 0-100 score to ensure comparability. The weighting for private schools emphasizes placement at the most selective institutions.

• Ivy League+ Matriculation (35%): Modeled percentage of graduates attending an Ivy League institution, plus Stanford, MIT, Duke, and the University of Chicago.
• T25 National University Matriculation (20%): Modeled percentage of graduates attending a Top 25 National University (inclusive of the Ivy+ group).
• T15 Liberal Arts College Matriculation (20%): Modeled percentage of graduates attending a Top 15 Liberal Arts College.
• Top 50 Broad Placement (10%): Modeled percentage of graduates attending a Top 50 National University or Top 50 Liberal Arts College, capturing the breadth of excellent placements.
• College Readiness Score (15%): An internal score reflecting a school's academic rigor, resources, endowment, faculty qualifications, and overall national reputation.

Psychometric & Mean Scaling

A simple weighted average can be misleading. To solve this, we use a two-step scaling process:

1. Normalization (0-100 Scale): For each of the five components, we analyze the range of scores across all schools in our database. Each school's raw score is then scaled to a value between 0 and 100. A school with the lowest raw score in a category receives a 0, the highest receives a 100, and all others are scaled proportionally. This converts raw data into a standardized measure of performance relative to peers.
2. Mean Adjustment (Target Mean of 70): After calculating an initial ECPI score based on the weighted average of the scaled components, we calculate the mean of all these scores across all schools. We then apply a linear adjustment to every school's score to shift the overall average to a target of 70. This final step standardizes the index, making 70 the benchmark for a "strong" performance within the Boston private school context.