Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of New England prep schools (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. Unclear scope. There is no "generally accepted" criteria that determine which schools are included on the list. It is permissible to create a list based on a reliable source, but it must be made clear that its scope is delimited by that source (such as mentioning the source in the title) and it must be shown that such distinction is significant. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  ♠ 07:08, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

List of New England prep schools
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log )

There are no valid inclusion criteria for this list, which is essentially a content fork from List of boarding schools. As formulated, this is not a list of all college preparatory schools or college preparatory boarding schools in New England, but rather is a list of a group of schools that a Wikipedian has deemed (without citing sources) to have a certain "allure" due to their "breadth of academic, athletic and extra-curricular opportunities" and "large endowments which rival many universities." Wikipedia does not exist to allow the students and alumni of certain schools to create vanity pages to advertise that their school has a particular elite status. The information on founding dates and enrollment could be incorporated into List of boarding schools, but otherwise the article should be deleted. Orlady (talk) 18:33, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Previous AfD was Articles for deletion/New_England_prep_school
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions.  —Orlady (talk) 18:48, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  —Orlady (talk) 18:48, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose there is a large literature on the importance of these New England prep schools, and the list is very useful indeed. These schools are especially important as feeders to Ivy League colleges, and as an entry point for elites. See Ronald Story, "Harvard Students, The Boston Elite, And The New England Preparatory System, 1800-1870," History of Education Quarterly, Fall 1975, Vol. 15 Issue 3, pp 281-298; James McLachlan, American boarding schools: A historical study (1970); Arthur Powell, Lessons from Privilege: The American Prep School Tradition (Harvard University press, 1998), all of which focus on schools in this list. Rjensen (talk) 20:01, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I am well aware that the venerable prep schools of New England have had a major role in American society, but that doesn't change the fact that the main determinant of the contents of this list seems to be the personal opinion of contributors who decided which college preparatory boarding schools in New England are elite enough to belong on the list. Without clear inclusion criteria and sourcing, this list does not belong in Wikipedia. Furthermore, "usefulness" alone is not a sufficient reason to include unsourced content. (See WP:Arguments to avoid.) Over a year ago, in the previous AfD, I wrote:
 * Delete unless a strong source is found: The article as it currently exists has a lot of truth in it, but is essentially original research and it is strongly infused with POV. The topic is not "New England prep schools" in general, but rather the subset of elite and exclusive New England prep schools. There are many more preparatory schools in New England that aren't on this list, presumably because they enroll only girls (e.g., Miss Porter's School), aren't considered quite so elite as the ones on the list (e.g., Berkshire School), or are strictly day schools (although the article doesn't indicate it, the schools mentioned are all primarily boarding schools). If this definition/categorization can be supported by reliable sources (not including The Preppy Handbook or similar cruft), then keep it, but don't keep it unless there is a third-party source for classifying schools in the manner of the article.
 * Nobody has stepped forward since that time to document the basis for this list. --Orlady (talk) 20:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Orlady admits the list is useful and important and seems to have suggestions to add to it. Wikipedia has thousands of articles in which the topics covered are selected by the editors--indeed, millions of such articles. Every major history article, for example, contains a SELECTION of facts chosen by the editors. This selection process is integral to Wikipedia and is not considered "original research." the sources that document the article are listed and are standard RS. Rjensen (talk) 21:09, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The schools that I named are listed on the comprehensive List of boarding schools, but were not (as of October 2009) listed in this New England prep school list, which is stated to require some sort of elite status for inclusion. --Orlady (talk) 21:17, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe Rjensen edited his comment or maybe I didn't read it carefully the first time. Words are being put in my mouth -- I don't see where I "admitted" that this list is "useful and important." I have admitted that that the topic is real, but I have not said that this list is either useful or important -- not that either of these is a sufficient reason for including content in Wikipedia. I have said that the list is a content fork from List of boarding schools, that it lacks clear criteria for inclusion, and that no one has ever identified a sourced basis for determining what meets those unidentified inclusion criteria. Furthermore, I submit that the selection of information for inclusion in Wikipedia articles is supposed to be based first and foremost on what has been published on the topic by others (i.e., reliable sources), not the personal opinions of the contributors. --Orlady (talk) 14:52, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose concurring in the reasoning and conclusion of Rjensen. Safiel (talk) 01:20, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete: Rjensen's passionate defense notwithstanding, the defining paragraph is heavily POV and completely unsourced, as it was in the prior AfD over a year ago. Not a single entry on this list has - or, it seems, ever has had - any inline citations sourcing it as an official "New England prep school," presuming such sourcing existed, which of course it doesn't.  That an entity known as the "New England prep school" exists in the public imagination can be sourced.  That certain schools are perceived to be among their number can likely be sourced as well ... but I challenge anyone to come up with a sourced, generally accepted definition necessary to sustain a list that cannot apply to most (if not all) New England boarding schools, however much the antiquity, price tag, prestige and allegiance to the Social Register of any given institution might fall short.  This absolutely fails WP:NOR - upon what source does Rjensen rely upon to determine which schools belong on this list, after all?   Ravenswing  22:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There are numerous rankings out there. Which schools make the most prestigious list is a matter of debate, but several reliable sources have offered objective estimates based on admission rates to Ivy League colleges, endowments, and reputations. See "America's Top 50 College Preparatory High Schools" from "Prep Review" Forbes Magazine in 2010 listed its top 20. Forbes used a statistical combination of the school's student/faculty ratio, percentage of faculty with advanced degrees, size of its endowment, and the percentage of recent graduates who matriculated into 10 top colleges.See Forbes 2010 List. It's like listing politicians --Wikipedia can include 2 million people who ever held office or -- much better-- we can give the most important ones in the judgment of editors and experts. The POV comes from schools that don't make the cut and don't want Wikipedia readers to know that. (and no, I never attended one) Rjensen (talk) 23:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, but then you're shifting the goalposts. This article is not named "List of leading private high schools located in New England according to Forbes".  It's "List of New England prep schools".  That presupposes (a) there is a generally accepted, reliably sourced definition of prep school, (b) that ALL schools meeting that definition get listed, and (c) that there is something about New England prep schools that's significant enough - and can be sourced as such - to be a valid content fork from the already extant List of boarding schools.  Your premise of "making the cut" is utterly, completely subjective and cannot be used in an article ... unlike lists of politicians, say, for which WP:POLITICIAN gives some clear-cut criteria.   Ravenswing  03:49, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There is some precedent for creating Wikipedia articles about "best" lists that have been developed and published by reliable sources. Examples include Forbes list of billionaires, Law school rankings in the United States, List of United States graduate business school rankings, and HEEACT – Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities. Although those articles include lists, the primary topic of these articles and College and university rankings is the lists themselves (which lists presumably have been deemed to be notable topics), and not the entities named on the lists. Forbes creates a lot of lists, but not all of their lists are notable (indeed, I question some of the list articles I ran across just now -- I wonder why Forbes Magazine's List of America's Best Colleges has an article, and while I think that Forbes Global 2000 is notable, the article does not establish notability by showing third-party attention to the list). Notwithstanding the fact that the current article is not about the Forbes list, I don't perceive the Forbes list of top prep schools as one of their notable lists. --Orlady (talk) 15:08, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, exactly; I've been involved in one of those articles myself, concerning a Top 100 NHL players of all time list published by The Hockey News. Its survival hinged on exactly that point - that the list itself was considered a big deal in the hockey world, extensively quoted and written about in many newspapers and books.   Ravenswing  15:57, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The RS are agreed that there are prestigious NE prep schools that--for 200 years and today--have been linked to the Ivies and to American elites. Ravenswing now suggests that the article should re renamed with "prestigious" added, and that makes sense. It does NOT make sense to deny the existence or importance of these schools. Rjensen (talk) 04:41, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Err ... I'm almost tempted to refactor part of the above comment; obviously, I made no such suggestion. Beyond that, it is not within Wikipedia's remit to "deny" or validate the existence or importance of these or any other schools.  It is Wikipedia's remit to base articles on its policies and guidelines, a subject Rjensen has completely ducked in favor of a WP:ITSIMPORTANT argument.   Ravenswing  10:37, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Logan Talk Contributions 06:53, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Delete. I must agree with the nominator regarding the inclusion criteria. I also find the recent edits seemingly trying to justify this actually make it worse - e.g. "Which schools make the most prestigious list is a matter of debate". A matter of debate for who? What list are we talking about - the wikipedia one or ones that other publications have done etc. In addition the sources that have done a list of the best prep schools do not limit it to New England so there are prep schools from other areas. If there is something about New England prep schools in particular then an actual article (rather than a list) could be written about that, provided of course that it is documented in RS. The other alternative is to list all prep schools from New England rather than being based on editors opinions on which ones are important. Quantpole (talk) 13:01, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.