<p>Get a copy of your schools profile (which they send out to the college) as it has a wealth of information: average SAT score, percentage of students who graduate, 5age who attend 2 and 4 year schools, the schools that they are most likely to attend.</p>
<p>Is your school a small school? Do a lot of colleges come to your school to visit? Guidance counselors usually invite the ususal uspects depending on where the kids decide to attend. It is not unusual for kids to go to school close to home. </p>
<p>You have been given some very feasible answers, maybe students haven't been applying to these schools. It was certainly the case at my daughter's high school which has a track record of sending kids to LAC's (because they are a small high school, and the guidance counselor is very well versed in LACs). They send a few students to Cornell, Penn and Columbia because they are close by. Last year kids decided to spread their wings and for the first time in the 10 year history of the h.s. applied to Williams, Amherst, Dartmouth, Stanford, Wash U and Brown. Guess what, they got accepted. It has to start with someone, it might as well begin with you.</p>