<p>We have all read the brochure "we take each applicant's achievements in context". This means that if you live in the middle of nowhere or went to school in the gheto, you already have a big advantage in the admissions process. But one starts to wonder, have the rural/ghetto applicants really faced barriers in acheiving success? Grades, awards, e.c.s are all relative and by in large based on the competition. Even if a rural/ghetto student doesn't have a new textbook or a great teacher, neither does everybody else in that class. If a student merely does his/her work while everybody else is slacking off, it seems rather easy to get an A in a particular class. Class rank? It's a lot easier to be 1 if your competition is low. </p>
<p>Many college applicants go to public magnets or highly competitive prep schools and are put in a pressure-cooker enviornment. Even the students who suceed often have their accomplishments downgraded by adcoms who feel that the prep school student had lots of opportunities. Even if students take every opportunity, lots of APs, and participate in E.C.s, it is somehow always inferior to the student who didn't have every opportunity and so didn't take it. </p>
<p>One begins to wonder how much does a quality school help you in the admissions process? If the rural/ghetto students admited to top schools were put in the magnet/prep school environment, would they succeed or just be a regular 3.5 student? </p>
<p>If I had to do it over again, I would find the absolute worst public school in a 50 mile radius and go there for 4 years. Anybody else agree?</p>
<p>
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If I had to do it over again, I would find the absolute worst public school in a 50 mile radius and go there for 4 years. Anybody else agree?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No offense, but this is the most ignorant thing I have ever heard. You value getting into a prestigious school more than your education? You actually want a bad education? Shame on you...</p>
<p>"Even if students take every opportunity, lots of APs, and participate in E.C.s, it is somehow always inferior to the student who didn't have every opportunity and so didn't take it."</p>
<p>Your whole premise is quite off. If you had the opportunity and DIDN'T take it, it would reflect poorly on your perceived initiative, scholarship and work ethic.</p>
<p>However, I would look to see if the valedictorian in the rural HS did anything special besides get As in Algebra II. If he/she finished the high school's most rigorous math offerings, for instance, as a sopomore, then I'd look to see if any community college classes were taken. No? Why not? Just decided to cruise your last two years? </p>
<p>Now there may be mitigating circumstances. I'd like to hear them (caring for ill relative, worked 35 hrs a week, had to baby sit 5 younger sibs). But the 4.0 or valedictorian in some lesser school doesn't get any free rides.</p>
<p>The "context" is that he/she probably has had to overcome issues that the magnet or prep school kid may not have. That does have revelance.</p>
<p>If that kid were magically transported to have the day-school life, would they be 3.5 average kids? Maybe. But the fact is they have ALREADY proven some things and can bring to the table that the "rescued" 3.5 alter ego can not. That is relevant to the top schools' adcoms.</p>
<p>And you blithely offer to switch places... puh-leeez</p>
<p>I'm actually opposite. I don't exactly go to a bad school or live in a bad area WHAT SO EVER, but my school is NOTHING compared to the privet schools or public magnets, where, per say, the average SAT score is 700 (M) 700 (W) etc etc...</p>
<p>I looked into the average SAT section scores at my school. Some where around the 500s...just about the average. This upsets me a great deal. I still work my tail off comparing to other students. I'm in all honors and I actually do my homework. Seeing that I'm an "honors" student at an average school, my SAT section scores may be about 600 range each (with little prep). That puts me in no range what so ever for an AWSOME school that my counterparts of privet schools could get into and not because they WORK 10TIMES HARDER THAN ME...it's because the work I'm given doesn't push the limits to recieve world-class results.</p>
<p>Someone who lives in the ghetto does not merely compete with her peer. She competes with other inner-city kids, middleclass suburbanites, and rich legacies alike. This puts her at a severe disadvantage.</p>
<p>The point of high school is not to get you into college, but to prepare for the real world and provide you with a decent education. There are many schools with extremely bright an capable students that are unable to meet the intellectual and social needs of these students. This puts these kids at a disadvantage. They don't get the same opportunities as prep school kids, simply because they can't afford it, not because they're less smart or less capable.</p>
<p>It's not realistic to compare yourself transported to a poorer school now to someone who has been brought up in such schools. I think that colleges recognized that even kids from ghetto schools deserve a chance to succeed. I would not trade my education at my relatively decent suburban high school for a less valuable education, only for a boost in admissions.</p>
<p>The job of the admissions office to to select a group of students who can succeed in college. I'm sure they're aware that it's easier to be val or sal at some random public high school than at an elite prep academy. Documents such as the class profile and counselor/teacher recs help put everything in perspective. I think the use of context is much more important when it comes to EC's, research, and internships. Maybe a student couldn't work in a lab because the nearest facilities were five hours away. Maybe someone couldn't be on the debate team because they needed a job at the local supermarket to help support the family. The hypothetical situations are endless; there is no way to know what would have happened in one of the 'pressure cookers' you describe. However, just because we don't know doesn't mean they don't deserve a chance.... Otherwise, college admissions would loose the sense of meritocracy. In addition to legacy and developmental status, it would also matter if your family could afford to live in a good school district or send you to boarding school.</p>
<p>I live in the middle of nowhere. I moved here from Silicon Valley and a middle school filled with brilliant students. There was pressure, sure, but we all thrived on it. The work was challenging and I didn't mind spending six or seven hours a night on homework in 7th grade. Now, I would give almost anything to attend one of the magnet/prep schools you mention. If I attempt to broach a subject with ANY intellectual merit, all I get are blank stares. Filling out college apps was a disaster; I had to explain to my counselor what the common app was and how to fill out the form. The recent 'Ode to CC' reall resonated with me because my situation is extremely similar. The other day, one of my teacher's thought MIT was one of those schools advertised on television. </p>
<p>I've gone to summer programs, taken classes at a relatively close community college, founded clubs, and generally tried to expand my opportunities. This can only take you so far, but I think it is right to question students in my position who doesn't do anything to improve their situation.... Sometimes it comes down to motivation and drive.</p>
<p>High school isn't all about getting into an elite college. The important thing is being happy and forming the strongest intellectual foundation possible.</p>
<p>also your so called "ghetto" schools most likely won't have many APS, lack of extracurriculars/sports/music/anything that requires money since they are often scraping by for the bare necessities.</p>
<p>Fandangoya: "No offense, but this is the most ignorant thing I have ever heard. You value getting into a prestigious school more than your education? You actually want a bad education? Shame on you..."</p>
<p>Yes I do value getting into a prestigous collge as more significant than spending ridiculous numbers of hours on homework each and every night so that I could suceed at a pressure cooker prep school. Where do people get the idea that at a prep school, things are handed to the students on a silver platter?</p>
<p>It really makes me sad that you value college acceptance more than education, which to be honest suggests that you don't really deserve the acceptance. It isn't a huge advantage to attend a bad school, what the statement about context means is that it won't be a disadvantage. Those hours spent on prep school homework enrich you as a person. I didn't like doing 4 years of prep school homework either, but I know that it made my education and indeed my life more rewarding.</p>
<p>QUOTE: "Where do people get the idea that at a prep school, things are handed to the students on a silver platter?"</p>
<p>I don't know about "people," but I doubt that includes selective colleges. In a different (and heated) debate some of us are engaged in on PF, I posted recently the Princeton CDS, which includes at the top of the "Very Important" column, "Rigor of the High School Curriculum." Doesn't mean that students who excel in less rigorous schools are not considered "in context," as you say, but it also does not mean that a 4.++ at a low-profile, relatively easy school has an automatic advantage over a prep school grad. The problem one encounters is more likely the heavy concentration of schools like yours in the NE, combined with the high number of such grads who apply to NE schools. </p>
<p>Personally, though, I think what disadvantages prep school students the most (and I have a D in one, but not in the NE), is the grade deflation that affects not only GPA (esp. when the school does NOT "weight" that GPA), and the availability of merit scholarships for needy students of those prep schools. Colleges that distribute merit scholarships do <em>not</em> consider context when doing so. Better that the scholarship applicant has a 4.0 from "regular" classes even -- no honors or AP -- (often meaning an "easier" school), but just the non-illuminating 4.0. I use the term non-illuminating most deliberately, intending to convey how unenlightened such awards are, i.m.o.</p>
<p>ferisbuellersdayoff: "It really makes me sad that you value college acceptance more than education, which to be honest suggests that you don't really deserve the acceptance"</p>
<p>Lots of cheap shots. I'm just speaking the truth for me even if it isn't politically correct and I'm sure I'm not in the minority with the opinion that high school is a stepping stone to college. Most school work (excluding material related to my major) is not fun. I do it all dilligently because it needs to get done. </p>
<p>I appreciate your post ephiphany. I know the situation your daughter is in. I have maintained a 4.0 unweighted throughout prep school and I don't think some colleges understand the difficulty of that feat. Grade deflation is huge, and if I went to a poorer public school, I could put in half the time in school work and probably get more academic recognition by the elite schools. </p>
<p>In the end all will work out. Fortunately the real world is not governmed by adcoms and the level of hard work is commensurate to the level of success</p>
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But one starts to wonder, have the rural/ghetto applicants really faced barriers in acheiving success?
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As only one example, my counselors hadn't heard of the Morehead Scholarship...and we're in-state. Luckily I was on CC and found out about the scholarship a few days before the deadline. </p>
<p>The number of teachers is rapidly dropping with every year, and my school is so crowded that even with 70+ trailors classes are held in the cafeteria, media center, and even the teacher's lounge. Test scores are so bad the state is threatening to close the school. You think these kids are going to Harvard???? I've met the other kids from my hometown, and every last one of them went to the three good magnet publics and private schools in the area.</p>
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If I had to do it over again, I would find the absolute worst public school in a 50 mile radius and go there for 4 years. Anybody else agree?
[/quote]
Then why not apply to Humboldt State instead of, say, Stanford? That would make it much easier for you to succeed, right?</p>
<p>i think that the basic premise of what you're saying is true--
1) it's easier to be valedictorian at a poorer school and
2) the pressure-cooker environment is pretty hard because amazing students are always, ALWAYS feeling inadequate, no matter what they do.</p>
<p>but that is not any reason to wish to be in an easier school. i felt the same way you do when i was a freshman... i was so frustrated that i worked so hard and got B's when my friends at an easier high school were taking the "same" (subtext: same title, blow-off quality) classes and getting A's.</p>
<p>but as lame and untrue as it sounds, education isn't supposed to be about grades. we should work to do well in the classes we don't really like, but if i really hate math and science, why should i struggle through ap chemistry and then complain about it? i'll take the 9 other ap classes my school offers and actually like them.</p>
<p>and if harvard will only accept me if i get a 5 in ap chem? well then, screw them. </p>
<p>TAKE ADVANTAGE and be THANKFUL for all your amazing school has to offer. look at all the opportunities around you. would you really give them up for some elitest school to accept YOU?</p>
<p>high school isn't only a stepping stone to college. you're supposed to be working hard, but also you're supposed to be finding yourself. how can you find yourself and appreciate all you have when you're so busy trying to make yourself into what a college wants?</p>
<p>My "ghetto" school offers six APs and no honors math or English classes. We don't have mock trial, debate, Quiz Bowl, or many other extracurriculars that are standard at most private schools. The average class size is 37; I shared my AP History book, which has no spine but duct tape, with two other people, and my Chemistry book last year was from 1988. We read photocopied versions of Huckleberry Finn last year, and have two counselors per 1000 students. Am I complaining? No. But am I at a disadvantage, compared to students whose schools offer 15 APs, brand new up-to-date books and information, and 20 students in their class? Yes.</p>
<p>Should colleges take into consideration that I didn't have a literary magazine to contribute to or an Honors Pre-Calc class to take? That my teachers have more students to deal with in less time, and that I could only study for the AP test two nights a week instead of seven, like you could? That I couldn't take AP Psych, AP Euro History, AP Lit or AP Human Geo, even though I wanted to? Absolutely.</p>
<p>Semi-off topic: Last year, I was offered a scholarship at a top private school, and I declined, because I think the fact that I go to a school in the city gives me an advantage over all of the rest of you. Not an advantage in getting into college, an advantage in life. I have grown up amidst diversity, adversity, and open-mindedness, and my class is filled with opinions that many private school students, in their discussions filled with upper-middle-class white students, won't ever hear. I see things from points of view that I couldn't imagine, and I wouldn't trade that for the best school in the country.</p>
<p>Rural kids are not a bunch of dummies. Oklahoma Panhandle State has sent plenty of people to NASA. There IS a disadvantage which means if people want something they're on their own to get it. Counseling is usually nonexistent. For instance, I myself have informed the high school counselor in my city regarding the matters of elite school admissions. I'm not even done with college. It's just not on their radar.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If I had to do it over again, I would find the absolute worst public school in a 50 mile radius and go there for 4 years. Anybody else agree?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This makes me wonder where you are from. Because I for one would rather have gone to the most intense pressure cooker private school in the area thanthe worst public one and risk my safty at the kind of school where people sell coke in the bathrooms. Do you have any concept of how terrible an enviorment really bad public schools (esp. those in the "gheto") are, especially for high achievors? When the focus of the school is on keeping kids from dropping out, you can't learn at a high level...there is a reason that all of the high achiveing public school students in my city are desperate to get into one of the two quality magnent schools for highschool. </p>
<p>I can only assume you are from an area whose public school system isn't as compleatly broke as it is in my, because no one in their right mind would make that statment if they live where I live. And I think very few would think to question the barriors that people attending such schools face.</p>
<p>Not to mention, I think adcoms would want to know why anyone who could afford not to would place themselves in such a school (I mean, it's one think to save money by going to one of the better public schools around. No one would go to the worst if they could afford otherwise...even if that just means having enough money to have the time to study for the admissions tests for the better schools).</p>
<p>There is a disillusion on this board that a prep school college counselor will suddenly open the door to whichever school you prefer. Umm my counselor, as nice as he may be, did not tell me anything I didn't know or give me any knowledge that I couldn't find on cc. I went to a public middle school and while it might not have been as bad as some of you are describing, we had plenty of drug/gang problems (and yes, I also have had to share textbooks and yes, many of the teachers were overworked and clearly would have wanted to be elsewhere). Regardless, it was so much easier to get A's. </p>
<p>These past four years have been hell. Not because there were gang fights or bullies or drugs or overworked faculty members, but because I worked so incredibly hard that I gave up my high school years to get into an elite college. </p>
<p>anyone out in cc land who is contemplating where to go to high school should find the absolute worst school within driving distance. Don't have one? Move out of the area until you find one.</p>
<p>Thank you, trackstar. Six weeks ago D lost a major (full-pay) scholarship to a high-profile summer program, specifically because of grade deflation. Her teacher recommenders were shocked. This would have been her last opportunity to do this program. Guaranteed that her competitors did not universally have the same difficulty of high school curriculum that she has, with her UW 3.75+ (over 4.1 weighted). Add to that the difficulty you undoubtedly also mean with maintaining a high GPA with such academic demands & such competition within a single class, combined with simultaneous high achievement in a multitude of very strong & very demanding extracurriculars that require raw talent to be sustained, not just "hours" or tokenism.</p>
<p>Very discouraging.:(</p>
<p>And btw, we also have a particularly ineffective college counselor at this expensive school. Parents feel strongly that we do not get our money's worth in that department, most surely. I do know that there are some effective & KNOWLEDGEABLE (the latter is all I ever ask for) counselors at some fancy prep schools, but count us out on that score.</p>
<p>I'm sorry your so challenged at your prep school, but its a freakin' prep school! It PREPS you for college! You really think your "Pressure Cooker" school is worse than college? You expect to go to an "elite college", and some how think this will be easier than your prep sch.? Wow. Just, wow. Be thankful for your opportunities, not resentful that you have to work for them.</p>
<p>"anyone out in cc land who is contemplating where to go to high school should find the absolute worst school within driving distance. Don't have one? Move out of the area until you find one." </p>
<p>How bout we set up an exchange program! Rich, lazy, "overworked" preppies can come to a school in the inter city ghetto (or a poor rural school, same overall thing) and kids who actually value opportunity, work hard, AND WANT TO BE ACADEMICALLY CHALLENGED, can go to 20k/yr prep schools.</p>
<p>davnasca, I have no idea if my prep school will be easier or harder than college. The difference is that in college, I will get rewarded for working hard.
This has not been the case in high school. </p>
<p>Think about it in terms of grad school.
Student A comes from MIT with a gpa of 3.4
Student B comes from a state school with a gpa of 4.0 </p>
<p>No grad school would pass up Student A simply because Student B had less opportunities. It is evident which of the two deserves the spot. </p>
<p>And davnasca, to characterize us prep school kids as "lazy" is beyond ridciulous. Part of the reason it has become such a pressure cooker is because prep school kids have to do everything perfectly just to compete</p>