<p>mihcal1, AHS only uses an unweighted GPA, which is calculated on a standard 4.0 grading scale. The graphs were assembled by parents based on surveys, where about half of the seniors responded. I don’t know if they have taken more recent surveys. AHS has a similar API to PVPHS, as well as a similar percentage of seniors with NMSF.</p>
<p>Thank you to bovertine and StillGreen for posting this data! It is fascinating to read through. It is interesting to me that so many applications are concentrated on relatively few schools. Why did fifty students apply to Stanford?
For the Arcadia 2008 data, 30 applied to Stanford and 1 student was accepted.
You would think students would get the message reviewing the historical data.</p>
<p>
Probably because PV is in California. If you want to apply to an elite school, where everyone’s chances are slim, Stanford is probably a reasonable choice. Six out of fifty admitted for 12% is significantly better than Stanford’s overall rate of 7%, so probably a better bet than Harvard or Yale if you are rolling the dice.</p>
<p>You might as well ask why 35,000 kids apply to Harvard every year. THeir chances are very slim, but I guess they figure, what the heck, it doesn’t cost that much extra.</p>
<p>In addition to 50 applying to Stanford, 25 kids applied to Harvard, 20 to Yale, 18 to Princeton. That’s what makes the data so useful. We have enough samples to discern admissions pattern. There’s a kid who with UW GPA 4.0 or 4.9xx weighted, and 23xx SAT didn’t get in at Stanford. The same kid was also denied at MIT Yale Harvard. Got in in all UC’s. Maybe we can guess what’s going on here. Doesn’t seem as random as it looks.</p>
<p>Right, it’s not as random as it looks at all. In most cases, the hyperselective schools generally all take the same action. Which of course is usually denial, even for the top students, but sometimes is acceptance. There are really only a few cases of split decisions among HYPSM (the ones to which a particular student applied, of course).</p>
<p>Every student who wants to be “chanced” for one of these schools based on stats should be forced to study these spreadsheets. First off, it’s clear that lots of the kids applying don’t stand a chance. Second, it’s clear that among the group that DOES stand a chance, differences in stats are largely irrelevant.</p>
<p>Also, these kids love to apply out of state, but when the chips are down they seem to choose close to home in most cases.</p>
<p>
Well, first, I am looking at the original spreadsheet which shows that 6/52 (or 11.5% I guess) were admitted. I have no idea whether all these 52 were in the top 5%.</p>
<p>But that said, do you honestly believe that there are huge numbers of kids outside of the top percentile applying to Stanford from any school other than a super eltie magnet or prep school? Remember, this is just an ordinary public school. I wouldn’t compare it to the Harker School or Bronx Science.</p>
<p>BTW - I have no real vested interest in promoting this school I just think it is nice of them to put up the data for people to use. I hope that my posting the link doesn’t make them reconsider that. :)</p>
<p>The fact that it is just an ordinary public school (probably best characterized as upper middle class although there is a range of income in the district) makes it more useful generally than stats from Exeter or a selctive magnet where you would expect high acceptance rates.</p>
<p>Edit: The post I was replying to seemed to disappear.</p>
<p>JHS:
“Every student who wants to be “chanced” for one of these schools based on stats should be forced to study these spreadsheets. First off, it’s clear that lots of the kids applying don’t stand a chance. Second, it’s clear that among the group that DOES stand a chance, differences in stats are largely irrelevant.”</p>
<p>I love this characterization. I am hoping that this is true in terms of subjective measures taking over once a kid has met the desired statistical benchmarks.</p>
<p>^^ yes. I realized after I posted that there are two sets of data floating around and figured it was easier to just delete, rather than try and parse out which was what. Didn’t mean to confuse you.</p>
<p>The school may be ‘ordinary’ for your certain region, but it is not ordinary by the standards of 30,000 HS in the country. For example, in my flyover western state, I would be surprised if there were more than 5 apps to Stanford from >1000 HS graduates in the city in any given year.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting the info though. It’s very helpful to see.</p>
<p>I can tell you that from my affluent SoCA public HS (API just a little below that of PVPHS, demographics somewhat more diverse) very few kids get into Stanford, despite lots of applications. </p>
<p>In 2011 our HS had 45 Stanford applications, one acceptance. Compare this to ~170 applications with ~10% acceptance rate to UCLA.</p>
<p>The Stanford acceptances that I know about in the past handful of years have all had a strong hook (CIF-level athletes, URM, national award winners, legacy) in addition to being top students (upper 2%). </p>
<p>I think part of the reason that the Stanford numbers are so stiff is because 30~50 years ago Stanford was a regional private university and not nearly so selective. Thus lots of current HS students have parents, aunts/uncles, or grandparents who were good-but-not-tip-top students back-in-the-day and got into Stanford. They don’t realize that Stanford has become so incredibly selective, and so they encourage their top-decile-but-not-exceptional students to apply. For kids like that, Stanford decisions are a bloodbath.</p>
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</p>
<p>Public school, yes, but far from “just ordinary”. PV has <1% free lunch programs, for example. With an API of ~900, it it one of the top publics in the state – #5, according to them. It is #60 in Newsweek (reflecting heavy emphasis on APs). 85% of grads go direct to a 4-year college. 20+ NMSF out a senior class of 650 (~3.5%)</p>
<p>Also highly ranked for math and science (read extremely competitive), which partially explains heightened interest in Stanford (in addition to all the alumni relatives in California).</p>
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<p>Maybe not when compared to every high school in the country. But I suspect it isn’t that far off the experience of the typical reader of this website or this thread, many of whom have kids in elite publics (or at least decent publics), magnets, privates and boarding schools. I know there are some folks and kids reading here who attend horrible public schools, but probably not all that many. Just my guess.</p>
<p>How many people reading this have kids in academically horrible public schools? If you do maybe this doesn’t apply.</p>
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<p>It is probably not that ordinary by state or regional standards. An “average” high school would probably send no more than a third of its graduates to a four year college or university (and the majority to local CSUs or equivalently selective schools), with perhaps a significant number of others going to community college.</p>
<p>Indeed, it has very high API scores:
[2011</a> Growth API School Report - Palos Verdes Peninsula High](<a href=“http://api.cde.ca.gov/Acnt2011/2011GrowthSch.aspx?allcds=19648651995588]2011”>http://api.cde.ca.gov/Acnt2011/2011GrowthSch.aspx?allcds=19648651995588)</p>
<p>And parental education levels include 39% college graduates and 47% with graduate school:
[2011</a> API Growth School Report](<a href=“http://api.cde.ca.gov/Acnt2011/2011GrthSchDem.aspx?allcds=19-64865-1995588]2011”>http://api.cde.ca.gov/Acnt2011/2011GrthSchDem.aspx?allcds=19-64865-1995588)</p>
<p>Good thing it isn’t exactly an ordinary HS. Most ordinary HS’s send one or two kids to H or S once in a blue moon. You can’t do much with that kind of data. Here you have 2 kids to H, 3 to P, 6 to S and 4 to Y all in the same year from the same school. Precious.</p>
<p>
Did I use the term average? If so I didn’t mean it. I tried to use the term “ordinary” to mean “standard”, to distinguish it from specialized magnets or selective publics.</p>
<p>Where it stands academically, compared to the school of the typical reader of this thread, I have no way of knowing. I was just guessing it wold be relevant to many readers here. That’s why it has a profile. If it is so far removed from your experience at your school, then you should disregard the data and just look at your own Naviance. Which is a more accurate method regardless.</p>
<p>I’m slowly beginning to regret posting this.</p>
<p>
I think a lot of that is the same kid. THat’s the only kid I know about, mainly because he was in the news and on cable access so often for a while I think I saw his name more often than my own.</p>
<p>He probably met the President more often than John Boehner.</p>
<p>But I still agree there is some value here. It would be nice if there were more data from other schools across the spectrum to compare it to.</p>
<p>I consider our public HS to be well above average compared to US norm (at least that’s what we tell when we are recruiting professionals to move to town :D) so that would not qualify as ‘academically horrible.’ However, it’s a far far cry from what PV provides:</p>
<p>20+% drop out rate, 5 AP classes (6 if you include Spanish), <1% NMSF (and our state cutoff is only about 205 usually), about 1% matriculate at T20 schools (LAC/ResearchU) each year.</p>
<p>We found that DS was the only one in his college physics (for majors) class who had not previously had AP physics. I have now gone and d/w the HS principal that we will send DD, when it’s her time, to the local not-very-good-but-hopefully-better-than-HS directional state U for as many of her HS classes as we can get arranged.</p>
<p>I think not a small number of us parents of kids in schools like this are on CC because we don’t get any help from the schools/GCs who have not a clue about anything other than the local state U.</p>
<p>Please, please don’t regret posting this info. For those of us with no help elsewhere, it’s really helpful. In fact, I’d wager it’s more helpful to those who don’t have access to this type of HS because it gives us information that we cannot get otherwise.</p>
<p>BTW, I don’t think any administrator at our HS even has any idea what Naviance is, much less have it. The principal had never heard of TED talks, last time we chatted.</p>
<p>^Please don’t. I find your table infinitely helpful.</p>
<p>No, they are not all same kids. Besides, crossreferencing it helps a lot. How the same kid gets in where.</p>
<p>Thank you for posting this. I think it should go up on the chances board with a big red flag.</p>
<p>I think few ever get to see a real picture out of a strong but not super elite high school. It’s very representative for many posters here.</p>
<p>A read through really debunks many myths we see over and over here.</p>
<p>What is most striking and disturbing to me is that these kids seem to not have received adequate counseling. We see many kids who applied to highly selective schools have no real matches and end up at schools way down the chain from where they could have.</p>
<p>Bovertine, please don’t regret posting! Data is always helpful. One just needs to keep in mind the limitations and biases that are present in any data set.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that many schools don’t offer Naviance. Private schools are often fairly forthcoming with prior admissions data, since they use it as a recruiting tool. But if your kid attends a public HS it can be very difficult or impossible to get comprehensive outcome data. For kids from HSs similar to PVPHS (affluent high-API publics), the PVPHS data provides a comparison. For kids whose own HWs are dissimilar (offer few APs, send few kids to elite colleges) the PVPHS data may provide a unique reality check. It’s more comprehensive than the self-reported results on CC, and beats the heck out of a “chance me” thread!</p>
<p>One thing I noted about the PV data is just how few of the kids in the top 5% applied to LACs, and how few went even if they got in–2 to Pomona, and none to any other really highly-rated LAC. To me, it’s nuts for 38 kids to apply to Harvard, and 3 to Amherst.</p>