This goes to a pdf file of Stevenson high school near pebble beach. The homes near this area known to be on the 17 mile drive are typically worth 20 Million and can run over $40 Million. I thought it was great to see the raw stats of people admitted to top schools and then see rich kids, such as number 45 who was admitted to Stanford EA but only had a 1240 not in the top 25% with a 3.75 W GPA. All I can say is I wish to have his money, I wonder how much his parents gave.
<p>Anyone with money and connections can get into Stanford. A friend of the family used political connections and contributions to get his 2 daughters in.</p>
<p>Well, that was depressing. Sometimes karma does even things out, though. People that really shouldn't be at a particular school may not make the cut after freshman year.</p>
<p>Unlike the elite east coast boarding schools, Stevenson has mostly 'normal' kids... not the type that can 'buy' their way into Stanford. I think kfc is right. The kid may be a recruited athlete or a talented artist.</p>
<p>Wow - fascinating document. SATs/GPA/rank don't tell the whole story, of course, but some of the acceptances make you wonder what the other factors involved might be. Applicants in the third quintile were accepted at Tufts, Wellesley, and Cornell - one with excellent SATs, the other two less so.</p>
<p>Another interesting thing - in a class of 119, with an average SAT around 1250, only 3 kids scored over 1500, and none over 1530. This surprises me a bit (probably because I've grown so accustomed to reading about stratospheric SATs here on CC). Also interesting that only 3 students scored below 1000.</p>
<p>The document was prepared by a "college staff" of 9 people - that's an impressive number for such a small school, so it's not surprising that the class did well overall. I'm surprised that so much info is made available. It wouldn't be difficult to match up the kids with their stats by which school the kid enrolls in. It's helpful to see all the acceptances (something I'm sure our hs would never publicize), but it would be even more enlightening to know about the rejections (something probably no hs would ever publicize.)</p>
<p>i was admitted there, chose another local private instead, but ended up moving across the country, so never ended up going to school in the monterey area anyways.</p>
<p>a lot of the kids there had guaranteed admission into the HS from the lower/middle school portion, and a LOT of the parents have money. it's really just an average high school that boards students and has a large rich population. </p>
<p>with the history of the school that i know, it is very possible that it was solely connections that got the kid in, but it also has its fair share of recruitable athletes. and from the looks of it, it seems that most of the artistically inclined opt to go to an art school over a big school. </p>
<p>i wouldn't be surprised if that kid got recruited for stanford's golf team. the RLS golf team gets to practice on black horse and bayonet.</p>
<p>Have you heard of the Gossip Girl books? Incredibly shallow but amusing at the same time. They're about a bunch of wealthy high school seniors in NYC and they get in everywhere. A total pothead with so-so grades was into Brown and Yale, etc.</p>
<p>I go along with that 45 is an athlete. Actually, having just been looking at acceptances at E. Coast boarding schools, this list is not impressive.</p>
<p>As a person who attended one of those NYC private schools, I can attest that total potheads with so-so grades do not make Brown or Yale easily.</p>
<p>Wealth doesn't matter in college admissions unless your family donates in the realm of several million or more. By then, you're a special case - not even considered a legacy.</p>
<p>People also complain about tutoring and how rich parents can afford 700/hr tutors for their sons. I say use the Ten Reals and get the same exact score.</p>
<p>The list the OP pointed out is not that impressive. I recall that the class of 2003 at my high school was 51% Ivy -- and that's not even counting the LACs, MIT, Stanford, and other top notch schools etc. When schools are small and guidance is liberally dispensed, the counselor, knowing the students well, is often able to push for the students much more than a counselor at a public school. Just because you have a higher SAT than some other person doesn't mean that you're should have gotten in. Many people I know are perfectly successful in college despite having "low" to "average" stats when compared to the student body.</p>
<p>I also attend a small private school in Los Angeles, and our kids don't go all Ivy...and its a small percentage that does. </p>
<p>This year out of a class of 75, we had 43 people apply early somewhere. Now, I will say we had an exceptionally high acceptance rate (35 or 36/43), but the schools were not nearly all Ivy quality. Of our 14 people that applied to Ivies, we had 7 get accepted, 4 get rejected and 3 get deferred (2 rejections and 2 defers came from Brown where we had 7 apply early). We did have many get into small LAC's like Middlebury and Pomona and other schools such as UMiami which are good schools, but not Ivy League quality.</p>
<p>I was one of the lucky Ivy League acceptees, but I attribute my school's incredible success with acceptances this year to great college counseling and kids applying to schools that were a) their ideal and b) reasonable shots. </p>
<p>Going to a nice school doesn't guarantee college admission by any stretch.</p>
<p>However jaug, there are private schools in LA and elsewhere that get a very high percentage into the very top schools. The point is that these kids were already pre-selected at the time they entered those high schools. They had high grades and test scores after middle school just as they do when applying for college. Being upeer middle class and wealthy isn't the advantage people seem to think it is.</p>
<p>Kirmum, being poor and broke ain't all its cracked up to be either. </p>
<p>Although don't fit into either category, I will suggest that being in a school that doesn't offer SAT prep classes, has the college counselors as a portion of the guidance counselors offering to the 400+ students that he or she administers to (mostly to make sure they make the graduation requirements), doesn't offer college visits from much more than the local community college and state schools isn't much of an advantage either.</p>
<p>We have driven six hours round trip to get to a college fair where one school we were interested in was giving a 40 minute session, while the local private school had the college reps come onto campus and grant interviews in the school.</p>
<p>Fortunately the internet and sites like this are an equalizer. My neighborhood highschool has 400+ graduates and only two applied ED or EA because most of the students had never heard of it. One counselor had never heard of the ED process and didn't know why they were being asked to do a report in October.</p>
<p>Wow Mr. B, that is truly frightening! What is CA doing to our children? And yes, I have been poor and broke and get your point. My point was that I actually had a better chance of getting into Harvard than my children do being legacies from good private schools!</p>
<p>What Mr. B describes isn't confined to California by any stretch. It's a normal picture of thousands of middle to lower class school systems across the country-- ours, for instance.</p>
<p>my high school actually publishes a similar list, except they take out class rank, gpa, and sat scores. they only show your name (in alphabetical order) and all the colleges that you got into (yes for a public h/s with a class of 500+). however, the list is published a year or two after the class has graduated already.</p>