<p>Colleges will tend to reject or wait list kids from a given high school, if historically -the number of kids matriculating to the college vs. kids offered admission is a very small number? This is even if the applicant is a very well accomplished candidate</p>
<p>I think this is more rumor than fact, based on no facts at all. The only school that seemed to underaccept kids from our high school, I think, was just not that familiar with it, because we are on the opposite coast.</p>
<p>Yes, because with 30,000 high schools in this country, all of these adcoms have the time and inclination to care specifically about Sweet Valley High. @@ Really, everyone needs to get over themselves and the “importance” of their high schools. </p>
<p>Actually, the admissions folks do pay particular attention to the top few schools in each state, and have tons of reference data about them and do consider their experience with the students. That’s still several hundred schools, so one need feel too special, but the HS context might matter.</p>
<p>Not true when purely stats-based admissions are applicable (e.g. most California State Universities, or automatic-admission-eligible students at Texas public universities, or other automatic-admission-by-stats schools listed here: <a href=“Updated list of schools with auto-admit (guaranteed admission) criteria - Applying to College - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1562918-updated-list-of-schools-with-auto-admit-guaranteed-admission-criteria-p1.html</a> ).</p>
<p>However, it is commonly rumored to be the case at some highly selective holistic admissions colleges, perhaps more so if “level of applicant’s interest” is considered.</p>
<p>Our kids’ GC told us that if our kid was waitlisted but the U HONESTLY was the kids’ first choice to be sure to tell him because the HS had some relationships with many of the Us, since their graduates do tend to do very well at the Us and are a credit to the HS and U. My kids’ private HS is one of the top HSls in the state. I’m not positive but believe the GC, as he spoke with great sincerity. Our kid wasn’t waitlisted, so we never had the opportunity to find out and I don’t know anyone who asked the GC to help get the kid off the waitlist.</p>
<p>I’d imagine that any HS that regularly sends a number of students who do very well at the U will develop a relationship with the U over time. I believe it CAN be helpful in close cases. </p>
<p>Similarly, if a student reneges on an ED, it may color the college’s impression of the HS the kid attended; this is one reason that GCs do their best to make sure that everyone understands when a student applies ED. Don’t really know about HSs where most kids turn down the U, but I guess in theory, the U could consider that in close cases as well.</p>
<p>
If we are talking about highly selective colleges, they tend to reject or wait list the most applicants from a given high school period. Most applicants get rejected even at top high schools that are fully of highly qualified candidates. Historical yield rates for a particular high school probably do influence admissions at some selective colleges and probably do not have an influence at others. I haven’t seen a college publish specific details on the degree of influence.</p>
<p>Historical acceptance data in Naviance sometiimes does show a small number of colleges have odd trends. For example, in another thread we linked to the historical acceptance rates at Boston Latin, which is a top magnet in Massachusetts. As one would expect with a top magnet, the historical acceptance rates to selective colleges very high. Boston Latin applicants to Harvard, Yale, Princeton and MIT all had multi-year cumulative acceptance rates of 21.5% +/- 4%. The acceptance rate for Boston Latin applicants was notably higher than the overall acceptance rate for all selective colleges with a significant sample size except for one – Brown. Based on acceptance rates, one would think Brown is the most difficult college for Boston Latin students to get in to. What makes Brown so different from other highly selective private colleges? One difference is Brown is the only ivy-type college I am aware of that marks level of interest as “very important” on the CDS, which may or may not translate into looking at historical yield rates. Boston Latin has a relative low yield for Brown, as well as most selective colleges other than Harvard.</p>
<p>Yes, colleges may have relationships with high schools, especially large or competitive schools that send a lot of applicants every year. Colleges deliberately staff their admissions offices by region, so that the same officer can get to know the high schools in a region over time.</p>
<p>CUPKSDAD, I would never let the kind of pattern you describe discourage a student from applying. Each applicant is unique, and your student may shine in a holistic process where others didn’t. But yes, historical trends can shed light on your odds.</p>
<p>The OP is asking if the college would tend to accept less kids from a HS that has a very low yield rate in the past. I think that is certainly possible. The adcom divide officers by region and they need to be familiar with the schools within his/her assigned region. Usually, they will identify some feeder schools and pay more attention to them. No adcom like to admit students who has a high chance of not coming. A low yield rate would affect the ranking and reputation of the college. Nevertheless, I think only top schools care for that.</p>
<p>If that scenario did indeed play out, wouldn’t it seem to be a problem with the university rather than the high school? What is it about that particular college that causes the students to back out? Also, it would seem awfully petty to penalize a student for something out of his or her control.</p>
<p>You’re an adcom. 99.9% of the guidance counselors in America enforce the “rules of the road”. And then the outliers don’t- they either help the kids game the system, or don’t bother explaining to a kid why he or she is NOT going to send in a transcript to another college during the Gap year because the kid has committed to attend the college which is holding his or her seat, etc.</p>
<p>I don’t blame the colleges (and we’re probably talking about 30 institutions total in the US) who decide it’s too much trouble dealing with the HS’s who don’t enforce the rules of the road.</p>
<p>Sure it’s not the students fault. Just like it’s not your kids fault when the College Board cancels out the scores of the entire gymnasium full of HS seniors because four kids at that sitting were found to be cheating on the SAT. And it’s not your kids fault when parents from a neighboring town illegally enroll their children in your kids HS-- and so now every kid has to have proof of residency in August before they can select their classes. And it’s not your kids fault- your kid, with a perfect and careful driving record-- that his insurance premiums are double what they would be if he were a 29 year old female.</p>
<p>This is life.</p>
<p>I think @billscho articulated my q correctly. What I am asking is not related to gap year, enforcing the rules of the road etc BUT if for example - 15 kids are admitted to Harvard every year from Exeter but no one matriculates there. Over a period of time will Harvard stop admitting students from Exeter because it hurts their yield</p>
<p>I don’t believe the motivation is that it hurts their yield- I don’t believe that adcom’s at Harvard are sweating 15 kids here or there, given Harvard’s historical yield. But I do think that if we’re talking about a school like Exeter, and given Harvard’s interest in broadening its reach (first gen college students, etc.), why bother digging deep into Exeter to admit 15 kids who aren’t likely to attend, if you can use those 15 slots to admit the diamond in the rough kids, or kids who improve your geographic diversity or other institutional needs better than Exeter’s kids?</p>
<p>ok - that is a reasonable explanation - thanks @blossom</p>
<p>I doubt if Harvard has the problem of admitted kids not matriculating. But some other schools probably do.</p>
<p>Yeah, Harvard is a bad example. Good examples would be schools like Penn or Duke that are admitting the same kids as HYS and losing them to HYS. If I’m Duke, and I have an applicant from Boston Latin who looks to me like a Harvard admit, and he didn’t apply early to Duke, I’m going to be very tempted to wait-list that kid. </p>
<p>High schools that get a lot of kids into hyperselective schools usually know how to guide the kids; when Exeter or BL gets a HYPS-qualified kid whose first choice really is Penn, they’ll tell the kid to make sure to apply early to Penn. This isn’t breaking any rules of the road. Colleges would try to predict yield even if every HS followed the rules 100% of the time.</p>
<p>It’s not just about yield Hanna, although I agree with your analysis 100%. Adcom’s genuinely want to admit HS kids who genuinely want to attend their university. It’s as simple as that. Even before US News was tracking yield and even before anyone cared about yield- anyone involved in higher ed can tell you that working at a university where the students really want to be there is night and day from working at a university where the kids are trudging off to class to get their ticket punched. Faculty wants an engaged student body. Administration wants and engaged student body. The organizations which recruit and hire on campus want an engaged student body.</p>
<p>So a kid who wants to attend Penn (even if the kid looks like they might be a contender at HYPS) doesn’t have to apply early to Penn, although for sure that’s a great idea if the kid can afford to be an early applicant. But even if not- and even if the kid can’t afford to visit Penn- there are ways to communicate enthusiasm.</p>
<p>I know kids who live a Septa ride away from Penn and assume that “Penn will know that I’d love to attend”. Guess what- they won’t. You and 1,000 other kids from the greater Philly metro area are lobbing in an application. I’m an adcom- do I want to create a campus filled with kids who really wanted to go Stanford but didn’t make the cut?</p>
<p>But assuming kids these days are applying to around 10 schools, and they show interest, interview, write supplemental essays, etc., how could a college ever predict with any accuracy whether it will be THE school chosen by a particular student (assuming the school is not Harvard)?</p>
<p>The school can’t predict where a kid will end up. But admitting kids who demonstrate at least a modicum of interest in your college is likely a better way to go than accepting the kids who seem to be applying under duress.</p>
<p>I know kids accepted to Dartmouth who were rejected at Brandeis and BC. I know kids accepted to Amherst who were rejected from Wesleyan and Lehigh. Guidance counselor had made noises like, “Brandeis would love to have a kid like you in its Freshman class” which is most emphatically not the same thing as saying, “Brandeis will not and cannot reject you even though you are in the top 10% of applicants and are full pay”. So throw some love towards the schools at the bottom of your list, even if according to naviance, no kid with your stats has ever been rejected from that school.</p>