<p>I’m from a pretty good public high school in Northern California. This past year, our school was granted California Distinguished School and National Blue Ribbon awards. Our administrators have been really talking it up, constantly reminding students that these are great honors and will reflect well on the school when it comes time to apply to colleges.</p>
<p>However, based on several threads I have seen between the discussion boards of the different UC’s, it appears to me that one is actually at a greater advantage if they matriculate from a poor public school. For instance, UCSD rewards an applicant a certain number of points if they apply from one of the lower tier high schools in the state. I suppose that this is one of their ways of seeking diversity, but then again, isn’t that what ELC is for? It would seem like a poor student from a poor high school who achieved ELC status–which wouldn’t seem too difficult to do at a bad high school–would actually be at a completely unfair advantage of nearly 1000 points more than a comparable student at a good high school.</p>
<p>I’m sure that the system is similar at the other UC’s, but just to clarify, does anyone have a better explanation for this? Or am I simply looking at it the wrong way? This is purely my presumption based on the initial results at my school and what I have read over the past several weeks, so I’m sure not everything I’ve said holds truth.</p>
<p>I have been accepted to UCSB, rejected at UCSD, and still waiting on UCLA and UCB.</p>
<p>Your worst bet would have been UC Davis, which favors students from bad schools with low API scores. I think UCB, first of all you have to have the right grades and SAT, which it looks like you have, but also your essays need to be really good.</p>
<p>Hah, thanks for the reply. Yeah, I don't mean to be complaining... I would rather go to SB than SD anyway and don't really have my hopes up for LA or B. I just thought some people may not be aware of this, because I sure wasn't when I applied. I understand that LA and B take a more holistic approach to their admissions, so it may pay off to come from a better high school in their cases. What a crazy system.</p>
<p>Your administrators were probably talking about private schools, which like seeing good schools because their students are more likely prepared for college. This also applies to UCLA and UCB, neither of which use a formula based admissions system.</p>
<p>For other UCs, though, you're right. But if you consider the advantages high performing schools have that low performing schools don't, the extra points even out. Good schools usually offer more AP/Honors classes that students can weight their A-G GPAs with. A suburban school is less likely to face gang recruiters than a school in a slum. Better schools are more likely to offer services such as career/college counseling, better learning equipment like computer labs, and up to date textbooks/reference materials. They're more likely to have students who are interested in forming clubs (VPs and Presidents of clubs get UC points). Maybe even better teachers if the teacher wants to settle in a city with a good school district for his/her kids.</p>
<p>Pretty much, if you are one of the top students in your school, it reflects well on your part because it shows that you are one of the top from the top.</p>
<p>Other than that it does nothing. </p>
<p>If you come from a low end school and do well, it looks better because you "overcame a disadvantage educationally."</p>
<p>Yes, but let's face it--the standards are simply set lower at the schools characterized by those things you just mentioned. Getting an A in a class at those schools does not require access to the best materials, and with worse teachers, the difficulty levels are far below that of a top public high school. That is how things even out. If you took a student in the top 10-15% of one of the bottom public high schools and plugged him or her into one of the top public high schools, chances are they would not only lose the points from their bad high school, ELC, etc. but they would also lose points from their GPAs due to the jump in quality of their education as well as their surrounding classmates. To me, that just does not seem fair. Discrimination can go both ways.</p>
<p>In general, if you're quite the genius and are completely confident in your abilities to get the best out of any education you're offered, sometimes it's worth it to go to a bad school, so you can be at the top and score extra points. However, few people like this exist, and so it's still the better option to go to a well-ranked school for the educaiton, even if you lose out on some admission points. What you learn at the school might be much more valuable than a slight boost in admission. They tend to offer more classes, more opportunities for clubs, leadership, and AP/honors programs. Even if having a perfect 4.0 places you at rank 120 or so (which is how it is at my home school), it's usually a much bigger gain to be around a more competitive atmosphere than a poor and lax one.</p>
<p>That's exactly my point. There are huge gains from attending a good high school that the admissions processes at the UC campuses do not appear to favor. In the long run, the benefits of attending a good high school will benefit the student, but in terms of getting into one school or another it seems to me like a drawback.</p>
<p>Going to a good public is a great disadvantage I chose to attend Oxford Academy instead of my home school, Magnolia High School (API 698), because Oxford (API 983) is a very highly ranked school and I believed Oxford that would afford me the greatest opportunity to attend a UC. I was chosen to go there by taking an exam at the end of elementary school. All of the honors and AP courses offered at Oxford are also offered at Magnolia High School. Although, not all courses offered at Magnolia High School are offered at Oxford. For example if I wanted to take regular English 3 or even English 3 HP in my junior year I was unable to, I had to take AP English Language and Comp. because that is the only junior level English class offered at Oxford. Knowing what I know now about the UC admissions process I probably would have left Oxford for Magnolia and taken a less rigorous course load in an effort to raise my GPA and possibly being ELC. Also, realizing that UC admissions only weights only 8 semesters of honors level coursework, taking all of honors and AP courses has only succeeded in lowering my GPA. I believe I should be awarded points for academic opportunity as if I had gone to Magnolia High School. Because, I still live in the same neighborhood and see the same gang tags and still got burglarized the day before Thanksgiving, so I had to write my college essays from scratch because my computer was stolen. Sorry about the rant.</p>
<p>this disadvantage holds true for more than the UCs. Ivies look at rank - go to a good school, you have a worse rank than you probably would garner in a lesser school. If a college decide to take no more than 4-5 students from a given high school, then the ones rejected at the toughest school probably are, in an absolute sense, much better scholars than the accepted students from the easier school. </p>
<p>Life is not fair. This is how the system works.</p>
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Knowing what I know now about the UC admissions process I probably would have left Oxford for Magnolia and taken a less rigorous course load in an effort to raise my GPA and possibly being ELC. Also, realizing that UC admissions only weights only 8 semesters of honors level coursework, taking all of honors and AP courses has only succeeded in lowering my GPA.
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<p>It is ironically true that the more you challenge yourself with tough courses in h.s., the more it can hurt you if you don't maintain practically straight As. Both my sons went to a large, pretty good (but not the magnet type public) public high school and took the most challenging courseload. S1 was ELC and got into UCB, UCLA, UCSD.....with high SATs and high GPA (but not top 10 in his graduating class). S2 had very high scores and only a slightly lower GPA, but was not ELC. Not sure about UCLA yet, but while he got into Davis, he is not Regents level there. The way they calculate GPA, looking only at 10th and 11th grades and limiting weighted credit for honors and AP, means that his straight As freshman year were ignored as well as straight As first semester of 12th grade. The Bs he got as a sophomore, grappling with the workload of his first AP class, apparently really hurt him for ELC and Regents.</p>
<p>Had I to do it again, I would have not urged him to take AP world history, but rather the easy-A regular WH class as a sophomore and it very well might have made a difference. </p>
<p>I have another acquaintance whose 160-IQ son, with NMF high SAT scores, but a less than 4.0 in a rigorous private school, did not get admitted to any of the top UCs. She has pulled younger son out of said private to attend their neighborhood public. The happy ending of the story though is that older son went to UCSB and, having breezed through his freshman year with straight As, transferred into the College of Creative Studies there and is doing graduate work as an UG. I'd predict that he will have many top-notch grad programs or med schools to choose from when he's ready.</p>