The evidences are most, but not all, of selective colleges do compare unhooked applicants (or applicants with the same hook) from the same high school. They could still accept more than the usual number of applicants from the same high school, but more than the usual number of comparable applicants with no hook (or the same hook) applying to the same college will likely reduce the chance of acceptance.
Interesting to note that when the number of National Merit winners went from 16 (in 2017) to 4 (in 2018), the number of admits was removed. If I were a conspiracy theoristâŠnote its now the attending, not an accpetance number.
https://lps.lexingtonma.org/cms/lib/MA01001631/Centricity/Domain/616/2018-2019%20LHS%20Profile.pdf
What some forget is that this is not solely and singularly about your high school. There are others nearby, across town, and etc.
In any given year, adcoms may find stellar kids in another school that usually only gets 1 or none in, want to spread the wealth and this is their year. Or maybe the other local high schools offer only iffy kids this year, your group is extraordinary. and they take more from your hs. A dozen ways this works.
Any applicant needs to do his or her best. Thatâs all you can control. Try to know what that means. Itâs not just stats and titles.
1 Like
@EyeVeee National Merit winners also include any kid who gets a scholarship from a college, based on their National Merit finalist or semifinalist status. NMFs who attend Harvard are not NM Winners, but those who attend BU or BC would be considered NM Winners. So the number of NM winners is more indicative of how many finalists went to colleges which sponsor National Merit than of the number who were chosen by the NM Foundation as NM Scholars.
On the other hand, the fact that they just printed the colleges which will be attended, without numbers, is indeed interesting. However, considering the population of parents, it may just as well have been because of parents complaining about something in the list.
Adding: rather than a one-year look at Lexington High, youâd need to compare several years. Itâs a very strong high school and has its own pull. The link show this in ways beyond who got in where.
Income and education have a direct relationship. It permeates into every measure of education.
However, not knowing the income level of each of the families of those kids accepted to those colleges, thatâs a jump to a conclusion not supported by fact. At several local schools, the kids who were accepted to the top schools were very much low income
@MWolf - I hear yaâŠand to your point I am generally skeptical of one-year postings about âexperienceâ because there are always reasons. Iâm sure Lex has some great kidsâŠand Iâm sure they deserve their placementâŠbut without knowing facts about each itâs pointless to say âlook hereâŠit happensâ. My work generally has me questioning data all day, so I naturally react to exhibits.
To the OPâs questionâŠgenerally speakingâŠsomeone from your class getting into a school that you want to attend before you can only hurt your chances. Knowing if it indeed had an impact is only possible if you are accepted (it didnât)âŠotherwiseâŠyou at least have someone to blame. If they have a hook you know ofâŠit makes your case even that much stronger. First Gen, URMâŠno wonder you didnât get into Harvard.
If I liked a school and thought I had a shot at getting inâŠIâd apply.
You never know the full story. I remember a young woman accepted early to some highly selective school with great but not sterling stats. She played some instrument and apparently the school was trying to get some music group together and her app hit the AOâs desk right then. She was accepted
In RD cycle, there were others with same instrument, better stats and they were rejected.
Wouldnât know the story, except through some grapevine.
No. Your app is reviewed on its own merits. You do you and do it to the best of your ability, Donât worry about other apps. My Dâs very small private school send about 30% to IVYs.
The percentage attending depends on a combination of many factors. Wealth is correlated with various measures of HS quality, student quality, and rate of applying to highly selective colleges. Lexington is an excellent high school that provides excellent opportunities for students and is well ranked by all external 3rd parties I am aware of. As noted in the profile, students attending Lexington as a whole average high test scores, many AP classes, and other measures of quality.
As family income increases, the rate of high achieving students applying to highly selective, private colleges also increases. One study (https://www.nber.org/papers/w18586.pdf ) found that âthe vast majority of very high-achieving students who are low-income do not apply to any selective college or university.â ~Half of low income high achievers only applied to colleges with open admissions, such as community colleges. The rate of application to selective colleges was largely influenced by community and school, rather than just individual income. For example, low income high achievers attending magnets, had similar application behavior to high income students at magnets. I expect Lexington is one such school that encourages students to apply to highly selective colleges â both directly through GCs and such, as well as indirectly through influence from friends and teachers.
The much higher rate of applications among high income families relates to why highly selective private colleges have such a high average median income, even when giving preference to below median income families. Harvardâs âdisadvantagedâ flag starts becoming common at less than <$80k income, cost is typically lower than publics and often near $0 to parents for families with income <$80k, and acceptance rate for <$80k applicants is similar for higher income groupings; yet Harvard and other highly selective private colleges I am aware of have a median income of students far above $80k and often near Lexington HSâs income level.
Another key factor is location. Lexington is located just outside of Boston, ~8 miles from Harvard. The close proximity to Harvard increases local preference for Ivy type privates, particularly Harvard, and number of applications. It also increases chance of student having special connections to Harvard or MIT, which includes more than what is typically thought of as hooks. This is reflected in the particularly large number of Harvard admits. The table below shows, Lexington averages 10 Harvard admits per year, but less than 1 for Stanford. At ~50 miles away, Brown is the 2nd closest Ivy and also does especially well. Something near the reverse happens at the public HSs near Palo Alto, such as as Palo Alto High and Gunn. For example https://paly.net/college-and-career-center/college-matriculation-summary-2014-2017 indicates Palo Alto High has a median of 12 Stanford matriculations per year, but only 1 Harvard matriculation
Lexington High Acceptances: 4 Year Averages
Cornell â 16 admits per year
Harvard â 10 admits per year
MIT â 8 admits per year
Brown â 7 admits per year
Dartmouth â 5.5 admits per year
Yale â 3 admits per year
âŠ
Stanford â <1 admits per year
A young friend was an exceptional student but was surrounded by exceptional students too. In his small high school class (120?) there were 12 NMF, and 5 of them went to Yale. Those 5 had been together since K, first at a country day school, then at a private high school. Everyone said it was a very unusual situation, probably wouldnât ever happen again. In fact it was very unusual that they could all get into that high school since there usually werenât a lot of openings (they entered as sophomores since their original school was k-9) but that year the hs decided to increase the size of the class and took 15 sophomores instead of the normal 4-5. All the stars aligned for this small group.
My high school often sends multiple athletes to Stanford but still has 2-5 non-athletes go too.
I was just at Duke, and the admissions officer said that they donât have any quota for specific high schools, so you should expect you have the same chance as everyone else.
If you copy paste the link works fine. Basically Lexington HS in MA has acceptences of 4 to 8 kids to MIT and Harvard, Yale and 1 to Princeton. Many to other selective colleges as well.This is a class with 42 National AP Scholars, SAT mean over 1320, 24 National Merit Finalists - class 555.
Ok but there are public schools in the bay area that have better stats than Lexington, I agree they do well as a pubic school for ivies and MIT. I donât think that in general public schools will have a higher acceptance rate than the published admit rate of a university.
âthe admissions officer said that they donât have any quota for specific high schoolsâ
quota is a four letter word in admissions offices (racial ones are illegal), no one would admit they have quotas for hs even if they did.
@theloniusmonk âI donât think that in general public schools will have a higher acceptance rate than the published admit rate of a university.â
Mostly yes, but not always. It depends on the geography of the school, connections, legacies in the school, and the socioeconomic class of the students at the school. Many schools have connections to some colleges, especially ones that are nearby, so some Chicago-area schools have connections with UChicago or Northwestern, and have a much higher acceptance rate than the published one.
As for socioeconomic class, I would guess that this would be true for most high schools which serve the the lower 80%-90% of the population by income. However, the top 10% includes most of the legacies, donors, kids of celebrities, kids who participate in rich kid sports like lacrosse and rowing (and rich public schools have those sports), etc. While an inordinate number of kids of this socioeconomic class with these characteristics attend expensive private schools, many do not, especially if their public school only serves wealthy families.
As for numbers (rather than percentages), I would guess that there are not that many applicants for Ivies per high school over much of the population. I think that being on the CC skews the view that people here have as to how popular the Ivies actually are. While 45,000 seems to be a lot of students, that is about 1.5% of all graduating HS students. Outside the expensive private schools and the rich East Coast suburban schools, I would guess that the number of kids at any given school who apply to an Ivy are few enough that the 1-2 kids who are accepted are about 5%-10% of the kids who applied from that school. This would be true for the vast majority of high schools especially those outside of the East Coast. For example, few students from my kidâs HS actually apply to the more selective East Coast colleges, maybe 20 will apply for Harvard every year, out of graduating classes of around 800. I imagine that this is the case for most middle class high schools across the country.
Application numbers from high schools which mostly serve the bottom 30% or 40% by income is probably even lower.
It is likely that there are often only a single acceptance to Harvard (or Yale, or Princeton, etc) from most high schools because only 10-20 apply to any one of these colleges from the high school in any giver year, not because of any limitations.
Highly selective colleges have absolutely no benefit from limiting the number of students accepted from any given high school to one or two.
Here is a link to another public HS results. It is from the class of 2014, and the latest I could find publicly available on the internet. (More recent results, which arenât publicly available, were actually better.) https://www.kwellerprep.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2014-hchs-college-admissions.pdf
While certainly not a âtypicalâ public HS, it does show that elite colleges and universities are willing to accept multiple kids from the same HS.
If an elite college generally and historically accepts no more than 1-2 applicants from your HS, itâs extremely unlikely that it will accept 10 from your HS this year, unless the applications of all 10 are so compelling that make the college to look further and deeper than it usually does to see why. Itâs not a hard quota per se, but the reality is the college will compare your application with other applications from your HS, or even nearby comparable HSs.
âWhile certainly not a âtypicalâ public HS,â
Itâs definitely not a neighborhood high school, you have to test in and thereâs an admissions process, the OP I think is referring to a upper middle class, but typical neighborhood school with strict district boundaries not one where you have to apply.
âIf an elite college generally and historically accepts no more than 1-2 applicants from your HS, itâs extremely unlikely that it will accept 10 from your HS this yearâ
Agree, unless you have a hook (urm, legacy, athlete et al).