Hi. I go to a very, not prestigious public high school that has not sent a single person to a top university such as UMichigan once since its founding. And I really want to be accepted to top colleges like UMichigan, Notre Dame, or even Yale. Could my high school’s prestigue hurt my admissions chances? Because I constantly hear people saying that going to a prestigious high school may help you in college admissions. Thanks.
If your HS in the state of Michigan and no one has ever gotten into UM, then yes IMO absolutely the lack of previous people getting into UM will hurt you. If that is your goal.
I wouldn’t worry about this at all If you’re an excellent candidate, it will shine through. If anything they might not know a lot about your school and it won’t be an advantage. Some schools have an advantage. But they don’t use all the spots.
Worse would be tons of kids getting in and none attending. They notice that pattern.
There’s 36000 schools in USA plus the internationals. Adcoms don’t know all the schools. The regional person for your area should. I would find out who they are and introduce yourself. At any school you are serious about. Also give that info to gc and ask them to advocate for school. Send a snapshot of some good things.
Most state schools have a mission to reach underserved areas.
What college AOS want to know is that you are well prepared for college. If you feel there is a legitimate concern about your school that could color your application, do what you can to show that YOU are well prepared. This can be good scores on SAt/ACT or subject tests or APs, doing well in events that are open to others beyond your school (science fsirs, scholastic competitions). In any way possible, show that you are strong in any company, not just your high school.
Part of the reason many high schools become "prestigious " or well-perceived by AOS is that they know that a kid who has done well there will do well at their university. You aren’t competing against that school – but you need to show that you too will thrive and aren’t high risk.
It is true that public universities in your state will be keen to take kids from all over the state and there is no reasonn you shouldn’t be that person if you demonstrate you can do the work.
I will repeat the advice I gave you earlier. You are a freshman in HS. It is way too early to think about specific colleges. You don’t even have one full year’s GPA and you have no standardized testing.
You also need to recognize that HS should be an experience in and of itself – a time of learning and growth and not just a 4 year college application prep experience.
It is really great that you take school seriously and know that college will be on your horizon, but it is just too early to start planning for specific colleges. I would highly recommend that you get off of CC (except for the HS Life forum) until your junior year.
For now you should focus on:
–Working hard, learning, and doing as well as you can in the most challenging curriculum you can manage.
–When the time comes study hard for standardized tests.
–Get involved in activities you care about and work towards making meaningful contributions to those activities.
–Enjoying spending time with your family and friends.
When the time comes (junior year) then you need to honestly asses your academic stats (including GPA, standardized tests, course rigor) as well as your financial needs and apply to a wide range of reach, match, and safety schools that appear affordable (you will have to run a net price calculator for each school you consider) and that you would be happy to attend. There are many wonderful schools out there where you can have a great 4 year experience and get where you want to go in life.
You should keep ahead in your classes, and work hard to do as well as you can where you are.
I went to a rather bad high school. I nonetheless was accepted to a very highly ranked university. My roommate in university had gone to an even worse high school (if that was even possible). It didn’t stop either of us from attending a great university.
University admissions wants to see that you have done as well as possible in the circumstances that you find yourself.
Yes, as @DadTwoGirls said:
** University admissions wants to see that you have done as well as possible in the circumstances that you find yourself.**
Control what you can control…which is doing as best as you can and taking challenging courses that you can do well in.
Sometimes, the problem with not great high schools is that they often don’t encourage your own very best. Or you have to find it there, the few great teachers who stretch you, ECs that surpass a few clubs, etc. At any hs that either has few kids off to 4 year colleges or it’s mostly sub-directional, you can think you’re tops based on gpa, a few club titles, etc, and not realize you’re working with a lower bar.
Still, there are plenty of kids in those hs who DO stretch, who find mentors, who climb out of the box. You need to figure out what’s possible for you. And don’t settle for our word on it, look at what the colleges say and show. Understand what matches versus more busy time. BE the sort who may have a chance.
A lot of kids spend more time thinking about where they’d like to go and forget what it takes to get there. That’s much more than stats and titles. You could help yourself by expanding your thinking about goals and how to achieve them. It’s not going to be found on an open forum where people insist it’s a crapshoot or that you must have national awards, etc.
On another thread, you said your math skills ‘aren’t that great.’ You need to work on that, for business or engineering. Not just accept it. For a top college, that’s more than getting an A in non-honors. Or even an A in honors. You’ll need to tackle AP stem classes, if available, more than just calc. They matter and physics is tougher when your math isn’t great.
I think it is great that you have already noticed a problem and you want to go beyond what previous students have achieved. It probably isn’t the name of the high school that his impacted the college selection issue. It is probably the pattern of achievement noted on the transcripts of those who preceded you. Here’s the key. Standardized scores do more than reveal how well a particular student does on them. They provide the context within which to better understand a student’s grades. Because, as someone noted, adcons don’t know each and every high school very well-although they do know them on a superficial level.
A typical pattern seen for students from poor performing high schools-A high GPA and poor standardized scores. What does it convey if students from a particular high school routinely have A averages but 3s or below on AP exams and 500s on SAT2’s? It means that an “A” at that school does not require the same level of rigor as does an “A” at another school where the “A” students have AP scores of 4 or 5 and have SAT2s in the 700 range.
This is very important information for you to have. You now know that getting As in your school is not enough to be educated. You need to go beyond what your school teaches. Reach out to resources outside your school. Study way beyond what your school requires you to know. This isn’t just about getting into good colleges. It is also about becoming an educated person. If students at your school get As but score poorly on standardized tests, it means your school is not educating the students who attend. That isn’t fair to you or the other students. But, you can counter the effects the school has by not considering your A to be the ceiling for your knowledge. Go beyond. And, if you do, you’ll become an educated person and you will probably have a choice of colleges. High schools don’t apply to college. Individual students do. If they see a pattern of great scores with great grades they will accept you even if they have a history of rejecting every other student from your school. Good luck to you!
@TheAverageNerd Yes–it will hurt you. In fact, if you didn’t go to a prestigious nursery school, your chances are almost 0%.
@TheTennisNinja The satire is real smh
I did a bit of research on the very worst public schools in California and how many got accepted to Cal or UCLA, two public schools better than or equal to Michigan. Even the very worst school had one admitted to UCLA 3 years ago, and this is a school that has no AP classes, around only 30-50 12th graders per year, and rarely does anyone ever take a standardized test. I would find it extremely hard to believe that Michigan wouldn’t have taken at least some from your school historically. So either your school is not in the state of Michigan, or people got accepted but decided not to go, or your information is not accurate.
However, assuming that you have a fair statistical sample, say more than 20 applicants to UM for a given year, the percentages of acceptance usually doesn’t vary much from year to year. So if you went to a school that historically had had say 3% get accepted, well, that’s not as good as a school where historically 25% of applicants get accepted. So that’s how it would hurt you. Having said that, you still have a fair amount of control over which classes you take, your grades, etc, things that influence your admissions.
High schools change. Even when one hasn’t gotten any admits, it can suddenly surge, a particular candidate may be so right, etc. Top colleges, even when they do not have a record with HSx, can decide to show that applicant the love. And then that means maybe one less from some other local hs that did have the record of many admits.
But you have to realize it’s not random, not just a matter of your resume. There’s a full app and supp to fill out, LoRs to collect. Plus the grades, rigor, and score issues. You show your own thinking in how you stretch, how you present…and how you do nderstand what matters to any particular college target. Yes, it’s work.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I have a cousin who went to a super rural school in Alabama (literally 54 kids in their senior class), and pretty much every kid goes to community college. Once every few years one or two go to Alabama or Auburn, but that’s it. Well, he was accepted to Tulane a couple years back and was the first kid in his school’s history to ever be accepted there. He beat the odds even though his high school was really bad.
A lot of high schoolers, for a number of various reasons, don’t have much say in where they attend high school. There are going to be several parts of your college applications you will have little control over. Make the best lemonade that you can anyway.
What you need to do is to take advantage of every advanced academic and extracurricular activity that is available to you. And if it isn’t available at your school, either find it elsewhere – or create it!!
If there are not enough AP classes offered, take dual enrollment classes at your local community college. (Although, reading your other threads, the problem might be that your teachers don’t think you are ready for some of the honors and/or AP work in math – you need to figure out how to get yourself there either independently or in a summer program. Perhaps you can convince your math teacher or the administration to allow you to take honors math with the understanding that the teacher determines that you are not going to succeed, that you drop down to non-honors math).
With respect to extracurricular activities, start a program or a club at your school! Find out what kind of state-wide or regional competitions are available (e.g., robotics, debate team, Mock Trial, Model UN, Academic Bowl), and try to get students interested in participating/competing in them and see if you can get faculty and/or administration on board.
Use your summers wisely – apply to interesting and innovative summer programs (not the expensive pre-college ones–the most prestigious ones (e.g., RSI, TASP) are free!) Try to think outside the box. Be creative.
The bottom line is that you need to find and follow your passions – not in order to impress colleges, but in order to be happy and successful at your school!
(For the record, it can work to your advantage to come from a school that doesn’t have many offerings and excel nonetheless). Remember, at some of the more prestigious/competitive high schools that have a lot of high achieving students – there would be many more students vying for admissions to the same top schools. With the top 10 percent of a graduating class applying to the same top schools, you’re chances of getting in might be lower than if you are the only one!)
@Jleto18 But how did your friend do at Tulane? Did they graduate? I hear stories of these students who are accepte,d but don’t graduate because of the lack of preparations, not knowing how college works, etc
@bopper He is currently a Junior there, and he’s doing pretty well. There was a pretty steep learning curve for him, though. He told me that his Freshman year was absolute hell, but he wouldn’t change a thing because it taught him a lot. His high school definitely didn’t prepare him for college, and I’d say most students would’ve dropped. I’d put him as the exception rather than rule for sure. Still, though, it shows that even kids from poor high schools can make it.