Can the high school you attend have a negative impact on your college applications?

Applying to College Admission Stories
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Hello all! Posting this with a throwaway account- I have not actually been active on this site in years. I am a recent college graduate, and fortunately far removed from all the insanity you all are going through.

My little sister and I were talking about how the reputation of your high school factors into the college admissions process. I am aware that factors such as sports offerings and AP courses make an applicant much more competitive, automatically giving the students attending top high schools an edge. What I am talking about is how your particular school is viewed.

When I was applying to colleges, I was waitlisted/rejected by every “top” school I applied to. I accepted an admissions offer from one of my safeties, a fairly well regarded state school. Most of my friends shared similar stories, both in my year and the year after. We were all standard CC-esque kids: taking 7+ APs, competed on varsity sports teams, editor of yearbook, etc cetera. My high school offered pretty much every AP class and every social enrichment activity possible, including sports teams that made it to state on a regular basis. However, it was an Evangelical school that had a reputation as being extremely religious and conservative. My friends attending other schools often mocked me, but I didn’t think anything of it besides Darwin jokes being tossed whenever I wore my sweatshirt around town (for the record, my high school did teach evolution, which was clearly stated in the online coursebook). Still, an interviewer I had when I was applying for an Ivy seemed extremely fixated on my high school. For instance, when I asked a standard question about life on campus, he gave a response along the lines of “Oh, its extremely different from the culture you are from considering you go to ____ H.S. Most people really aren’t like that”. Nothing outright rude, but just little barbs that made it seem like he had his mind made up about me just by seeing which high school I attended.

In retrospect I probably should have requested a second interview with a different person, but I was intimidated by the whole process and told myself that the guy was just testing me. Looking back though, I have to wonder if that encounter was an abnormality, or a peak into what elite colleges thought when they saw applicants from schools like mine, regardless of the actual personal/religious beliefs of applicants. Considering the accomplishments of some of my classmates, it seems odd that not more were accepted by the “elite” schools. Almost everyone who did belonged to a group such as recruited varsity athletes. In comparison to high schools that had similar course offerings and academic rigor, we definitely fared worse in the college admissions cycle.

I don’t regret not getting into the elite schools then- I rocked college, and by the end was being fought over by graduate programs from some of the same schools that had once rejected me. However, I would like to hear feedback on whether or not a high school’s name can have any bearing on a student’s application, for good or bad. If you think I might be reading too much into this, please let me know as well. My sister and her friends are going to be starting the college search soon, and I want to give advice as best I can if they try going for an Ivy or similar schools.

Thank you for your time!

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“However, it was an Evangelical school that had a reputation as being extremely religious and conservative.”

Many such colleges have low admissions standards and tend to attract a student body more because of its culture than academics. Unfortunately, it seems that selective colleges may be projecting this lack of rigor onto your high school as well.

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You only talk about school based activities. A lot of the kids getting into tippy top colleges are doing interesting and extensive/intensive ECs outside their school environment. That could be the issue as much as any school reputation. If you have competitive standardized test and AP scores, I doubt there is any bias against your high school. And if not, that is a reflection on your high school.

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@blondeflamingo - The vast majority of admission staff at elite schools are highly liberal, that is to say progressive atheist. Judging from some comments and articles, I think they do discriminate against students who are Evangelical. They do not see such students being a good fit in what they consider to be a model class at elite universities and LACs, and, since they have so many applicants to choose from, ignoring students from certain private Evangelical schools is an easy way to weed them out.

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Part of the problem may be the school isn’t that good. Nonelite private schools don’t have the money of public schools. Some of the segregation academies do not get good admissions results. Catholic schools do get admissions results, but some of them are not that good also.

You mention taking AP classes, but not what your standardized test scores were. You generally will need very strong scores to get into Ivies and such.