<p>And I’m just trying to be funny. Sorry.</p>
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<p>Of course students at mediocre public schools are at a disadvantage, but so are people who come from low-income households, who have parents who are less supportive of education, who live in areas that offer fewer academic and extraccuricular opportunities and so many othe circumstances. Colleges do try to take into account the background of each individual student, but regardless of any potential lack of resources, you’re still expected to seek out opportunities on your own and rise above the odds.</p>
<p>^it’s ok. Im getting frustrated because no one seems to answer this question.</p>
<p>And the truth is that with overall acceptance rates in the 7% range, the rate for the unhooked is probably less than 5%, so the truth is both of your hypothetical applicants would very likely be rejected.</p>
<p>Of course students at mediocre public schools are at a disadvantage, but so are people who come from low-income households, who have parents who are less supportive of education, who live in areas that offer fewer academic and extraccuricular opportunities and so many othe circumstances. Colleges do try to take into account the background of each individual student, but regardless of any potential lack of resources, you’re still expected to seek out opportunities on your own and rise above the odds. </p>
<p>So are you saying that colleges will be more forgiving in that case?</p>
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<p>They will take into consideration the amount of opportunities available to you. For instance, I attended a high school that does not offer any AP classes freshman/sophomore year and only APUSH in junior year. That means I only had one AP by the time I was applying to college. In fact, I didn’t even know it was possible to take so many AP classes or that many of the courses even existed before I came to CC (nor did I know about USABO, debate, IB, or many of the other things people frequently talk about on here.) An Asian girl who’s interested in math and science, I made it through the college admission process just fine, with acceptances, sometimes through likely letters, from most of the colleges I applied to. Being Asian without hooks is not the end of the world.</p>
<p>It’s not that colleges are more “forgiving”, more that they expect you to take advantage of the opportunities available to you. They want to see that you’ve challenged yourself to the best of your abilities, that you’ve taken the initiative to seek out resources, and that you have something essential to offer to the college so that you’ll be an asset to the community. It doesn’t have to be formal competitions like USABO— maybe you’re an incredible freelance writer who wrote books and had online websites or something, or a brilliant musician, or someone who organized fundraisers or charities that actually made an impact on other people’s lives because you truly cared, among endless other possiblities— none of these actually requires that the person attends a top private school. I do agree with Redroses’s assessment though— most of the people who deserve a spot at their dream college never made it in, not because they’re less qualified or because of any fault of their own, but because there are so few spots and so many applicants with similarly incredible achievements. A few lucky ones will be picked, but statistic-wise, most won’t.</p>
<p>Fresh, I was a college counselor for 20 years in a full range of high schools from private elite to inner city.</p>
<p>There is much that goes into building a class and in the end much does not make sense. What state you’re from, for example, plays a much bigger role than most understand.</p>
<p>In theory, very top colleges would accept the equal applicant from a low income, first gen family with fewer opportunities. But in reality, they may have so many amazing students, legacies, recruited athletes and connected kid from an area that many very strong, unhooked students just can’t fit Into the number they will take from that area. So in overrepresented states it can be very tough for the unhooked.</p>
<p>If it’s 2 kids from Kansas we’re talking about, the kid with fewer opportunities will get the nod.</p>
<p>But even where few opportunities exist in school, top colleges do want to see kids go past what the school offered and do find many less privileged kids who have done so. In your example, the student did a small fund raiser. Nothing was preventing her from rolling it out and taking it past the school. </p>
<p>Your friend was an ORM from an overrepresented state. Good stats but nothing exceptional. Most students like her will get into many good schools, but not HYPS.</p>
<p>I would accept the student from the private high school, primarily because their 4.0 is worth more than the other student’s 4.0. The student from the mediocre public high school would have to make up for this by going out of their way to find other opportunities where they can shine, which in theory should be plausible as an easier course load means more free time. I also disagree with your point about public schools being a waste in the long run, there are some very fine public schools out there, I think mine is one of them, but I digress. I am frankly surprised that applicant got into Yale by the way, must have been some superb essays.</p>
<p>Your friend was an ORM from an overrepresented state. Good stats but nothing exceptional. Most students like her will get into many good schools, but not HYPS. </p>
<p>So you’re saying she got lucky?</p>
<p>In that same year, we also had one go to UPENN. If you saw his stats, you would automatically think he would be rejected. In fact he was waitlisted, then accepted.</p>
<p>I would accept the student from the private high school, primarily because their 4.0 is worth more than the other student’s 4.0. The student from the mediocre public high school would have to make up for this by going out of their way to find other opportunities where they can shine, which in theory should be plausible as an easier course load means more free time. I also disagree with your point about public schools being a waste in the long run, there are some very fine public schools out there, I think mine is one of them, but I digress. I am frankly surprised that applicant got into Yale by the way, must have been some superb essays. </p>
<p>Why should the student from the public high school make up for the 4.0? He/she did the best he/she could in the context of his/her high school. Why should that kid be penalized for the low rate of the high school?
In this sense, you just implied that going to a public high school is disadvantageous because even if you do the best possible in YOUR CONTEXT, it’s not good enough. How does that make sense?</p>
<p>The point of the difference in difficulty is that one student has proven to succeed in the most stressful setting, while the other has succeeded in an easier environment, so who has indicated that they are better suited for success at college and beyond? It is not penalizing the other student, it is increasing the value of the private student’s performance, though if we are only comparing the two face to face it is relatively the same I suppose. And I was saying that going to an easier public high school will allow far more free time than the best public or private, and the point is to show you can utilize that free time properly by doing something productive that would not have been possible for the private school student to do because of their more difficult schedule. Also as I noted, we should be discussing the average public schools versus private, top notch publics like TJ or stuyvesant match up with exeter or andover.</p>
<p>The point of the difference in difficulty is that one student has proven to succeed in the most stressful setting, while the other has succeeded in an easier environment, so who has indicated that they are better suited for success at college and beyond?</p>
<p>Because i said that all other factors are controlled, meaning that both students have the same SAT score, i would say both applicants are capable of success at college and beyond. The SAT score would be a far better indicator of that because it puts both applicants on an equal level playing field. </p>
<p>However, I do agree about using the public school kid’s extra free time to maximize
his/her productivity.</p>
<p>SAT scores do not even indicate capability of success for college that well at the elite level. The SAT is testing your ability to conform to the SAT, not your intelligence.</p>
<p>There was a study that showed that SAT and intelligence have a 0.82 correlation.
Every test will test your ability to conform to that test. That doesn’t discount the importance of the test. Every test also has validity, especially the SAT’s. From tons of studies, Collegeboard has proved that SAT’s are a good indicator of college success, or else why would colleges even use it as an entrance exam?</p>
<p>This topic is beginning to digress.
So what you’re saying is that a 4.0 at a private high school= a 4.0 at a public high school + an activity that demonstrates excellence?</p>
<p>That’s not how it works</p>
<p>of course you can’t boil the situation to a mathematical equation but in simple terms what you are saying just doesn’t make sense.</p>
<p>There was a study posted here recently that shows wealthy kids get into elite colleges over poor kids with the same stats. It’s niot what the colleges are telling us, but it’s fact.</p>
<p>Elite colleges have multiple times the percentage of kids coming out of private high schools (35% on average) than exists in the population (about 7%).</p>
<p>The reality is the well off remain their bread and butter.</p>
<p>About 50% of those getting into elite colleges have one of the following hooks: recruited athlete, URM, legacy, staff kid, development. After that they want kids from all 50 states and as many countries as possible.</p>
<p>So when you take a state like NJ with many affluent families, you have many hooked and then many superstar students. The number of seats left for the unhooked non superstars is very small. Luck isn’t what got your friend in, the process is not nearly so random as CCers make it sound. She had something that is not apparent in your write up that met an institutional need/want. She also did have good enough stats for a world class essay to have pushed her in.</p>
<p>How is it that you made a chance thread for Yale in the middle of July (when all decisions would’ve already been mailed out by now) and a day after you tell us that she was accepted? When you made this thread she should’ve already known if she was in or not, making the thread meaningless.</p>
<p>^ i was trying to assess the accuracy of the chancing based on applicants from my school.</p>