<p>That is why picking a school that is aggressive about competitive school admissions is so important, if you want your kid to have the best chance of getting in. Even doing so there is that great unknown as to the personal part of your child. THere are kids that shine and would do better in a noncompetitive highschool. THere are those who are the opposite. The advantage of dealing with a high school that has an established excellent track record in getting kids into top school is the precedent, the relationship that exists between colleges and the guidance dept and the training of the teachers and gcs on how to write an effective recommendation for their kids. Our highschool takes these recs very, very seriously, and helps kids find their matches. It is a big deal thing for the teachers too. When I read about some of these public highschool kids that get a short nothing rec, it makes me cringe. ( Yet, there is a group of kids that can benefit from that too. Less said, more generic,much better for some kids with high stats, but not much can be said that is helpful. Coming from a highschool that has a rep of not giving informative recs would help such a kid.)<br>
The other very important thing that a highschool provides colleges is their profile. It is shocking how many highschools are using the same old outdated rag to date, or have a poor showing on their own profile. If you want to get your kid into a top college, you need to look at those things, and it is very helpful to have a school that is constantly reviewing its college process. Even the transcript can be college friendly or hostile for the student. All of the schools I know send an edited version of the transcript to the colleges. It is sanitized of any extraneous info which gives more kids a shot of getting in. Class rank is another thing. Yeah, it helps #1 -5 if their other stuff is in good shape, but #15 who might trump the others in everything else gets an automatic "ding" with that class rank. Our highschool, and other very competive (defined by % of kids going to highly selective colleges) do not do class rank. And the top quintile, maybe 25% get into schools that say right out that they only like to take the top 5 kids from schools. Also these schools are loaded with opportunities for the kids to do things that the top colleges love. They have infor on summer programs that enhance kids' chances, they offer Olympiad type tests, the attention getting science fairs, the Intel courses; stuff that makes it easier for the kid to have this eyecatching awards on their resume. That is the difference I found between schools here in the competitve NY college belt and a school that was considered pretty good in the Midwest. How the heck can you compete against a school that starts kids with science projects as a freshman in preparation for the intell? And we are not talking about an isolated kid or two, but a whole bunch of them. There is a book called "What It takes to Get into an Ivy League School" that has a list of activities and awards that top colleges like to see and count heavily when they see them as part of the kids' ECs. If your school does not help kids in getting these awards and activities and levels of accomplishment, you are fighting an upstream battle, even if you are in a top school district. School districts are not rated heavily if at all on how many kids they get into select colleges, since that is a small portion of their job. You need to take that part of the highschool under a microscope if it a focus of yours, and if the school is not big on these things, you either put the kid in a school that is, or cover those areas yourself.</p>