It’s the Lake Wobegon effect: Everyone thinks they’re above average.
I think there is a big difference in schools where the majority of students are going on to 4 year colleges and 25-30% of the class is in the 98th percentile for standardized tests. It’s the same effect of going to a very competitive college, especially when stuff is graded on a curve.
Much like @Empireapple our high school went through the weeding process the first week of 8th grade. Each 8th grade student was given the EXPLORE exam (an ACT product) and that score was used as the sole determinate for which “track” you would be placed in for your high school career. We had no idea and when the high school had an EXPLORE meeting several weeks later we assumed this was to explore the school and become familiar with the building and as such took our son.
Little did we know this was when the scores were distributed and the tracks were announced via presentation. The presentation, in a nut shell, was : If you scored 15 or higher you are going to college and the school will do everything to prepare you, the higher your score the better college you will go to. If you scored 13-14 you might be able to go to college but it will most likely be the CC route and the school will put you on a track for CC. If you scored a 12 or lower college of any sort is not in your future and we have a special program to make sure you at least get your diploma.
You may have guessed by now, my son scored a 12 and was devastated, his dreams were crushed in early 8th grade because of one standardized test. We talked through it and awaited the "more information that would be forthcoming about the track he would be placed in. Sure enough he was placed in the “hope to graduate pool” that included a PE class designed for special needs students and few if any classes that were approved by the NCAA clearing house.
We became involved and discussed with the administration our desire for him to be in the college track. We were strongly discouraged even in light of the evidence of his previous grades, work and the fact that he was ill the day the exam was given.Ultimately we won but with the warning that “there is no going back, if he fails he fails and he will be stuck in classes beyond his ability, putting the diploma in jeopardy”.
Throughout his high school years it became very evident that the top tier received all academic support and all college search support. The bottom two groups were left on their own. Having friends in all 3 groups we saw all of them. The top group were all pushed towards Ivys, even though few were admitted and most ended up at state flagships. My son’s best friend was told every year college was not going to happen in any form as he was in the bottom tier but he ended up working hard and had outside support and is at a state flagship. alongside the top tier students.
I know they refer to our school as one of the best public high schools in the state/country and that it is competitive. I don’t see it as competitive for all, just those identified in 8th grade via one test. The good news is it looks like they have learned their lesson and with my soon to be 9th grader they have eliminated the test and the identification of the bottom tier. It appears to be much more open but we will have 4 years to see.
I think there is a pretty significant difference. My D19 goes to a large public high school that many average students will transfer out of before they reach high school age either to the public schools that are a little less competitive, or if they have money, to the many private high schools that have more personal attention. That is no problem because there is a long line of public school parents from other neighboring schools with strong academic kids anxious to get those slots. There will probably be 40 plus NMF named in her class this year. My D19 is a top stats student who loves math. Hasn’t missed a math question on PSAT, SAT, Math 2, and just got a 5 on APCal BC junior year and isn’t one of the top math students in her class. Probably won’t ask the math teacher for a recommendation because she doesn’t compete in the math competitions, too many fellow students who qualified for AIME. The important thing for us is that the admissions counselors all know this and account for this in college selection. There are always a good chunk of students who go to top schools. The students consider UC Berkeley, that tap about 20 each year, an extension of their high school, no harder. The campuses know that the students are very well prepared and that it is an easy transition, which means less problems for them and more successful students. I think it is similar to schools that are a magnets for sports, that always get a large number of their students recruited on top sports teams. You could be the quarterback on your schools football team and not be as talented or recruitable as the third string quarterback on a team from a school who has a very strong sports program.
@iaparent : That system sounds unbelievable. Determining whether a child’s on the “college track” based on one test score taken in 8th grade in unbelievably harsh. There should have been plenty of outrage over this.
@iaparent and @empireapple, Are these both public schools? Who’s advocating for the children?
What @iaparent describes doesn’t sound like a top, competitive high school to me. My kids went to different high schools - my S17 to the local public, a more rural sports-focused school. My daughter attends a public out of district because her father teaches there. I do describe her school as competitive because I’ve seen the difference.
Local public does have the “non-college” track where classes aren’t approved by the NCAA clearinghouse. My D21’s school has no classes offered that don’t meet the NCAA clearinghouse standards. 1 boy got a 5 on the AP physics exam in my son’s class; D21’s school had 49 get a 5. There are still kids at S17 school that go to top schools, but not nearly as many as at D21 school (which I’m sure is also a product legacy and being able to pay full price). I can see how much more academics are stressed at D21’s school. I don’t know that it will necessarily get her into a better school - she will be nowhere near the top of her class as she would have been at the local school. But I think she will be better prepared wherever she ends up going.
@austinmshauri Yes mine is a public high school in an affluent Chicago suburb and is regularly recognized as not only one of the top schools in Illinois but also the country.
In essence it was up to the parents to advocate for their own children but even that advocacy was met with resistance. I truely believe we were successful in advocating for my son because we were able to demonstrate not only his past academic performance (which they already had) but also had a mother that is a high school teacher and grandfather that was a statistics PHD who had studied standardized test issues and was able to overwhelm the administration with stats as to why they were wrong about our son.
Now a couple of years removed from this and seeing my younger son about to enter the same school, without the same process and I really think this was an experiment gone wrong. I think that someone from ACT sold the district on the fact that their EXPLORE exam would create tracks for students and help to identify school needs in terms of classes offered, teachers needed, etc. but in reality the district saw the problems it created and have scrapped the program.
Most large public schools are not “one school,” though. Instead, there may be many “schools” under the same roof. To define the rigor, opportunities, or student culture based on averages can be misleading.
Our local high school is not “competitive.” It’s a large school, with a diverse student population. About half of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch. It’s definitely the “wrong side of the tracks” when compared to neighboring high schools. But that doesn’t mean that students aren’t prepared well for college. Just because there are a substantial number of students at the school who are struggling to meet state standards, doesn’t mean that there aren’t opportunities for students who want to push themselves. Those who are looking for a “rigorous” education will find faculty support, excellent resources, and like-minded peers there. And because it’s a big school, there is a “critical mass” of top students. which means that students who are academically oriented will not feel isolated. Colleges seem to recognize that, too. D’s high school classmates are at schools like NU, WUSTL, Chicago, MIT, Vandy, Penn, UCLA, Notre Dame, etc.
There has been tremendous drift towards AP and dual emrollment in HS these days. Some will argue it’s about being labled “competitive”. Others would say it’s about granting access to the masses. I find it all troubling.
Not to sound like an old dinosaur…but when I went to HS, in a suburban Boston high achieving town, there were just a few AP classes. Essentially you had to test in to them. Unlike today, not everyone got in (including me) and nobody cared or said “that’s not fair”. The ones who got in, got in. The ones who didn’t, didn’t and that was life. I think it was a much better system. Out of 176 kids (public) in class, 4 went to Harvard, 5 or 6 more went to other Ivies, many went to LACs and the rest of us basically went to UMass. I understand admissions is different today. Partly because of the increase in AP classes and the ridiculous weighted 7.0 GPAs. I think kids should push themselves but it helps no one, especially the kid, to be taking 15 AP classes when they’re really not qualified for that level of rigor. It’s also bad for the class as it slows it down.
My opinion is many are watered down to “AP Lite” and are full of kids that have no business in AP classes. They also have no business in applying to H or other elite schools. So the admission numbers look daunting (and they are) but what is the real admission number. What is the percentage of qualified admitted applicants? Probably well over half of applicants had zero chance of getting in yet applied because “I’ve taken so many AP classes and my school is hard”.
Whether your HS is considered competitive or not, the elites take the brilliant kids (unhooked). Your kid is either brilliant or they’re not. There’s a huge difference. I have two older brothers. One is really smart. One is brilliant. The difference is obvious. BTW-the brilliant one is not the one with the Harvard MBA. … it all works out.
However, this was based on each subject (i.e. test into honors/AP math, different test into honors/AP English), and not getting into the honors/AP track still meant that one could take the regular college-prep courses, right?
That seems a lot different from the “one test in 8th grade to determine whether one goes to the college-prep track in all subjects or the non-college-prep track in all subjects” method described by @iaparent in reply #22.
S1 and D went to our neighborhood high-SES public. Maybe 30% are aiming for top 100 colleges. It probably qualifies as “competitive.” The AP track was more rigorous than classes at the private school where the Richie Rich kids went. Those kids are well prepared for college, others not so much. It was possible to skate through with easy classes.
Then S2 went to the STEM HS. Average homework load was around 5 hours per night. Every class is either Honors, AP, or college curriculum. Admission is by lottery, not by competitive application. They average about 10% NM qualifying scores.
A typical conversation, according to S2:
Kid 1: “How’s it going?”
Kid 2: “I want to hang myself.”
All others nod in agreement.
It is not a typical HS experience. No sports, no PE, no music except for a before-school orchestra. 100% graduation rate and 98% go directly to college. Academic pressure is extreme. So far, fingers crossed, no suicides.
A neighboring town has a nearly-as-rigorous Cambridge program. Any kid who makes it through is auto-admit to UW.
All the schools in our area test or had pre-reqs for grades and teacher endorsements to enroll into the AP classes. Then there was a minimum grade to stay in the AP tract. I have no problem with that either. I objected to the artificial cut off at the middle school based on max. class size. IMO, they easily could have had two sections of advanced coursework based on the student body.
Many school systems in other countries test kids prior to high school, and then put them on tracks and/or send them to a certain ‘type’ of high school, eg., pre-professional, academic, pre-trade. I personally don’t agree with that system as 13 year old kids are far from fully-formed, yet many countries that do this have better educational outcomes and/or higher rated systems than the US.
Bill is the star on Team A. Bob is a second stringer on Team B. From just that information, you can’t tell who is the better player. Could be Bill or it could be Bob.
The adcoms at the selective colleges are quite good at figuring this out. Since that is exactly what their job is.
They are assigned to regions and also get profiles on each HS along with the applicant’s HS transcript. Then they get additional info like scores on SAT, ACT, subject tests and AP tests.
The SAT, after all, was invented by Harvard as a tool they could use to help figure out how to find the genius at Fargo HS and see how he compared to the kids coming from Exeter and Andover.
Here’s the history of the SAT:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/timeline.html
Excerpt:
^ correct it was individual, non tract method.
D’s school (today) has no tract - not familiar with that - so individual AP course selection but the teacher has to agree to have you attend. I guess based on other teacher recommendations. They have sooooo many AP classes (over 20). I’m virtually positive they have far fewer quality AP teachers than classes. So it’s average kid takes AP X but it really isn’t AP because it’s full of average kids. No wonder the AP exam pass rate is so abysmal. All of this to “appear” to be more competitive, take on more rigor. But the average kid has a bloated GPA because they have taken so many AP classes. Lots of them get As in the class, but fail the AP exam. Pretty sure the college AOs have that nonsense figured out.
Austinmshauri yes this is a public school. Yes this is a public school. Parents can try advocating for their children but it really doesn’t do much good. Honestly I think many of the parents trust the teachers and when they are told their children have to move to two year math programs or to business math they accept it. I wonder how many kids have missed future opportunities because they weren’t prepared with the right coursework. A lot of this has come with the Common Core standards and the desire for the school to keep their high rankings. I am a huge believer in public education but I now realize a lot of children don’t reach their full potential at them.
Thank you to all for the information on competitive high schools! Each post helped me in it’s own way. I think some of what I thought was confirmed here, but my eyes were also opened to a totally different perspective that I need to consider.
Until very recently, I thought that if my S19 (is that right? I’m just catching on…so that would mean my son is graduating in 2019? Please correct me if I’m wrong!) kept his rank/GPA up as high as possible, took/did well in as many AP classes as possible, performed as many community service hours as possible, was well-rounded with a mix of ECs, and then did well on his SATs, that he would have as good as a shot at getting into the best schools as the next kid. WRONG!
I guess I always wanted to block out the fact that we send him to a ‘non-competitive’ school that thinks they are competitive. They try to blow so much smoke that I actually believed it because believing it made me feel better! They do offer many APs (at least 22) and about 10 dual enrollment, and when students do get accepted to places like Princeton, MIT, UChicago, Harvard, etc…and they do, even if its only a few per year…the school jams it down your throat until you think this is normal and that hard work pays off in the end. What they don’t tell you is that these kids are ‘hooked’ (I just learned this word!). So it’s all smoke and mirrors while the administrators try to manage public perception of their crappy school.
After reading all the responses here, I went and dug up some stats (clearly nothing they show you how to find during open house!) and realized just how non-competitive the school really is. Although there is a top-tier of students that do well and try hard (my S is in this group), the overall stats stink! Seeing that only 20% of the 36% of students that take the AP tests actually pass, makes me wonder if they are encouraging too many students to take AP that don’t really belong there and/or if the teachers aren’t very good at teaching it! Probably a combo of both.
Thanks for all your help! Now I need to figure out which schools would be best for my S19 to look into…
@Propinquity4444 It’s not that your DS19 doesn’t have a chance to get into a highly selective school because your school is “less competitive”, but that most qualified applicants from all types/levels of schools are going to get denied. I think it’s fine to shoot for the moon with a highly selective school because you never know maybe they need to fill a spot that your DS19 matches through his EC’s, geography etc… Just make sure you have other solid options. I know that there will be lots of suggestions if you post what your son is looking for in a college. I’m so glad that you found this site because it really is helpful. It can be very shocking to high stats applicants when they don’t get into their reach schools. Many erroneously think that because they have the stats to get in to a highly selective school that it is a match. All highly selective schools are reaches. Our Val from this year was very bitter when acceptances were over. She and her parents thought she was going to get a huge scholarship/grant money from a highly selective college. She didn’t even get in and is now going to the State flagship honors college. It’s better to know reality going in than have to face it come acceptance time.