I think it works out about right. My nephew and my son were very similar - he went to a competitive private school in DC, my son to a not so competitive large public high school in New York. My kid was in the top 2% of his high school class, my nephew had slightly less stellar grades, but probably in the top 10 to 25% of his class. They ended up with very similar acceptances. If you go to the large less competitive school you need top grades, top scores and the number of AP/IB/dual enrollment courses that other kids in their school take. (In our school that meant 8 or 9 APs total - not 12+.) But that’s still not going to be enough. You have to have at least one teacher who thinks you are among the best they have ever seen and you need to bring something else in terms of activities that make you attractive. Some activities - like being a recruitable athlete - are more helpful than others, but there is no one magic formula. Every year kids get into top schools from our high school and they aren’t all legacies, athletes and URMs.
@sahmkc Thanks! More disappointing than not getting into a top tier school is finding out how much the FAFSA thinks I can afford to pay! I’ve only filled out the Net Price Calculators so far (after reading about them here on CC), and I see I have more to learn about this process. Will have to spend most of my time on the FA/Scholarship forums;) I feel like I’m what is called the ‘working poor’, but the NPC tells me otherwise! lol
As for DS, I will start a thread to get some ideas about schools that are a good fit for him. Which forum is best for that?
Post in the college search and selection thread about ideas for fit. And I agree to still have some reaches on the list. But a well balance list has a couple of reaches, a couple of safeties, and the rest should be matches.
It really depends on your circumstances. Both my kids had 2 safeties and the rest of the applications were reaches. Older son had stats that meant any match school was a reach for anyone and he liked his safeties. Younger son didn’t like any of the match schools I suggested and he loved one of his safeties. If you are chasing financial aid, you may want a lot of safeties which are more likely to offer financial aid. My younger son’s safety is not a tippy top school, but it was a top school for his major and had a great location for his interests.
@mathmom Thanks! Definitely something to think about.
I would say my DS is a big fish in a small pond! As a junior, he was ranked 3 out of 396 and I know he would have been higher if not for his double choir electives. They haven’t posted rank yet, going into senior year, but I expect him to not be as high since he took some APs as a fresh/soph and now the kids that didn’t have had time to catch up. He took an add’l 4 AP this year, but does Concert Choir and Show Choir so that’s 2 classes right there that others could have filled with more APs. OTOH, I guess they would have had to get As in the AP classes in order to beat his rank. Regardless, he’ll most likely still be top 10. I also just read an email that he met the requirements for some kind of AP Scholar award, so I need to log in to that site and see what that’s about.
He would definitely have enough teachers to choose from for a rec, especially if it could be one of his Choir or Drama teachers. He’s in all of the auditioned choirs (4…2 are a class and 2 are afterschool) and held Sec’y as a sophomore and will be Pres as a senior. He’s also very active in the school’s musical theatre and Drama Club. He’s had principal parts the last 2 years, and also in community theatre during the summer for 2 years. He even does many of his service hours in theatre related programs. Then again, his History teacher recommended him for the American Legion Boys State and he got in, so I’m sure that teacher would be one to ask for a rec if it had to be from a core teacher. At Boys State this June, he was elected into 4 government positions during the week.
Would he have had all these opportunities as a small fish in a big pond? Guess there’s no way of knowing. I’m just happy that he was able to be successful and enjoy his high school years so far!
The only regret is that the Athletic Director made him choose sports over the arts. He played football and baseball his freshman year, but once he started in the school plays, they said he could no longer try out for baseball since the practice season overlapped with the musical for 2 weeks. I regret not putting up a bigger fight over that, but I knew the best that would happen is that they would ‘allow’ him to try out and then cut him just for paybacks of me having a big mouth, so I decided to drop it. At least when he did Pop Warner, he got 2 scholarships for college totaling $2500 for being named Regional and National All-American Scholar Athlete. I’ll take $2500 towards college tuition any day of the week!
@Propinquity4444 Yes, those NPC’s can be quite shocking. Also, there are many schools that do not give merit aid - only need-based aid (and that’s based on the FASFA & CSS). I was shocked by this when I starting looking at colleges because I thought that with my son’s stats & EC’s, he would be eligible for merit at many schools. There is a thread regarding schools that are known for merit aid. Some private colleges will artificially inflate their tuition, but give automatic merit or lots of grants and merit. Trinity University in Texas is an example of this - almost no-one pays the sticker price. So don’t automatically rule out high priced private colleges. I think it’s great your son EC’s are so deep, Admins like to see that you stick to things and have a passion. Even if he chooses not to get a degree in FA, he might get a boost from his EC’s at smaller colleges where they would want his skill set and he could participate in those EC’s without majoring/minoring in FA.
All I know is that every student that posts on cc attends the most competitive high school in their state. And apparently, every high school in California (particularly the Bay Area) is the most competitive.
@CADREAMIN that might not be far from the truth, since perhaps most of the people posting on CC are academically ambitious. I think we get a huge representation of kids with high GPAs etc here.
I didn’t. 
The college admissions process is certainly more art than science. With the exception of some auto admit schools (based on grades / test scores), you just don’t know. If you aim is the “top 50” schools, you just don’t know. Building a list of peer schools is important (peers within match and reach) as you may get in one and not the other. Unfortunately it makes the application process burdensome and expensive, but better to have choices you love. Also, be realistic. Although there’s no way to know, look at the Common Data Set for those reaches (and matches - actually is the definition of a match). If your kid’s grades / scores are below the range (or even below the average ) and he is unhooked without other remarkable items, it is highly unlikely to gain admission to that school. Doesn’t mean he’s not qualified or wouldn’t do well or went to the wrong HS. Just means there are other, more worthy candidates. Maybe you’ll get lucky because they want a kid from your state to round out the class. That factors in as well.
S applied to 15 schools. In retrospect (not because he didn’t get in, but because he had no shot at getting in), he should have only applied to 11. Based on Common Data Set, he had no shot at H,Y, P, Vandy. (Didn’t want to do the subject tests, was middle to high range in Math but below range in Reading). 4.0 , All APs, Class Pres, Sports captain, Mentor, Ambassador, etc. Unfortunately, that equals nothing remarkable. Didn’t want the time commitment of college baseball (would have helped big time).
Within the next tier he went about 65% so he had really good choices. The key was picking the right range of matches that he would enjoy.
Agree with another poster re merit money. If you are searching / need it, make sure you apply to some lesser ranked schools. That was probably my biggest surprise, to not get merit outside of safety schools. The safety schools will pay. The other ones are VERY competitive for merit. They use it to attract the kids who would otherwise go to top 10 schools.
Our local high school is the only public high school in the city. We are well known for our diversity not our competitiveness. However every year some students get into top schools. This year I know we have students going to Yale, Cornell, Stanford, MIT etc.
Again, your willingness to help and share is much appreciated. I am seeing now that he is destined for a state school where he will be a little fish in a big pond! But that’s life and why I always say enjoy it while you can! Of course, there is a slim chance of casting the net wide and getting something unexpected it terms of merit, so we’ll pick a few that meet his ‘wants’ (minor in music) and go for it.
I love our not-so-competitive HS, and even if we could afford to buy a house in Palo Alto, where Gunn HS reportedly sends 20% of its class to Stanford every year, probably wouldn’t go that route. Our HS offers plenty of AP classes, sports, clubs, etc. Yes, their Mock Trial team will never reach State’s (ok, never in the next two years that matter to me), but D gets the seller-confidence of feeling being “one of the smarter ones” and can maintain a high GPA without killing herself with HW and still having time for family and other interests. In the end, if she ends up winning an elite college admission lottery, it would be precisely because of those non-school activities she had time for - because her school is not too competitive. @Propinquity4444, since our kids HS seem to be so similar, hope you don’t mind me saying: don’t necessarily settle for less just because the school isn’t an automatic HYPS feeder, instead, focus on your son’s strengths and help him write the best essay he can (not write it for him, of course). This year, D’s school had twins applying to the same schools. Maybe because they are twins, maybe their parents cultivated the same interests, I have no idea, but according to my daughter, they were very similar in grades, test scores, coursework, EC’s and achievements. One of them agreed to work with the counselor for his essay and got into a HYPS school, the other thought it was a waste of money and got rejected by the same HYPS school, now heading to UCLA.
Well, if your school has lots of high achievers who are scoring sky high on PSAT, SAT, ACT, SATII, AP, math & science olympiads, academic decathlons, science fairs, robotic/coding competitions etc then your rank doesn’t compare with ones who go to school with lower achieving students. Its harder to make teams, earn awards, be teacher’s favorite, have counselor’s admiration.
You can be rank 30 and but miles ahead of valedictorians and salutatorians of less competitive schools. Its easier to look good when you are the only big fish compared to going to a bigger pool with lots of bigger fishes. Its tougher to get perfect GPA grades when rigor and competition in class is too high.
Not only that but dozens and dozens of high acchieving peers apply to similar top colleges, it lowers odds of admissions because top schools are not going to fill up their class with one public school’s students.
On positive side, you get a solid education, learn to compete and get prepared to ace college with an ease as you are already used to competition and high standards.
Shucks, no room for humor and sarcasm any more.
It’s more on the order of 3% of the class. I’d expect that after you remove the special hook groups, the acceptance rate is about what would be expected for a school with such a high concentration of exceptional students.
I was going to say, 20% sounds high for Gunn, typically the competitive public high schools in CA tend to match the published rate of Stanford acceptance (4-5% last couple of years).
@typiCAmom Your observation about your D feeling like “one of the smarter ones” is spot on. It’s backed by research and is an important consideration depending on one’s kid (some kids will want to the high achievers environment). Researchers call it the familiar Big Fish, Little Pond effect. Here’s an example of one study’s finding:
“The big-fish–little-pond effect predicts that equally able students have lower academic self-concepts (ASCs) when attending schools where the average ability levels of classmates is high, and higher ASCs when attending schools where the school-average ability is low. BFLPE findings are remarkably robust, generalizing over a wide variety of different individual student and contextual level characteristics, settings, countries, long-term follow-ups, and research designs. Because of the importance of ASC in predicting future achievement, coursework selection, and educational attainment, the results have important implications for the way in which schools are organized.”
PDF of the study here: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10648-008-9075-6.pdf
@Propinquity4444 "Of course, there is a slim chance of casting the net wide and getting something unexpected it terms of merit, so we’ll pick a few that meet his ‘wants’ (minor in music) and go for it. "
I think there is more than a slim chance of good merit IF you choose the right schools. When looking for merit make sure your son’s stats fall above the top 75% to be the most competitive for merit. Research how merit is given at each school. Some schools will have published charts that show exactly the merit you qualify for. Additionally, a lot of smaller private schools will give a few almost or full ride scholarships that you apply to separately because they want to attract high stats applicants. Sometimes it means moving “down” the rankings list to be in the top 75%. We told both of our kids the amount we wanted to spend and that they would need merit to make up the additional amount. My DS did not apply to Georgetown (a high reach) because they do not give merit. He applied to American U because he was above their 75% and he did get merit that made the cost acceptable to us. He also applied for a larger competitive scholarship at AU, but he didn’t get that. DD19 already has a private college chosen that outlines typical merit by stats and her stats make it acceptable also. So if going to a private college versus a public is something your DS wants, there might be a school out there that will make it possible. It’s a matter of research.
@sfSTEM I live that every day with my DD. If she were at a different HS, she would have a lot more confidence in her abilities. She told me that everyone gets a 30 or above on the ACT and she felt she was a failure because she did make a 30+. Um No! But our school puts your name on a plaque if you score a 30+ on the ACT’s and if you get a perfect score or are an NMF or NMSF you get a separate plaque with your picture on it. Everyone walks by this wall to get to the cafeteria. While this school is fine for DS who feels challenged by his highly motivated peers, it’s not good for my DD. We are looking for a place where she can be the big fish at college.