Competitiveness of High School on College Admissions

Applying to College
1

<p>I have a general question about why many people in their "chance" threads say they go to a competitive/magnet school. What exactly does this matter in college admissions? Are colleges more inclined to pick students from competitive schools?</p>

<p>Here is what happened to me during the class of '12 college applications:
I applied to 13 schools. 2 safeties (state schools flagships), 2 out of state schools that friends went to (penn state,uva), 2 match schools (carnegie mellon, JHU), 3 reach schools (duke, UPenn, cornell) and 4 superselective schools (harvard,yale,princeton,MIT). I did Yale SCEA. deferred/rejected.</p>

<p>I got into all except the HYP and MIT. I was super happy and excited to go to UPenn where I am absolutely loving it.</p>

<p>I am asian male from a non-competitive school in maryland. I applied for magnet high schools and was shamefully rejected based on my low entrance scores. I know many of my friends who went to these magnet high schools and did not get as many top schools as I did. </p>

<p>I did not have any hooks at all, just good test scores/gpa/ECs/recs. So does going to competitive high schools make a difference in the application process?</p>

2

<p>i think people say it in the chances threads so they can let people know why their gpa might be sort of low. if they go to a really difficult school, their grades or rank might not be as stellar as at an easier school, but they could still get into really selective schools if colleges know the reputation or understand how competitive the school is.</p>

3

<p>Yeah pretty much what the previous poster said. Competitiveness matters insofar as how colleges understand your class rank.</p>