<p>“I see owlice (and Bay’s) point very clearly. Our high school announced where each kid was going at graduation (less than 90 public school graduates.) I think that’s in bad taste. Some kids were going to CC or right into the work force, and although their plans got nominal respect, since people were also going off to Princeton and Cornell it seems uncomfortable for some families.”</p>
<p>S graduated from a top public high school in our area, a school from which several graduates were going to Ivies. The graduation program included info about what each student was doing after college. S was going to Americorps. I was proud to have that info there.</p>
<p>Some students were going into the workforce. I imagine that their parents also were proud that their students graduated from high school. Even at S’s school, there were some students who were first generation high school graduates. Their parents seemed very proud of them.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, whatever their students plan to do after high school, parents are proud. I came from a public school in which 88 percent of the students graduated to go to some kind of college. There always are several students who go to some of the country’s top colleges. My younger brother was not very bright, and he struggled to make it through high school.</p>
<p>While I skipped my own high school graduation despite being Harvard bound, I went to his, and was very proud to see him march as a high school graduate.</p>
<p>College admissions is highly competitive, not just for “getting in” but also for peer pressure and often, the parental right of passage of bragging to anyone who has the patience to listen to them in the neighborhood, the grocery store or in church! While its normal for people to be proud of their kids accomplishments, it does put a heavy strain on kids and families with less notable accomplishments, learning disabilities or those who simply decide to defer college for a variety of reasons, including financial pressures. </p>
<p>Some kids want to serve their country in uniform, and frankly, these kids should be brought to the front of the auditorium and given a standing ovation. We should be proud of them and very thankful for their service. Takes a lot of courage. </p>
<p>My kids’ high school asks them to report to the GC their acceptances and any scholarship offers/awards. They then present this on Senior Day a week before graduation, in an all school gathering, up on the big screen for all to see. Its certainly a curiosity item! But often a source of awkward and uncomfortable feelings. And sometimes the kids who got into all their colleges and were offered a lot of money don’t want it put up for all to see. It is what it is.</p>
<p>Its also published in the final school newspaper of the year: what college and who is going where.</p>
<p>Thank goodness more than 95% are going to some four year college. The remainder are going to the military or to a trade school.</p>
<p>Owlice’s HS is very very different from ours. I won’t go into details, but our HS is involved in almost every step of the college process, from helping the kids sign up for PSATs and SATs to sending out the application.</p>
<p>We had to fill out a comprehensive health form and family information form every year for the schools. That had a lot more private information in it about my kid and our family than the knowledge of which schools accepted my daughter. </p>
<p>I don’t think the information should be made public without the permission of the student/family, and again, I respect your opinion – but I just don’t see why this is such a big deal if it is kept confidential and used for record keeping. I just think it would be a common courtesy for colleges to tell high schools the results.</p>
<p>I think it would be very discourteous, and violative of a students’ privacy rights, for colleges to tell high schools the results without the student’s permission.</p>
<p>fireandrain, is your high school a public school, or a private one?</p>
<p>My son’s is a large, suburban high school. His school is involved in registering kids for the PSATs and also for APs; that’s part of the school’s job, since registration for these is handled by schools, per College Board’s workings. Even so, I don’t see that as license for a kid’s privacy to be compromised.</p>
<p>Colleges should inform applicants of results; if applicants want to let others know, including their high schools, they can choose to do so.</p>
<p>Our high school announces where the top 25 students are going, and that only at an honors ceremony where only the honorees (of many prizes not just the top 25 students) and their families are invited. That didn’t seem unreasonable to me. I really don’t see the harm in schools knowing where students go as long as the info is disseminated without names attached (via Naviance for example). Our school does not publish scholarship money at all. I’m fairly comfortable with the level of disclosure. Enough to be useful to other students, not so much as to embarass anyone.</p>
<p>When deciding whether our high school was “good enough” for our kids, one consideration was where kids got accepted to colleges. If everyone kept it secret we would have been missing a valuable piece of information.</p>
<p>Just an update, my Guidance Counselor emailed me back saying some colleges do let them know who was accepted/rejected. And Naviance was updated to reflect my Deferral (without me telling my GC about it) :)</p>
<p>My D’s school uses Naviance and we have found it very useful. Her test scores were sent electronically to her school and they appeared on her profile the day the results came out. My S’s school also received the scores directly from the College Board and ACT but they don’t use Naviance. </p>
<p>The scattergrams in Naviance are helpful because you can kinda gauge where D’s stats fall in comparison to others. Everyone knows that there are other variables besides GPA and SAT scores but they’re still interesting. It does offer some privacy: if only a handful of kids from her school applied to a certain institution, there is a message on that institution’s scattergram that says something like “info not available in order protect student’s privacy.” </p>
<p>Many times private schools use college acceptances as a marketing tool. Both my D’s and S’s schools simply list all the institutions, including CCs, and do not disclose student names. Names are never used unless a student deserves special recognition at graduation for getting a huge scholarship. (The student signs a release - privacy laws are enforced in both schools.)</p>
<p>The kids know who does or does not get accepted to what school before any school administrator does. They share the joy or comfort each other via text messages. (They tell me but I tend to forget within a few minutes…) </p>
<p>My D’s school is very large and my S’s school is very small. We have been fortunate that their counselors have been with them every step of the way. They are right now sharing the same anxiety until the letters start to arrive. Of course we’ll share with them the results. </p>
<p>I’m always interested to know what post-high school plans the graduates of my kids’ school have – I don’t need (or retain) names, I just want to see them continue their education, if at all possible.</p>