Hi I am a white kid who goes to a private high school. I am currently a senior who’s wanting to go to a top 15-20 school (not going to say which one). As I became a senior, I am realizing more and more that I have less chance of getting in. I just checked my rank and it’s top 15% and the school that I want to go has 40% with top 1% and 95% with top 10%. With my senior grade, it might change a little bit but I don’t know much. I am taking the sat this October and hoping to get 1500. One of my parents works there but my counselor told me that this really doesn’t help with the admission process anymore. My extracurricular activities are pretty good but not outstanding.
1.If I do well on my sat, do you think I still have a chance despite having my rank?
2. Like my counselor said, does having a parent work in a college doesn’t mean anything?
3. I am bad with writing essays, which means that I won’t do very well on college essays. Does college essays affect the chance by a lot?
- Yes, you will have a chance.
- It depends what your parent does. Are they on cleaning staff or maintenance, or are they a tenured professor?
- At tippy top schools, essays matter a lot because that's how they separate out the perfect stats kids into ones they want on campus and ones they don't.
From your stats, you should feel that you have a chance, but not a great chance, especially if you’re looking at a school with a sub-10% acceptance rate.
Private high schools do not disclose rank to colleges. Your rank at your HS will not matter, and most private schools have many good graduates. Super-selective colleges will admit based on essays and EC’s because there are so many good candidates. No unhooked or unrecruited candidate has a high probability at <10% schools, so make sure you have applied elsewhere.
You need to talk to your college counselor at your private school. You will get much better advice there.
Obviously this isn’t true of ALL private HS. Check with your GC about yours.