<p>I agree. I’ve seen it in my youngest D’s high school. It’s often the case that when one student from the high school gets into one of the selective LACs, the following year there are usually more students who apply and are admitted. The adcoms become familiar with a particular high school and know that the kids from the school do well and students in the following years are admitted. I saw it with my D and a classmate–the two of them were the first kids from their high school to go to a selective LAC (there had been one other student admitted years before). Both of these kids did well and thereafter more kids from the high school applied to the LAC and the LAC admitted more kids from the school. </p>
<p>In the worlds of both boarding school and (private) college admissions I tend to believe there are way more allegiances and battle lines than anyone would ever imagine. At my son’s high school there was a definite “romance” with a handful of schools. If a graduating class has less than 100 kids and at least 25 are accepted at one school it’s hard to hide. :)</p>
<p>I think it’s less about not liking a high school or turning down admission and more about being unfamiliar with it. Our high school in Northern California (which is ranked approx. 200 of public HS by US News) typically has 5+ kids attending U of M every year. Michigan knows our high school, the kids do well and pay the out of state fees. Our high school always does well with Stanford too (anecdotally most admits are legacies), but almost never gets a kid into Georgetown or Notre Dame. Do those colleges dislike the our high school? I say doubtful. I just think there’s only so many slots for California and they don’t know our high school. We’re told (no proof) the our local parochial schools get many more admits Georgetown and Notre Dame. If true, is that because they like Catholic/Jesuit kids better or the kids from those schools do well and therefore they have an established base. I think it’s the latter. Who knows. </p>
<p>A Catholic high school is more likely to have Catholic students who are more interested in attending a Catholic university, so it would not be surprising if more were admitted, simply because more applied.</p>
<p>Our son went to a Catholic high school. I think it was a mutual-admiration type of relationship. Catholic colleges did a great job of recruiting kids at his school. (I think Dayton handed out merit scholarships as a matter of course to over half of the graduates.) And more than half of the kids from his graduating class ended up at a Catholic college. Not sure which came first—the chicken or the egg, but there was definitely a stronger relationship between the guidance staff at his school and Catholic schools than there is with our daughter’s public school. </p>
<p>Well… the public school probably has a significantly higher percentage of non-Catholic students who would be less interested in attending a Catholic university than Catholic students, right?</p>
<p>The caliber of students from son’s Catholic school getting into prestige Catholic universities seemed to be just a step below those from daughter’s public school, though. And the amount of automatic merit aid being offered to good but not great students at son’s Catholic high school by decent Catholic universities and LACs seemed a little out of whack in comparison, too. </p>
<p>The class prior to my child’s graduating class did some stupid obnoxious things on their applications at a handful of colleges. Almost everyone of the colleges held a grudge and denied stellar applicants for the next class from this high school.<br>
So they cut off their nose to spite their face. I wish I had known before applications so I could have saved some money.</p>
<p>I think this is an interesting question. I was browsing Naviance from S’s high school and there are definitely some outliers with more acceptances than expected and more rejections than expected. School does a bit better than average at Harvard, Princeton, and Brown. No one seems to get into Stanford. </p>
<p>Anecdote does not equal evidence. But it is interesting… </p>
<p>I’m skeptical of the idea that whether students from a high school do well at a particular college affects later applicants to that college. Is there really a feedback loop to admissions on how well students do? I do think that if a couple of students go to a “fresh” college from a high school, and really like it there, others will follow.</p>
<p>Back when boarding schools had the inside track on admissions to elite private colleges, it used to be a common practice for those colleges to not only track student performance from such boarding schools, but also to send grade transcripts back to the headmaster. </p>
<p>This is probably one basis for those ideas. </p>
<p>My son came from a HS pretty much unknown to schools outside the south and NE. Once every 5 years, someone gets into Harvard. I counseled son’s close friend to apply to Princeton and he got in, and he was Presidential scholar. I did not think he would get into Yale. My son was the first and last to attend his college. His close friend, a year younger, was accepted and chose another school. I don’t think any one has ever been accepted into Stanford or Yale. </p>
<p>It definitely is an uphill battle from an unknown HS than from the prep schools in area. </p>