<p>Hello, I am a current 9th grader at Van Nuys High School in California. It's a pretty good school; I have a current 4.0 GPA and am taking two honor classes. I really want to have a math/science career, so I am wishing attend MIT. I know that if I keep it up, I will have a fair chance on getting accepted to MIT. </p>
<p>Even though I am doing so well, my parents want to move to the middle of nowhere in Texas. It's actually Tyler, Texas. I was looking in the internet for the 1000 best schools in America, and none of the high schools around were mentioned. I was wondering if this will affect my entire life goal?</p>
<p>My parents say that whoever wants to get good grades will get them anywhere. I know this is true, but do they only look at my profile, or also at the school? Thank you for your help.</p>
<p>The reputation of a school is extremely important. From anecdotal evidence I have noticed that some schools serve as feeders for the HYPSM. For example, look at Harvard-Westlake; they send around 10 people to Harvard each year. Without discounting the merit of those accepted from Harvard-Westlake, I think its fair to say that the school's reputation was a pivotal factor in their acceptance. </p>
<p>Sandoval448, if you are forced to move, deal with it and continue to get good grades. You still have a great chance at being accepted at your dream school. However, I think its fair to say that you will have to work a little harder (in terms of leadership and extracurricular) than others who attend "bigger named" schools.</p>
<p>Unless Van Nuys High School is a feeder school for MIT, it won't matter. I don't know what kind of school Van Nuys is. If it is a fairly normal school, then it won't matter at all. When you apply to college, the adcoms do consider what kind of high school that you attended, but it can't hurt you. They receive a "profile" from the hs along with your transcript, and it shows the # of AP courses offered, and the grade distribution, and other stuff. From that, the adcoms can get a pretty good idea of whether you took the most challenging curriculum available and what a given gpa means at that particular high school.</p>
<p>If the high school is a highly prestigious hs that has a large number of people applying to MIT, then that can hurt you some because MIT would consider how many people they can accept from a given high school. In "Admissions Confidential", Rachael Toors talked about this at Duke and said that they would even look at reports showing how many people applied from a given high school from previous years, and how many were accepted, and how many actually attended. From this, they would decide how many to take in the current year. Jay Mathews of the Wash Post and "Harvard Schmarvard" has also written about this. An exception are the feeder high schools such as Thomas Jefferson that feeds into UVA, and some of the NY high schools that feed into Cornell. For these high schools, the college relies on them to supply a large number of very qualified applicants who are likely to attend.</p>
<p>However, coming from a normal high school does not hurt your chances in terms of admissions. Of course, a person can get a better education at some high schools than others. In general, though, what matters is the applicant, not the high school.</p>
<p>Incidently, I think the Newsweek thing about best high schools in America is a bit of a joke. They do some funny things like give bonus points for # of AP classes taught with no consideration to the fact that everybody may be getting 1's and 2's.</p>
<p>For one, Tyler, Texas is not the middle of nowhere.</p>
<p>As for your high school, they look at your school's report. They look at what is offered and if you have taken the most rigourous classes that are offered. They know that not all schools have the same funding and such available, so each school is different. You just have to take advantage of what is offered.</p>
<p>i dont know actual stats, but i'd bet mit has a lot fewer students from texas than they do from california. so you might actually be better off in that you'd be a strong applicant from an area where they might not have that many strong applicants. and you'd have some new life experiences under your belt.</p>
<p>No I don't think high school name matters. But if you're a class valedictorian with 2400 SAT from Philips Andover or Exeter, things will be different.</p>