People will often talk about whether their high school is competitive or give other descriptions like size, special programs etc. How much, and in what ways, does this matter to admissions? (Clearly it matters in that high school is theoretically preparing students to handle their college classes; I’m just talking about getting in.) How do you define competitive – US News rankings? Test scores? AP classes or IB program? Are college admissions departments aware of particular high schools that they see over and over again and does that matter?
It seems like it does matter to some extent, based on the results I see from kids from our HS compared to others that are in the area, but not considered as “good”. kids with similar GPA and test scores seemed to have better results at competitive colleges. Is it that the HS is “better” or that the college has admitted more successful students from our HS than some others? Not clear. Is this a big factor? Also not clear, but can tip the scales a bit.
There is selection bias too consider. Parents who choose to live in a district with better, more competitive schools are also more likely to promote selective schools to their kids.
As you probably know, AOs are assigned by region. They know the schools in their region from school profiles, visits, and previous applicants. If you are at a "competitive " school, many unis probably know your school well already. The main disadvantage could be when applying to colleges that are not “usual suspects”, i.e., outside the geographic area and not visited by reps and/or solely stats based.
A college wants to admit the top kid from a low-performing school to give him a chance but also recognizes there’s a big risk if he truly isn’t prepared. Not so with a high-performing school.
As for “edge”, not sure it’s really that as much as a consideration.
Certain competitive public high schools are on every top college AO’s radar. They may not be the schools that rank the highest in any particular listing as many of the ranking systems use criteria that eliminate public schools with highly selective or restrictive admissions. These are schools with astounding numbers of high scoring students. The best way to identify these schools is to look at the state National Merit result lists each year. For example, in NYC, Hunter College High School and Stuyvesant HS are in a class by themselves, with as many as a third of Hunter students scoring Semi-Finalist and another third Commended, and Stuy recording over 100 NMSF. At these schools, HYPMS (and other highly selective college) AO’s know that they can look beyond the top 10% (that is usually regarded as a cut-off around here for the most selective schools) and still find outstanding candidates.
Yes it matters to some degree. but I think more to depth of the student body. I very good public high school system might have kids in the upper quartile that are qualified for selective unis, but a poorly managed public high school might only have a handful of students. I think massive amounts of classes don’t matter, but what kids do individually within the high school they attend does matter. But typically standardized tests bear out the realities. The trick is to figure out which kids from a grade inflationary or poor high school will actually succeed in that college.
I think it does matter in terms of how “standout” you need to be at your high school. At competitive high schools (which the top schools usually recognize based on previous applicants, test scores, school profiles etc.), students don’t need to rank as highly to be considered by selective colleges. AOs know that even a student ranked 15/100 will be academically prepared and would likely have been ranked higher if they had attended a less competitive school.
I think posters on CC often include descriptions of their high school to contextualize their rank when looking for school selection advice or chancing advice. A student who may only be at the 50th percentile at a highly competitive high school is likely looking at very different colleges from a student at who is at the 50th percentile at even an average high school.
I think it’s helpful to go to a high school with a reasonable cohort of kids taking advanced courses, but it doesn’t need to have a good ranking in the USNWR or even the local magazine. AO’s know their schools and seem to do a pretty good job of figuring out who to talk. In our very large high school the top 5 - 10% of the class or so (maybe more) goes to very selective colleges. Meanwhile a goodly number go to 2 year colleges or the armed services and too many never graduate at all.
Colleges definitely know how the gpa distributions are different from HS to HS. Some schools are much tougher graders than others.
There are advantages to a tough high school, but there can also be disadvantages. A student who takes a very rigorous schedule, but gets quite a few B’s, may be at a disadvantage compared to a school that has easier grading.
I’m convinced the HS matters a lot. Beyond the top BS and a few NYC privates, how colleges rank schools is a mystery known only by the adcoms.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/13/making-harvard-feeder-schools/
That title with “Harvard feeder schools” shows how regional ALL colleges are.
On some threads I see students stating they come from a top/competitive HS and think this means lesser stats are needed. In the upper Midwest there are so many good public schools and few private ones like in the NE. Well, if your HS is great you ought to be doing well and getting good grades. The students from schools without the same offerings are not penalized by UW-Madison, for example. There is an advantage in being given the opportunity to learn more at some schools but there may also be the rich and highly educated parents as well.
Anecdotal but students DO get into Ivies from ordinary public schools in the Midwest. Not many because most don’t care about them. For other top tier schools including state flagships I think students presume too much about their HS.
PS- there is plenty of academic quality outside any national rankings.
I think, going against the grain here, that a top student has a better chance from a “non-competitive” high school, because if you do well by all the standard measurements, it can signal to the colleges you got there with less help. The HS in my town is the opposite of competitive–and yet the top students go to top colleges. And let’s keep in mind, less competitive means, basically, lower SES, so less advantages across the board–let’s not blame the schools that Johnny-middle-of-the-class didn’t get into an Ivy. There’s way more reasons that most students from a given school don’t go to top colleges–it’s not a matter of “poorly run”–but more likely lower funded, students with more challenges, families with other necessary priorities, etc. A highly competitive school basically says, it’s either a magnet, or a high average SES.
@wis75
Are you saying Harvard gives a geographic admissions boost to students if they are from the north east?
This can depend greatly on the nature of a given competitive high school. Some such as some respectable/elite NE boarding schools can provide a lot of nurturing and sometimes dare I say it, “coddling”* support for their mostly high SES students.
Other respectable/elite boarding schools and public magnets/topflight public school systems could also be sink-or-swim**…such as my experience at one of the NYC STEM-centered public magnets or fall somewhere between the two extremes.
- Taking this from some college classmates who were alums of some of those elite/respectable boarding schools who inexplicably felt our LAC Profs were "too rigid" with deadlines and had academic expectations which were "too high" despite the fact from my perspective they were seemingly giving extensions on assignments/final papers/exams at the drop of the hat and those academic expectations were par for the course for a respectable college....and far less/easier than those of my public magnet. .
** This sink-or-swim atmosphere/attitude among many teachers was one of the things even HS classmates/friends who graduated from elite schools…including HYPSMCC noted with varying reactions ranging from pride to complete disgust.
@roethlisburger: Harvard definitely gives an admissions boost to kids from Boston. Maybe a smaller one to New England kids as well.
This shouldn’t be extremely surprising. BTW, Duke does the same with Carolina kids and UChicago with Chicago kids. Cornell has feeder relationships with various NYS HS’s. UPenn and WashU (among others) seem more willing to admit kids from their metro.
All I know is that every kid that posts on CC attends the most competitive high school in his state or one of the most competitive high schools in the country.
The Penn situation is pretty well known, but how true is it for the other elite schools?
At UChicago, a big chunk of their URM recruiting is done in the city, but they are definitely are taking fewer Midwest kids under the current admissions regime. They also take more than 10 a year from Chicago Lab.
Our HS sends alot kids to Northwestern, but the vast majority of them apply ED. The RD acceptances are much are much harder to come by.
Rice publicly admits that they are trying to take fewer Texas kids, and their percentage of in-state kids seems to be declining all the time.
Notre Dame gets a huge amount of applications from the Chicago and Northern Indiana area, and their Naviance figures suggest that the acceptance rates are lower for Chicago area schools.
Not every kid! I’m happy to state that mine went to “barely adequate” and it was fine. 
@Zinhead, note that for UChicago, I specifically said “Chicago” kids instead of “Midwest” kids. The U of C had always had disproportionate representation from the East Coast, anyway.
And note that I specifically mentioned certain elites that I was sure of and not all elites.
Remember that applicants are considered within the context of their high schools and are only compared to other applicants from the same high school; applicants from SmallTown High are only compared to other applicants from SmallTown High, not against applicants from BigTown High or any other school. If a student is the only applicant from that high school, then the evaluation is how well that student performed within the context of what that school offered which is known by the school profile. So, the competitiveness of a high school matters but only in the sense that applicants from that school are evaluated against each other based on what was available to them at that school.
In the case of well-known highly-competitive schools like the NE boarding schools, college admissions folks are definitely aware of the academic environments these applicants are coming from (and do not rely on magazine rankings for anything). The question of whether applying from these schools helps or harms a student has been debated ad nauseam on the Prep School forum. It is hard to be a standout student in a pool of cherry-picked high achievers, and colleges are only going to take so many from each of these schools even though almost every student is academically qualified to do well at any of them. So, students targeting any particular college from these schools may be at a disadvantage or disappointed, but all go on to fine colleges. The boarding schools just do a great job of helping students understand just how many fine colleges are out there. 