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You can’t blame a college for looking at two perhaps equally intelligent students and picking the one that has had an opportunity to take classes closer to college rigor than the usual hs honors classes.
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Sure you can. And I’m not sure that’s true. I think colleges recognize the kid who demonstrates that intelligence with less support and scaffolding. In crude numbers, a kid scoring in the 700-800s on SATs from a school where the average kid is getting 400s is more remarkable than one where everyone is getting 700s.
When my daughter was applying to colleges, we went to an information session and tour at Columbia. Someone raised a hand and asked the question, “Do you have a limit on the number of students you will take from any one high school?”
The admissions officer said no, but added, “Well, of course we’re not going to take a hundred from Stuyvesant.”
And half the room groaned. (We must have been there during Stuyvesant’s Spring Break.) There are far, far more than one hundred kids in each class at Stuyvesant who are viable candidates for Columbia. And they’re going to have a harder time getting in than an equally qualified kid from a school that sends Columbia fewer applicants.
This isn’t necessarily an adcom thing. I recall a conversation from an alumni interviewer from a well-known leading elite private college in the east. He and my son apparently didn’t have any rapport. After the interview he mentioned to me that he was comparing my son with other students from his public high school in the midwest who had attended that college in prior years, and also said something disparaging about how my son compared with those students. Nobody, including my son, was admitted to that college that year. I don’t know how many applied. He got an excellent education at UofC.
I think this all needs to be put in perspective. Elite colleges want a diverse class. If you pick too many kids from one HS it hurts the institutional objective of getting a diverse class. Also a lot of the kids at the boarding schools and at some of the competitive HS have had every conceivable advantage possible-from family money to a group of tutors. The elite schools want future leaders not kids who take the SAT 6 times to maximize their performance
But, elite high schools - public or private but maybe especially private - day or boarding - are using a lot of the same criteria to choose their students that colleges use, so it’s not surprising their grads do well in college admissions. A certain amount of selection has gotten those students there, and the resources are available to help them build strong applications. Those resources go way beyond repeating the SAT.
My husband grew up in Manhattan. He was the son of immigrant parents. While his parents spoke fluent English which they had learned growing up they were not very aware of schooling in NYC beyond going where you are assigned. He was in preschool and someone came to visit from Hunter and they sent home a note suggesting his parents contact them. Basically he went to Hunter from k-12 then to Columbia. His brother did the same a few years later. Interestingly their SAT scores while decent would not be thought of as ivy league material today - I think they both said in the 1300s though it is possible it has been so long they can’t remember their scores.
I grew up in NH and never heard of Hunter. I had no idea it was a school for gifted kids or anything. One day I glanced at maybe UN News and was surprised to see Hunter was mentioned as not counted since the SAT scored were too high or something like that. My husband had never told me it was a test school and living in MA/NH it was a name I had never heard. I was like oh it is like Boston Latin.
My kids attend a very diverse school that is low to middle income, lots of immigrants etc. There is nothing special to tell AO based on the school. However at a National College Fair when talking to various schools in New England when they heard the name of the high school many remarked that for my daughter may find the college less diverse then she is used to even though they were telling other kids how diverse they are.
Keep in mind that 2+ decades and further back, 1300(pre-1995 SAT scores here*) was well within the range to be an exceedingly strong contender for the Ivies. Heck, I knew plenty of HS classmates and those from my old neighborhood HS who were admitted to some Ivies…especially Cornell and Columbia SEAS with SAT scores ~1200 and up.
In most cases, if one converted one's pre-1995 SAT scores, they will rise by ~60-100 points unless one's math scores was above ~770...in which case they'd actually drop. This last part angered some HS classmates who were affected....even when it no longer mattered as they were all already admitted to elite colleges/universities...including HYPSMCC.
1300 was a very respectable to great score back then. Granted, at a public magnet like HCHS or peer rivals like Stuy or BxSci, 1300/1600 on the pre-1995 SATs meant one was below average in the context of the overall student body.
Back then, a 1300 score was one worthy of being bragged about even in some well-off suburban school districts. However, being known for that score at HCHS or peers like Stuy/BxSci would mean that student would be regarded by peers…especially those at/above the average as a bit dim.
That may be true for some, but not all competitive high schools.
For instance, when I attended my NYC STEM public magnet in the early-mid '90s, the vast majority of the student body were eligible for free/reduced priced lunches, application waivers, and full ride FAs to elite/respectable private universities provided we met the high admission requirements.
Most of us were also immigrants or first-generation Americans growing up in immigrant families(including yours truly).
Only the minority from the upper-east sider set among my HS classmates could have afforded to take the SATs more than twice. There’s also the factor that if one needed to take the SATs more than 2 times to get a “superscore” even if it had existed back then, the student concerned would be wise to keep that fact to him/herself considering far too many peers had no issues gaining exceedingly high/perfect SAT scores on the first and only time.
At our son’s school, each student took both the SAT and the ACT once to determine which test best suited that student and, only if necessary, took the best-suited test twice. Any more attempts were considered score-chasing and not a positive. The purpose of the scores is to indicate whether or not the student can do the work, not how high prep and test experience can inflate the numbers. The first sitting was the one that was most heavily used by the CC to determine which colleges were reaches/matches/and safeties for that student with grades and the rest of the student’s profile tempering those evaluations. As long as a student’s scores were at or above the average for the colleges applied to, testing was considered done because, at that point, test scores would not be the reason for rejection. The vast majority of students, like our son, took each test only once, but some did take a test twice. Any student who required more than two attempts to get into range for a particular college was counseled to look at other colleges.
“I think this all needs to be put in perspective. Elite colleges want a diverse class. If you pick too many kids from one HS it hurts the institutional objective of getting a diverse class. Also a lot of the kids at the boarding schools and at some of the competitive HS have had every conceivable advantage possible-from family money to a group of tutors. The elite schools want future leaders not kids who take the SAT 6 times to maximize their performance”
Colleges have been sending the message that more than three times would be a concern, and GCs have responded by recommending that students not take SAT or ACT more than two times or take both, figure out which one you’re stronger and take that a second time.
And elite schools’ SAT averages are 2250-2300 on the old system so 1500 give or take in the new one. They may want future leaders, but they want future leaders with very high test scores, like the top in the country. And you know who takes the SATs five or six times - athletes that need to qualify either for the scholarship or admission, or maybe both.
We live in California and my kid went to a public school. Lots of kids tried to do well. I wouldn’t use the word competitive to describe the school. The teachers , the counselors and the other students all seem to be supportive of the students. There was no drive to go to the Ivies… Each guidance college had about 600 students. I recall one of the boys got into Cornell didn’t like it and after two weeks or so transferred to UCSD
My children went to a competitive high school. I find the discussion about admit limits interesting, particularly comments about Yale. Over the past ten years Yale is about the only school to go deep into the class for this school. There is no geographical reason for the strong admit pool. Yale accepted 10 from my daughter’s class. That is about 5%. It was a very strong class that also sent a student to Deep Springs. In any average year it is 2 or 3. Last year it shot up to 6 again.
The best thing about competitive high schools is that your students hit the ground running when they enter college. The downside is that it is really hard to stand out for the selective schools. However, colleges are well aware of the quality of student entering their class.
@cobrat Keep in mind that 2+ decades and further back, 1300(pre-1995 SAT scores here*) was well within the range to be an exceedingly strong contender for the Ivies. Heck, I knew plenty of HS classmates and those from my old neighborhood HS who were admitted to some Ivies…especially Cornell and Columbia SEAS with SAT scores ~1200 and up
Yes my husband graduated high school in the 80s. He said he only took the SATs once and thinks he had high 1300s. I don’t know what SEAS is but it is possible - he started out as an electrical engineer and switched to computer engineering. He may be a bit dim but I love him anyway. He had a job offer before graduating and has happily been working in the computer engineering field since - right now he mostly does embedded systems and design engineering (not that I have a clue what those mean). He had in the 700s for math but not sure the exact number. His younger brother was the opposite and better in English and got a degree in Medieval English. He has done amazingly well since graduation.
That said my daughter’s friend goes to a very small private religious school. She insists her friend got into Harvard with a 900 on the SATs because they could tell how smart she was and know some kids just don’t test well. That was this year. I do wonder if maybe she meant 1900 though when I took the SATs they were out of 1600 and the same for my daughter who just finished her junior year so I’m not that familiar with the 2400 scoring.
A through admissions officer would have your application in one hand and your high school profile in another. Things like - how many AP classes are offered, average ACT/SAT scores tell a lot, they provide context for your achievements
" In crude numbers, a kid scoring in the 700-800s on SATs from a school where the average kid is getting 400s is more remarkable than one where everyone is getting 700s. In crude numbers, a kid scoring in the 700-800s on SATs from a school where the average kid is getting 400s is more remarkable than one where everyone is getting 700s." - That’s a good point. But I know a few kids (including one of my own) with stellar SATs that struggled with AP/IB courses and/or college. For better or worse, bright students are not always diligent and organized. That’s not to say that the high stats standout in a more typical school is not bright AND diligent… if fact, I suspect that most are.
The bottom line is that in the tippy top schools, it’s all about supply and demand. There probably is not totally fair way to decide who gets accepted.
