<p>Are students from these schools viewed more favorably by colleges or doesn't it matter at all?</p>
<p>I hope so! ;)</p>
<p>I would say that the opposite is true. If you have high calibre stats and recs coming out of a crummy high school, you are more desired. But the trick is to achieve high stats and recs at a crummy high school!</p>
<p>Even a Newsweek top 500 or 1000 High School should get a bump up.</p>
<p>well...in my experience...it seems the tippy top will get in (but would likely have, from anywhere) always. However, I have seen a disconnect with what people expect..."I go to a top 100 public school, so I am a lock for Yale, even with a C+ average" and what happens.</p>
<p>Well maybe not with a C+ for Yale, but what about a B+ for Lehigh or Brandeis (I'm using these as examples of really good schools, but not Ivy comparable).</p>
<p>Well, it can matter in a way - but not simply that your child attends a school in the top 100. What really counts of course is the individual performance of the kid attending the school. </p>
<p>The criteria for making those lists are just not as stringent/impressive to the top schools as some might think. Just for one crucial point, note that it doesn't matter how well students score on those AP exams - just that they sit for them. </p>
<p>So no, in no way is a top 500 a bump up. Not at a selective school.</p>
<p>But to answer the bigger question, yes, colleges like the ones you're mentioning, QM, do pay attention to the school profile - what's on offer, how other kids do - to help put each applicant in context.</p>
<p>Any idea if schools will be a little more lenient with subject test scores for kids coming from crummy schools if their SAT I scores are strong?</p>
<p>My son graduated from a top 100 public high school. The top kids got into wonderful universities.</p>
<p>I think at certain schools, yes. For example, I think the Ivy League and other prestigious private schools (ND, Stanford, Amherst, etc) love to see students coming from prestigious prep/private (or even public) high schools. On the other hand, public universities tend to match up environments and advantages depending on the strength of the school, be it weak or strong. So I would say it depends, but probably never hurts.</p>
<p>vc08, I'm trying to decide whether I agree with you or not. Because of things like the top 10% rule in Texas, it doesn't matter if you came from the best school in the state or the worst to UT because if you're in the top 10% then you're in regardless. I'm guessing that for the other 19% (81% of kids this year were auto-admits under the 1op 10% rule), well, who knows what they're looking for.</p>
<p>Likely it doesn't hurt. </p>
<p>But the top schools are paying attention to what they know about your school - from the school's profile, from history, and from experience (how kids from your school may have performed there) - much more than what any "top ___" lists try to tell them.</p>
<p>If kids from your "top ___" school have had great placements, chances are really good that the reasons for that have more to do with the students themselves than with the list.</p>
<p>I come from an area with virtually no private schools, and no charters, magnets or anything like that. Just regular public high schools, nothing special. Very few of them offer more than a smattering of AP classes, if they offer any at all.</p>
<p>There is one high school in the area that outperforms the rest however. Not saying it's comparable to brand-name prestigious schools, because it's not even close. It is, though, the best high school in this entire region of our state (mostly rural and small towns with 2 small cities.) When you look at admissions to selective colleges from this area, almost all the students are from this one high school.</p>
<p>I don't know if it's because college admissions officers look more favorably on students from that school, or if it's just that students from the school tend to apply much more often to selective colleges, as well as perform better on tests, and take advantage of the few AP offerings.</p>
<p>One way or the other though, it's totally lopsided around here in terms of which high school sends students to selective colleges and universities.</p>
<p>Right - but I'm curious, 'rentof2, is it on anybody's list? Or do the colleges just know what your school is about (from performance history, from a well-built school profile, etc.)?</p>
<p>Absolutely agree with Post # 12. To emphasize something Harriet touched on, if your HS is relatively unknown to college admissions offices, it's imperative to provide colleges with an informative profile, one that accurately portrays your school and lets colleges evaluate you in the context of your school and classmates. This article from College Board outlines the key elements of a good high school profile. Creating</a> Your School Profile</p>
<p>I'll look at that, wjb. I just created a thread about the high school profile.</p>
<p>While your high school's reputation for sending good and productive students to a particular college will help with admissions to that college, the contrary is also true if you are from a rural or inner city zip code from which the college (mostly elite colleges) has never had an applicant. Just this admissions season, I know a boy (not an URM and not a first generation) from a very remote and unusual US zip code who was accepted at every school to which he applied (including Yale and Stanford, etc).</p>
<p>Our high school is now being "restructured" under the No Child Act. It is pretty low on the totem pole. Every year we send at least two kids to an Ivy. This year we had two to the same Ivy and one to Stanford.</p>
<p>There's no inherent 'prestige' from attending a highly ranked public high school given that generally the only requirement to attend the school is to live in the school's catchment area. </p>
<p>As for whether it helps ones application I think it can be a double edged sword. If your right at the very top of the class then it comes across as being even more impressive; however, if you're strong but not at the very top I think you come across as being a bit average since these top schools are generally quite large and have tons of students that fit similar stats.</p>
<p><<<right -="" but="" i'm="" curious,="" 'rentof2,="" is="" it="" on="" anybody's="" list?="" or="" do="" the="" colleges="" just="" know="" what="" your="" school="" about="" (from="" performance="" history,="" from="" a="" well-built="" profile,="" etc.)?="">>>></right></p>
<p>Harriet, just this year it did make a list. It was ranked a "silver" school on the USNWR rankings. But that's the first time for anything like that, and its record of sending kids to top rank schools has been solid for many years. I don't know about the school profile. I mean I've seen what they send to colleges, but I'm not sure there's anything remarkable about it. It lists the number of AP classes offered and population and test score averages, etc. Nothing too noteworthy though, as I recall.</p>
<p>It may be that it's just the high school in the highest income district in this part of the state, and the correlation between parental income/education level and student achievement is pretty direct most of the time.</p>
<p>I don't know. I suspect some combination of reputation (relative to the area, anyway) and solid (but not spectacular) student achievement, along with just higher awareness of selective colleges and motivated students and parents combine in some way to make this school fairly successful at seeing its graduates go on in decent numbers to selective colleges.</p>