<p>During my search for good High schools (private and also public) I came across matriculation number for many schools where there were high numbers to Ivies but a low number (as compare to Ivies) to MIT/CIT.</p>
<p>I was never able to get a clear answer from the private Schools adminstration about it but some public schools did admit that the high number to a particular school is due to legacy/Employee status.</p>
<p>Do you agree if the above matriculation rate is true than most of Ivies admission from that school is result of legacy/special admissions.</p>
<p>The reason I was able to come up that MIT/CIT are the only top schools that doesn't give too much weightage to legacy status.</p>
<p>Just an observation so don't bash me up on this. </p>
<p>Does it make sense? Do you think lack of matriculation to MIT/CIT but a high matriculation to Ivies is the indication of high legacy/special admissions.</p>
<p>It is true that private schools have a higher proportion going to Ivies because many are traditional feeder schools. In contrast, traditional feeders for MIT are public magnet schools. However, matriculation is mainly a numbers game.</p>
<p>Caltech only takes 200 kids per year so very few high schools will be will be represented.</p>
<p>MIT only takes 1000 kids per year. </p>
<p>Ivy freshmen classes (approximate)</p>
<p>Cornell 3400
Penn 2500
Harvard 1700
Columbia 1400
Brown 1400<br>
Yale 1300
Princeton 1200
Dartmouth 1000</p>
<p>Every ivy league school except Dartmouth takes many more kids per year than MIT. </p>
<p>I knew many legacies and families where every single sibling went to MIT, so I don't think there's a major difference in those types of admissions.</p>
<p>Along with Russ456's point about Ivies accepting more people, there is also the fact that schools like MIT and Cal Tech appeal to a much narrower range of students. If there is a student who is good enough to get into both Harvard and MIT, they will almost certainly choose Harvard unless they have a strong interest in engineering, etc. And even then they might chose an Ivy that is strong in engineering if they don't like the tech school atmosphere. So for instance, in my year at my highschool, there was one guy who went to Brown for engeneering, who applied early: he didn't even want to give MIT/Cal Tech a shot. Everyone else who went to Ivies (and other top schools that weren't MIT, Cal tech and Olin, because we did happen to send people to all three) had no interest in the kind of education tech schools offer.</p>
<p>There is also the fact that MIT and Cal tech are harder for the average top student to get into than at least some of the lower tier Ivies, unless they are particularly math/science focused.</p>
<p>I think without knowing the school it's very hard to say. </p>
<ul>
<li>It might be because of legacy status</li>
<li>It might be because the school is a traditional feeder school for one or more Ivies, or one of the Ivies is particularly well-known or well-respected or instate</li>
<li>It might also be because the school is relatively weak in science and math. Perhaps the science and math teachers are disliked or are seen as hard markers or weak teachers or are just not very inspiring so people are put off from going to science heavy colleges or don't see math or science as the choice of the very best students. Perhaps they don't encourage students to take part in the competitions schools like MIT/Caltech favor but have a good record in nat latin, for example. Perhaps they don't offer many suitable APs. </li>
<li>It might be because the guidance system is more knowledgable about Ivies than about MIT/Caltech, or sees Ivy admission as more positive or likely, or they put great emphasis on the benefits of a well-rounded liberal arts education, or on the likelihood of people wanting to change their major to something completely different. </li>
<li>The school might have a huge gender difference. </li>
<li>There might be a path dependency developed where people don't see anyone from their school going to MIT/Caltech so they think they wont get in or there wont be anyone like them at those schools. </li>
<li>It might just reflect the fact that there are more Ivies and they have bigger freshman classes.</li>
<li>It might just be random chance.</li>
</ul>
<p>POIH, do you even look at MIT and Caltech and the majors and type of programs they have? they are VERY different than the "Ivy's"...and many kids no matter how smart, are interested in a different type of school and to throw Caltech into the mix is just weird, it is very small, attracts a special kind of student</p>
<p>what is your point exactly, that some schools don't send tons of kids or any kids to MIT or Caltech and that somehow that makes the highschool not great?</p>
<p>How many send students to the Academies, or to Theater Schools? PreLaw?</p>
<p>MIT and Caltech are NOT everyones cup of tea,nor should they be</p>
<p>Here is what I think: Once again it is my thinking, just give your opinion and don't just tell I'm wrong. i might be but this is a guiding force I have.</p>
<p>MIT admissions have been found to be very competitive and a very good measure of Science math curriculumn at the High School.</p>
<p>What I observed that schools having high matriculation to MIT also have high Matriculation to Ivies but the reverse was not true.</p>
<p>So I raised this question whether the high matriculation is due to legacy or special connections.</p>
<p>"What I observed that schools having high matriculation to MIT also have high Matriculation to Ivies but the reverse was not true."</p>
<p>But you don't know what people from schools that matriculate people to both Ivies and MIT/CalTech are doing at the Ivies. Perhaps they all doing engineering at the Ivies as well, showing simply that their school is strong in math/science and relatively not so strong in other subjects. On the other hand, perhaps they are doing languages, or business, or history, whatever, at the Ivies, showing that their school was producing some people who were very good at science, but also some people who were very good in other subjects.</p>
<p>But can then it be said if the school doesn't have a equally good number of matriculation to MIT then certainly their Math/Science department is not great.</p>
<p>I'm not trying to be sarcastic or disrespectful when I ask this. I would genuinely like to know:</p>
<p>What in your mind are you concerned will happen if your daughter does not matriculate to an Ivy? (Either not being accepted to one, or being accepted and choosing a different college.)</p>
<p>There's absolutely nothing wrong with seeking an Ivy. Please do not get me wrong. One of my children goes to one, and I promise you we are not legacy, btw, nor recruited athlete, nor URM. I'm just concerned because you seem so singularly focused on Ivies and strategizing & collecting comparative data.</p>
<p>So I would like to know your feelings about what do you associate with <em>not</em> enrolling in an Ivy league school? Do you think it will affect her future negatively if her undergraduate school is not an Ivy?</p>
<p>russ: "I knew many legacies and families where every single sibling went to MIT, so I don't think there's a major difference in those types of admissions."</p>
<p>There is a difference. Having a relative go to MIT does not increase your chances of getting in. They have no legacy policy. If a whole family got in, it's because they were all smart.</p>
<p>POIH, just because a school doesn't have lots of kids going to MIT doesn;t mean didly about the school....</p>
<p>think of it this way, if you can</p>
<p>you have 8 buckets, the ivies, one bucket is for those that like green buckets, while all the other buckets are shades of blue</p>
<p>more people like blue buckets, so they all put their balls in the various blue buckets, many FEWER like green buckets, so fewer go into that bucket</p>
<p>when you add up the other buckets, you will over course have more balls</p>
<p>and you may have NO balls in the green bucket because maybe that year one liked green, it happens</p>
<p>and some people want a more rounded education, and not such a focus on the sciences and math, it does happen with hundreds of thousands of students</p>
<p>epiphany: No, I don't think her future will be impacted negatively if she don't matriculate to Ivies. That is why I send her to a private prep school so that where ever she ends up she should shine academically.</p>
<p>But yes I'm bit more obsessed than normal towards sending my child to a good school but not just becuase of prestige but also for a good education.</p>
<p>I know there are lot more schools that can provide good education and that is what I try to look for. I have looked for matriculation patterns at many top private and public high schools to know where the students are heading to know about what the top schools are.</p>
<p>I've not gone to University in USA so I'm not aware of all the good Universities and my preliminary lists are more from the top 30 US News list and I add and remove depending upon what I hear for each school.</p>
<p>My daughter has her own list and she picks up colleges or remove with information from her schools adminstration and students.</p>
<p>This is just to make sure I took the right decision to skip schools with such admission patterns. Just having a second thoughts.</p>
<p>It's too hard to draw a conclusion about what specific factors would cause the matriculation patterns for a high school...</p>
<p>With a prep school like Exeter, the absence of people matriculating to MIT with respect to HYP might mean something (i.e., getting into HYP with less credentials through legacy status.) However, with most high schools, there are just too many variables at work. The tech school atmosphere is major factor in choice of school as is the fact that MIT is more associated with the working class than are HYP. To many people, having your kid go to HYP is like rising in station to use an old-world phrase. HYP is also easier to do well at than MIT and the competition is more diluted in terms of intelligence since HYP select for other things sometimes. Plus, most people think HYP have better campuses than MIT (part of the tech school atmosphere again.) And of course, the most obvious factor is that MIT generally only gets people interested in science or engineering.</p>
<p>ParentOfIvyHope, not really, no. There are so many other factors that might influence it. To give you an example, no-one in my school applied to Harvard, even though it is undoubtedly an excellent school and our most local Ivy. People did apply to Princeton, Yale, Stanford. People didn't apply to Harvard because in my school it has a really bad reputation, it's seen as elitist, snobby, aggressive. Really there is no reason for anyone to believe that the same is not true of PYS, but the reputation is there, it's reinforced by the guidance counselor at my school who has a great dislike of Harvard, and people did not apply. It's possible that the same is true of MIT at the school you know of, and that would be just one example of something that might explain the difference other than the strength of the math or science departments.</p>
<p>POIH, the problem is that you are assuming that you can't get a good education out of the top few, which is just such an elitist, presitige hungry attitude</p>
<p>what about the hundreds of other amazing schools? why this attitude that oly an education at the most famous few is all there is?</p>
<p>citygirlsmom: I think you misunderstood the reason.</p>
<p>What I said that if the matriculation to any of the following colleges
HYPS
is > 5 but the corresponding matriculation to MIT is not.</p>
<p>I didn't say MIT admission and collective IVIES admissions.</p>
<p>Second, yes I might be biased towards prestige but who doesn't. </p>
<p>It ceratinly adds to your education if it is from a prestigious Institute. You can discount it but in reality it does add.</p>
<p>You might be the best brain but if it doesn't have the stamp of a good institute you will have to prove it everytime you change the jobs/place. </p>
<p>If you introduce yourself from an elite Education noone need another information. </p>
<p>I can give you tons of real world example where the Institute counts more than the person.</p>
<p>Try applying to Google, your resume won't get past the HR unless you are from the select few institutes.</p>
<p>It depends on the job, really. If you are talking about getting a job on Wall Street or one of these prestigious consulting firms (McKinsey, etc.), then you are right. They take boatloads of people from the top 5 schools--pretty much all you need is a good GPA. Med school is not quite like that, especially since they have the MCAT as an equalizer. However, it still helps.</p>