Hi all,
I was wondering, in the case of more selective schools particularly, if the number of applicants to a certain college/university from your high school will affect your own chances of getting accepted into said institution. For example, if one person was accepted from your school at a competitive institution, would it make it less likely for other applicants from the same school to be accepted at that institution as well? Any insight would be appreciated, and thanks in advance!
The number matters less than the caliber of the other students. Some schools send a lot of students to the same university; some only send one (or even none). In the end, no matter how many seats your high school typically sends, all of the applicants are fighting for those particular seats.
Using another analogy, you’re probably more likely to send more students from a pool of 10 applicants that are all spectacular rather than a pool of 100 under-qualified ones.
Ah I see, thanks for the quick response @Burdened ! Going on with what you’re saying then, what do you think the chances of a student from an underperforming school but with scores and stats that are on par with a competitive institution (albeit on the lower side, think 25-50th percentile) would be? Again, thanks so much!
@Exwire In a lot of ways, test scores are what really help out students from under-performing schools. The discussion is frequently that there is a worry that GPAs at under-performing schools don’t mean a whole lot. After all, if the school doesn’t have a history of producing excellent students, what does a 4.0 from school even mean? Your SAT and ACT scores will help normalize it.
To be honest though, I wouldn’t worry too much about your high school. It’s one of the things no one can really do anything about (what are you going to do, transfer?) and if your goal is a prestigious institution, worry about things you can influence.
Ah, thanks for this info @Burdened , this really does help a lot (:
I agree with the response to the question but would like to clarify OP’s second post about an “underperforming” high school. Did you mean that as a school that never sends its graduates to a particular college, or one that is below the average metrics compared to its geographic peers, or something else?
The only loose end that I have, though, is that, regardless of school quality, does a competitive college/university try to avoid taking too many students from the same school even with similar excellent profiles (as in all the applicants at the high school are proven to be capable of attending and thriving at the institution)?
@Oregon2016 It’s both cases really, hope that helps (:
Probably should explain further though @Oregon2016 ,it’s a technical/vocational high school that underperforms even amongst its peers academically, which says a lot. I’m concerned because it’s also in New Jersey, which is a very strong state academically in general. My school is in the bottom third at least of schools in New Jersey based off of SAT scores last I checked, and its report card given by the state of NJ is just abysmal in all metrics really, including career and college readiness.
@Exwire I was on the same boat as you, I worked hard and got into the school I wanted aka as northeastern, first student in my whole history to get in, that was a shocker, I had a high GPA but I agree it meant very little, I breezed through all 4 years without ever studying… I got great scores and great EC’s ill tell you it was a challeneg as my school barely sent any student to tier 2 schools, most went to community or state, and that was a small percentage the rest idkk disappeared, I definetly agree do your part as a student with your SAT and ACT, to stand out. I hope in my case that since I was the first student from my highschool at my college I am able to open the doors to others from my school who want to do the same. I also went to a VOKE took automotive tech.
The answer is yes, competitive schools avoid taking “too many” but what that number is differs among high schools. Boarding schools and distinguished privates will send double digits to a single top tier each and every year. Well regarded publics will have less than that but the important thing is that it is consistent year after year. A notch below is the suburban public in a slightly higher income area (where I am) that doesn’t have a track record for getting kids into any one particular top tier but every year there are a handful of surprises at random top tiers. Then there are publics where only an exceptional student every other year attracts several offers from the elites.
This is just a very general differentiation based on my observations and reading. Much of the distinction is based on socio-economic demographics so understanding your own school’s profile and looking at Naviance (if your school has it) will help you figure out where it stands.
Our posts crossed. Basically the answer still is yes, it would be shocking if even one kid from this school got into an amazing college, forget 2 or more. This high school is not preparing its students for extremely competitive academic studies. However, chances are actually better for admission to a top tier as the exceptional kid at this school you describe than the average one at Basking Ridge or whatever really nice suburban public you pick. Geography plays a role too.
OP: I absolutely disagree with @Oregon2016 's post where he/she implies that there is some sort of cap at your high school for admitted students to top colleges. In my experience the top colleges don’t care. Oregon confuses correlation with causation. Indeed some schools rarely get admits to selective schools. Or singles every so often.That’s normal. But it’s not b/c the colleges are looking at some list of area schools and decide" Hmm. This year let’s admit one from XYX high school – who has applied?" or “Last year we admitted Joe from ABC high school. Jack has applied this year. Hmmm. They got one last year, let’s skip Jack”
That’s nonsense. From top schools’ perspective: they have no reason to choose btn high schools for numbers or frequency of admits. Their only goal is to admit the best applicants. The only reason to “set-aside” admit slots would be to … keep someone happy. Who? The principals of those schools? They couldn’t give a darn about anyone else but their own needs/wants. The quality of the individual applicant trumps everything else.
One year, my alma mater (with less than 8% admit rate) admitted FIVE kids from a school that sends 1 or 2 every few years. It was a statistical outlier for sure. But my school really wanted these kids. It was pure coincidence they all came from one HS.
There are no HS quotas in my +25 years of interviewing/recruiting.
I’m not sure if this is just coincidence, but I know one school where 7 out of 8 got in to the same selective school. The year after, believing that they would get a chance like the previous seniors did, 24 students applied to the same school and only 1 got in. The high school itself was pretty well known for having intellectual students and I am pretty sure they had similar stats.
There is much ground between “pure coincidence” and “quotas” (a word I intentionally never used). In the many tell-all books by admissions officers, private high schools with their dedicated college counselors routinely work to get about the same number of kids into each top tier college year after year. The counselors discourage kids from applying where others from the school are better fits, so there is an earlier filtering process that doesn’t happen at publics. My neighborhood high school has about 15-20 applications annually to Stanford with no acceptances in more than 5 years, while the high school across town in the same district with the same demographics sees 3-5 admits each year with the same number applying.
To think that an admissions staff builds its class without any regard to the high school and the numbers are COINKIDINKs isn’t a great revelation.