<p>That’s an amazingly successful scorecard for a school, and establishes a track record for those “A” students. You can see that your son’s acceptance to Cornell is likely, and if he is interested in engineering/CS, it is probably his best fit among the Ivies. MIT and Caltech have EA applications, so he should think the timing of his applications and whether he wants to apply ED to Cornell.</p>
<p>I don’t know how many actual kids produced those accceptances. As good as I think my son is, he swears there are kids way better. How can you be way better than straight A+? Anyway, while he agrees he’s among the good ones, even the “ordinary” kids here are pretty impressive.</p>
<p>One third of the class completed at least 8 AP courses, more than half the class completed at least 5. It’s always like this here. From an early age, they get the kids used to excellence. By the time they graduate, most of them have been handling a college workload already.</p>
<p>^ Does your school have Naviance? That’d give you a good idea in terms of stats.</p>
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<p>Possibly grade inflation. Pay attention to your son. It is possible for two students to have the same grades and yet for one to be a lot stronger/smarter than the other. The students can often tell and so can the teachers, and sometimes that can get reflected in the recommendation letters.</p>
<p>In a school like this, you should make sure your son takes the ‘most rigorous’ curriculum and preferably has several AP scores under his belt (hopefully all 5’s) by the end of junior year.</p>
<p>I understand grade inflation. I also know that despite his grades, there are a few kids who are much smarter. I know some of them, they’re his friends. His best friend already finished the entire high school math curriculum. He’s only 15. There is one girl who every kid had called Valedictorian since she was in 4th grade, and she has lived up to the name. Some will graduate with credit for 14 AP courses. No doubt there are some truly exceptional kids here.</p>
<p>He is taking a rigorous curriculum. He just finished his first AP as a sophomore (score will come over summer). He’s taking 3 more next year, along with honors precalc, plus another RIT engineering course. Senior year will be all AP. Rigorous, but fairly common for this school.</p>
<p>Chardo</p>
<p>May I suggest you and son try to watch Quantum Hoops, dvd. It is documentary of coach and Caltech basketball team. It was completed the year prior to Caltech’s big win. Many of the players never played on HS teams.</p>
<p>Personally, I think his academics and sports are more than enough. My son wasn’t as well-rounded, but did do state competitions, tutored math, that kind of thing. Son’s HS never made it to top 1000 schools. Your son seems quite qualified for top tech schools, MIT/Cornell/CMU/Caltech/p-ton/RpI/Wpi etc</p>
<p>Our latest admits to MIT were smart kids (one a val and the other NMF) who did not do a whole lot besides robotics team - something they spent a lot of time on. There are no highly ranked (academically) high schools in our area, so their interviews and essays had to help carry them. ECs were average at best but something made the schools really want them (not only MIT but everywhere else they applied as well).</p>
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<p>Not so curiously, actually.</p>
<p>Penn State has rolling admissions. If you apply early, you get your decision early. And you enhance your chance of getting in by applying early. Moreover, Penn State does not discriminate against out-of-staters in admissions. The school is happy to admit them and take the extra tuition money that an out-of-stater pays. And on top of all of the above, they have an honors program that many well-qualified students find attractive.</p>
<p>As a result of all of the above, Penn State is a popular safety school for kids from all over the eastern United States.</p>
<p>On another topic – the more I read this thread, the more it seems to me that your son is destined for Cornell. He’s interested in engineering, which is one of Cornell’s strongest areas; he’s from a high school that sends lots of kids to Cornell, so he would know some people from day 1; and his chances of admission look pretty good. As long as he’s willing to work very hard, it could be a great choice. </p>
<p>But when I say he would have to work hard, I mean VERY hard. My daughter is a Cornell student who has friends in most of the different colleges there. The ones in Engineering have to work harder than anyone else (certainly a lot harder than she has to work in the College of Arts and Sciences). For my daughter, who came from a high school that sounds similar in terms of academic rigor to your son’s, Cornell is actually easier than high school. But this would not be the case if she were in Engineering.</p>
<p>I agree with this who say that a kid’s choice of ECs should flow from his own interests. One comment, though, is that sometimes parents can help kids find out about opportunities. An example of this is competitions–if the school doesn’t tell him about them, he might not know. My D recently got an award in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards–there was never a peep about this program from any of her teachers–we found about it online after she got interested in writing.</p>
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Best high school in the country? Under which ranking system?</p>
<p>US News & World Report’s annual ranking of top high schools in America. I think they base it largely on AP exams–scores, average per student, etc. I always thought lists like this were dubious at best. However, we’re always on the list, and it was nice to be #1 a few years ago.</p>
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<p>Same with my D. Neither of her two high schools had mentioned this writing competition, but they were happy to boast about her awards and share the credit when she got them ;)</p>
<p>"I agree with this who say that a kid’s choice of ECs should flow from his own interests. One comment, though, is that sometimes parents can help kids find out about opportunities. "</p>
<p>I agree totally with this.</p>
<p>Whether or not a student is hoping to be accepted to an Ivy, part of a parent’s job is to help a student identify their interests, strengths and talents and to then help a student find ways to explore activities related to those things. This will be helpful to the student throughout their life: in determining what career to enter as well as what hobbies to participate in.</p>
<p>My younger son was very timid and perfectionistic, and if I had let him, he would have spent all of high school thinking about what activities to pursue instead of getting involved in some.</p>
<p>When he was a freshman, I gave him a reasonable amount of time to make up his mind, and then told him that I’d pick activities that I thought he’d like, and if he didn’t like them, he could switch into something of his own choice at the end of the semester.</p>
<p>He tried several activities that way, and ended up deeply pursuing community service, something he had always loved doing. By the time high school ended, he was in a countywide leadership position and had won the county’s youth volunteer of the year award for a project that he had instituted. </p>
<p>I think that due to his experience with ECs in high school, in college, he had the guts to explore a lot of things: community service, photography club, swing dance club, a Brazilian martial art, a hip hop group, volunteering with local arts activities, and theater – which to everyone’s surprise ended up becoming his major and deep passion.</p>
<p>He’d participate in activities that interested him even when none of his friends were interested, and he has grown into a socially comfortable person who understands that you don’t have to be perfect to get involved in activities that interest you.</p>
<p>That to me is what’s important: Encouraging our kids to get involved in things so that they become fulfilled, happy and employable. We’re not just raising our kids to get into college, we’re raising our kids so they can be happy and fulfilled throughout their lives including in retirement.</p>
<p>Best advice from a college application reader who happens to be a friend “Colleges like to see a depth of interest. If you are interested in one thing, delve into that interest. They can tell who is just trying to pad their resume.” My son took this to heart. He’s a competitive tennis player and he didn’t have time for tons of EC’s. So he was very successful in tennis (nationally ranked) and was a member in NHS and CSF. That’s it. No leadership positions accept for two time captain of the tennis team. He got into some excellent schools (waitlisted at two Ivies) and most importantly, I had a happy child. Oh, he is Scholar of Scholars so I am sure that had something to do with his acceptances.</p>
<p>No leadership positions “except” being a nationally ranked tennis player and 2-time captain of his school team?</p>
<p>That’s pretty good leadership right there. You can drop the “except” part.</p>
<p>hahaha. I really was being serious. At his high school there are so many really smart kids with tons of leaderships positions (positions in Junior Statesmen of America, NHS, CSF, Science Olympiad, various clubs, etc.) My son did not have time for ANY of that. He didn’t even think being captain of the team counted… I guess the admissions people saw it as you did and for that, I am grateful.</p>
<p>Oh, hahaha. accept instead of except… That’s a terrible mistake. Guess he didn’t get his brains from me! :-)</p>
<p>The Ivy admits from our local non-competitive high school have been regular kids with high rank and SAT scores. They all have fit the well-rounded nice kid description. It makes me wonder why more people don’t give up the admissions race craziness and come to not so great schools where their kids can stand out academically and lead less stressful lives.</p>
<p>“accept” is a golden word around here</p>
<p>chardo: I agree with you regarding + and - for best high school in the country. There will be many students from his school with top grades and ecs, but I would not discourage him from applying. Also, there may be other highly rated schools in the area competing for the same spots at the ivies. I am continually encouraging my son, who also has high hopes for the ivies, to keep his options open.</p>
<p>You may want to speak with the hs guidance counselor to find out his rank (if they rank) to see where he academically fits within his class. Has he taken any practice tests for the PSAT, ACT, or any SAT IIs? These tests should also help determine if he is on target for those ivies.</p>