<p>Can anyone give me links to examples of good HS profiles?</p>
<p>I'm sure this has been asked, but I tried the search function to no avail. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.</p>
<p>This thread helped me when I was creating a profile for my son's school. <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/142083-high-school-profiles-do-you-have-links-good-ones.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/142083-high-school-profiles-do-you-have-links-good-ones.html</a></p>
<p>I don't have a link to ours, but here's what's on it:</p>
<p>Ours is a folder with a pocket for transcripts.</p>
<p>Page one has address names and phone numbers of superintendent, principals, and counselors. Also that we were a Blue Ribbon winner (but not when since it was ages ago!), that we comply with NACAC principles. Then it has a half page description of the school in tiny type. Size, description of the building and programs, awards won by administrators or students in the last few years, number of athletic teams and which championships they have won. Per pupil spending.</p>
<p>Page two lists APs offered and how many students took them, but not what scores they received. Also a list of how many received various AP scholar awards. Then a section with 25th/75th and mean SAT scores. The latter both for all students and those going to 4 year colleges. Then a list of SAT subject tests taken and average scores. Then a list of NYS grad requirements. Then a list of what percentage of class goes to 4 year, 2 year colleges, military service, employment or other. Then the number of National Merit and National Achievement, and National Hispanic scholars. Then a list of what are honors courses. (Very confusing, but you can see that 3rd and 4th year Italian offers honors, but only 4th year Latin has honors, so anyone taking Latin gets less weighting.) Then they list the two courses that are offered at the high school but accredited by other colleges as concurrent enrollment (science research and a forensic science course).</p>
<p>Page 3 describes curriculum in a little more philosophically, describes a senior work program, the performing arts program and a mentoring program. This is pretty much repeat of page one, but is likely to stay hidden behind the transcript. On top of the flap for holding the transcript is decoding of abbreviations on transcript. You can see that honors/AP is same weight and that some courses aren't weighted ever and that summer school isn't counted in GPA.</p>
<p>Page 4 has a list of colleges where the previous class was accepted, but no numbers for how many or indication where they actually went.</p>
<p>PS Sometimes you can do better going to google and searching there. Put what you are looking for plus college confidential.</p>
<p>mathmom, good hint!</p>
<p>wjb, how is it you as a parent created the profile?</p>
<p>Son went to a start-up HS that had a dismal profile. I saw the need and volunteered to create a good one.</p>
<p>Here's a very obvious hint. Check and double check the grammar and spelling. Needless to say, we saw a profile that was cringe-worthy.</p>
<p>Our public h.s.'s profile is very similar to mathmom's. I don't have a copy in front of me, but I'm pretty sure two differences are that ours does not include any information at all about SAT IIs, and since our h.s. has no honors classes, there's no listing of them. All non-AP college level courses are listed though (here, these include SUNY and SUPA courses plus Science Research). This was the school D graduated from.</p>
<p>The profile from the private h.s. S1 attends is four pages with an insert (listing where kids have been accepted over the last two years, with asterisks indicating where they've actually matriculated). The front describes the school and its teaching method (Harkness tables), general information about its history, and a glancing mention of some special programs; then enrollment breakdown (gender, geographic diversity, % students of color, etc.); then the various accreditations. </p>
<p>Page 2 lists the minimum graduation requirements for all, the honors courses offered, the AP courses, and then it begins a rundown of "distinctive courses, clubs and programs," which continues all the way through the middle of p. 4, covering stuff like the thesis option, senior seminars, and the various performing arts stuff, plus community service requirements/options, and the four off-campus programs of study.</p>
<p>Middle of page 4 gets around to grading (explains school doesn't weight or rank; what the criteria are for Honor Roll & Dean's List; what it takes to be tapped for Cum Laude; what percent of the class year currently applying had a GPA over 90% (at the end of their junior year), and then my favorite sentence, initially the most shocking one to me after sending a kid through the public h.s.: The highest GPA for the Class of 200X is 94.4%* on a scale of 100. :eek: But now I'm used to it. Mostly.).</p>
<p>Then they break down the SAT, ACT, and TOEFL median scores. No SATIIs here either, btw.</p>
<p>It always ends with a quote or two from happy grads (they change them yearly, along with the numbers).</p>
<p>*that's the highest I've seen in S1's years there. Grade Deflation R Us is the school's unofficial motto.</p>
<p>
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what percent of the class year currently applying had a GPA over 90% (at the end of their junior year), and then my favorite sentence, initially the most shocking one to me after sending a kid through the public h.s.: The highest GPA for the Class of 200X is 94.4%* on a scale of 100. But now I'm used to it. Mostly.).
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I think this is one of the most useful pieces of info a high school profile can have, but I haven't seen it included in too many of them. (Mathson's GPA always seemed so high to me, because I went to a private school with a grading system similar to your son's school.) I know what the top 25 GPAs were for our school for Mathson's class because they were announced at one of the awards ceremonies, plus all the kid's other accomplishments, but what the bell curve looks like beyond that - I don't know.</p>
<p>I rather like that the average SAT2 scores are included on our profile. I wish they had the AP scores too.</p>
<p>I don't know but 4 pages seems like a lot when you consider thousands and thousands of application. My D's have gone to private HS and it is a 1 page school statement that covers just about everything listed here I think. If I was an admissions counselor I can't imagine reading 4 pages of just the school statement.</p>
<p>It's a 16 x 11 sheet folded, and printed on both sides. It doesn't look particularly daunting, though it is 4pp worth of material; the information is compactly and intelligently presented, and the layout is open and reasonably attractive.</p>
<p>The school is a 100+-year-old day/boarding school with a longstanding reputation. No doubt admissions officers who already know the school don't re-read the profile thoroughly each year (if they even look at it). That's probably the case with your school, too, khsstitches. :) It almost goes without saying that this is true of all the top prep schools, and hundreds of well known public schools, too. </p>
<p>School profiles serve other purposes too - private schools use them as recruiting tools, and strong public schools often share them with area realtors. Our education foundation uses the one from our public h.s., too, in pitching certain grants.</p>