<p>Does your school have a good high school profile with all the necessary information related to grade distribution, SAT averages and ranks so adcoms can make the right judgment in deciding whether your kid is competitive in this school regardless of grade policy? the school profile on S' school website doesn't seem to include all that info. Would the adcom be given a more complete profile than what's on the website? I'm asking because the profile is key and that's what the adcoms look at to compare your kid to the rest of the class.</p>
<p>Our school hired a college specialist last year to assist the overworked guidance counselors, and one of the first things she did was redo the profile, which was in need of work. You might ask the school for a copy of the profile they send out with the transcripts; it is possible that it is different than what you see on the website. I agree that it is a very important piece in the admission process.</p>
<p>Here's an example of what our school provides with each transcript sent to colleges....<a href="http://simsbury.ccsct.com/uploaded/SHS_Content/Guidance/Profile.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://simsbury.ccsct.com/uploaded/SHS_Content/Guidance/Profile.pdf</a></p>
<p>Mean SAT scores (including subject tests) yes. Number of APs taken total yes, number of AP scholars yes. Score distributions on APs no. GPA distribution no. Rank yes.</p>
<p>lots of profiles here to peruse...a bit dated & some links probably don't work.
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/372841-high-school-sat-cr-m-scores-profiles-other-sources.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/372841-high-school-sat-cr-m-scores-profiles-other-sources.html</a></p>
<p>Wow, hobie1, your school has 8 counselors for 1575 students? Ours has 3 for about the same population.</p>
<p>Simsbury's profile: that is really confusing to me, but adcom probably know it very well, especially in the area. In my quick read through I did notice there are a number of grammatical errors, especially in the use of commas, but that doesn't reflect student ability as much as it does a lack of proofing. In fairness, I found two errors in our school's college profile that I made sure were corrected for the updated version used for S's class of 2009.</p>
<p>Wow, that thread referenced above really does list a lot of schools & their profiles, incluing the HS my kids attended.</p>
<p>It would be upsetting to have gramattical errors in the HS profile, but should be counted against the student.</p>
<p>At least your schools have profiles....S1 graduated in 2007. The school refused to write/submit a profile. GC's comments-"Oh, everyone's just bragging about how great their school is. They are worthless."</p>
<p>I contacted the schools to which he was applying and they unanimously said that profiles were very helpful to them, especially if they were unfamiliar with the HS (which they would definitely be in this case).</p>
<p>After pursuing this through GC and principal, I gave up and wrote my own. Their answers-"Oh if they really want the info they can look it up on Standard & Poor, or go to the state DOE website." Yeah, I'm pretty sure adcoms do <em>not</em> have that kind of time to devote to an individual application. Why make things difficult for them? These were top 20 schools. They could easily toss my kid's ap and have 1,000 more waiting for them.</p>
<p>I would make the same decision again. Of the kids who do continue, ~85% go to state schools and no one goes out of state. It's easy to see why when there's this type of lack of support.</p>
<p>I like the info in hobie's profile, it has tons of data and although it might look busy hopefully the colors and graphs catch the eye of the adcom. It seemed like they squeezed in as much data as they could. </p>
<p>A paper I have picked up at school labeled a profile contains the following. I assume this is the extent of what is sent to the colleges, but I will confirm that. I would like to see info included on grade distribution and policies on maximum courseloads. Maybe that is covered in the counselor letter. </p>
<p>School stats (size, grades served, contact info, student faculty ratio, website, etc)
Statement of Philosophy
Faculty profile
Student demographic info
Academic program - mostly graduation requirements
Independent senior projects - info on this optional program
Statistics on previous senior class - nmsqt results, sat mid 50% data, sat II subj, # taken, and means
AP summary - tests taken, # of tests, % 3 or higher, % of class taking APs current and previous classes
EC list
sports list</p>
<p>Don't they use profile only when the HS does not rank? If HS ranks, I do not think they will use profile.</p>
<p>well our school does not rank, but I think the profile has value in a ranking school also, because it puts the rank in context. I have no idea how much it is actually used by the adcoms, probably determined by how holistic vs numbers driven the school is.</p>
<p>Here is a quote from Dean J on the UVA board:
"As you all know, colleges receive a school profile with each application that lets admission officers know about the system in place at that school (grading scale, weighting, curriculum restrictions, grade distribution, etc.).</p>
<p>The school in New England that just uses Hs for grades (H, HH, H+, etc.) isn't putting their students at a disadvantage. The ones that use 6.0 GPA scales aren't confusing us. Their profiles spell out their methodology and we read the application with that system in mind."</p>