<p>I have read many times that if no one has been accepted into Harvard (or any other ivy league school) your chances are lowered. My question is by how much are they lowered? Does it make a big difference?</p>
<p>Individual quality trumps high school reputation. If you happen to catch someone’s attention, you may get in. If you don’t, you won’t. Colleges have no incentive to blackball any particular school. Given H’s and other Ivies’ minute acceptance rates, anecdotal “no one’s been accepted to any Ivies ever” is statistically irrelevant. The vast majority of high schools in the country won’t get any Ivy acceptances.</p>
<p>If you’re good & interesting enough you’ll get noticed by H and peer institutions. Don’t worry about some “bad rep” your HS has. That’s baloney.</p>
<p>Do you know how much money HYP spends on getting their names to out of the way high schools? They are actively seeking great applicants from non-traditional sources. * That’s* how they look at things – not based on a lazy “this school must be bad” mentality.</p>
<p>Both our Ds got into Harvard from a rural public HS that typically doesn’t achieve satisfactory Annual Yearly Progress criteria. I know of no other students who had previously gone from that school to an Ivy - in fact, very few ever leave the state because Georgia’s HOPE Grant covers in-state tuition for 3.0+ GPA grads. But both Ds went to unusual and extraordinary ends to supplement what they had available at their HS with joint enrollment work at a local university and ECs that required traveling around the state. I think that their extra efforts to find challenge that wasn’t readily available were probably their best admissions selling points.</p>
<p>before my best friend, no one ever got into harvard from my school. </p>
<p>before me, no one ever got into penn from my school.</p>
<p>going to a good high school doesn’t make someone smarter or more qualified, it means their parents have higher means than someone else’s parents.</p>