Bear with me if there are already discussions about this topic. I recently spoke to a high school senior (who will graduate this year and recently accepted in a few Ivy schools) about how to choose high school. The high school senior suggests good public high schools over the competitive private high schools. The rationale - for a competitive student, it is easier to stand out in good public high schools with good ranking (say 1% and full GPA). I also overheard from neighborhood that their children who attended public schools are allowed to retake the tests until the grades improved (this seems impossible in competitive private schools)
So what exactly is the high school rigor that colleges are looking for or comparing to? How do they assess the top students or gpa from different high schools?
Not all public high schools create weighted GPAs or rank students in the class. Even some of the good ones. So, make sure the ones youâre comparing do provide that feature.
Varies by school / system. And shame on those schools.
This really depends on the high school. Most AOs will be familiar with the better public schools in their region. When the school is East Podunk High, the advantage likely does not matter exist.
In all cases, it is the student being evaluated, not the HS. If the student gets into Yale from one HS, they likely would have gotten in from another.
I will also add that taking college admissions advice from a HS senior is probably not the best strategic decision, regardless of their decisions outcomes.
While class rank is the big thing for Texas public universities, it can matter much less (or not at all) for many other colleges and universities.
However, implied class rank in the Common Application counselorâs school report check boxes could matter at colleges which use that, even if class rank is not provided by the high school.
I disagree that a student who would get into Yale from one high school would get in from another.
Someone from an average middle America high school with no college counselor, just a generic school counselor who does not know them personally, is going to have a tougher time. The valedictorian at a no-name suburban school outside Pittsburgh who sends in a Common App with generic school report and rushed teacher LORs is not going to have the same access as a student somewhere in the top 10 percent of a known âfeederâ school that gets on-campus visits from top schools every year, is in regular phone contact with their admissions people throughout the process, and provides teacher training on how to write a LOR.
I do not have an opinion as to whether it is better to go to a private school or competitive public school. I do think it is helpful to go to a school with active college counselors who have relationships with admissions counselors and a strong track record of getting students accepted to top schools (and students actually matriculating to those schools), if getting admitted to those institutions is your goal.
If you are in a position to choose a HS for your student the first and most critical element is how well that school will serve your child. Trying to game college admissions b/c you want an Ivy bumper sticker on your car ahead of is a mugâs game, and a terrible disservice to your child. Most people who have been on CC for a while have seen plenty of stories where that approach ends very badly.
But to clarify, usually when the question is asked, it in the context of Boston Latin v BBN. Or Stuyvesant v Trinity. In which case, the answer is not to choose the HS based on what college you want to attend.
The answer is likely different if the best LPS is East Podunk High
It is a little harsh to hear the judgement when my question is about how the college AO differentiate students with full gpa. Not everyone needs or wants to go to Ivy
There are two reasons I brought this up
The senior I spoke to is an exceptional student who can do well in any place. In his opinion, he could have more time to himself during high school if he chose to attend good public school. His point is he appears similar to his top peers in his private high school.
California says to replace Calculus with Data Science in (public) high schools. This will drive familiesâ choice on high school. If class rigor includes what class students take.
Seems like the proposal is to offer alternative math paths in high school, not eliminate calculus. This does not mean eliminating calculus (which is popular enough among the college-bound students that it will almost certainly stay, even if the high school adds alternative math paths in high school).
As others have said, AOs know that GPAs are done very very differently at different schools. There are colleges at which the âaverageâ GPA of accepted students is higher than it was possible to get at one of the secondary schools the colllegekids attended (weighted v unweighted GPA).
It can be true that a student can be a stand out at a local public school more easily than to be a stand out at a competitive private school. However, while the senior you mention might have had more control over his choices, he would still have had a comparably heavy activity load (not âmore time to himselfâ), to get into those top schools.
The idea that you can keep re-taking tests until you get a âgood enoughâ grade in public schools is one of those things that one âhears aroundâ, but once you start to pin it down typically donât stand up to scrutiny. Re-taking a test to get a passing grade is one. thing; re-taking it to get an A+ instead of an A- is quite another. The student who is gunning for a top-tier college probably isnât going to be availing of that sort of policy.
Our small midwestern city has two public high schools (graduating classes of about 350-400 students each). They have a test retake policy for full credit that was instituted a few years ago. They also give a grade no lower than a 50%. So if you donât turn in an assignment, a 50% goes into the gradebook, not a 0%. My friend said her son had a rude awakening this year at college when he had to learn how to truly study for the first time - with that large retake safety net always there, he never put a lot of time into studying. (The reasoning is - isnât meeting the learning target most important, even if you need more time to get there? But in actuality - itâs a way to keep kids from failing and thus ending up in credit recovery, or dropping out altogether).
These schools routinely churn out 30+ 4.0 students per year. Iâm not sure if that is a red flag for a college AO? I doubt if the retake policy is on the school profileâŠ
Most colleges have regional ad coms that are very familiar with the schools in their area. They know the course offerings, the average tests scores, grading policies, matriculation rates, etcâŠ
I also donât think blanket statements can be made about public vs private schools.
@collegemom3717 and @momofboiler1 it is not clear to me the differences being 1% in a good public school vs. around 5-10% in a nationally highly ranked private. Agreed that studying, and hard work are required no matter what but I canât help to wonder if it is easier to stand out in good public schools why do so many people want to send their kids to private prep schools.
We moved our daughter to private HS because our public did not have the same rigor. AP courses eliminated because of budget cuts, huge class sizes, short instructional time per subject, poor guidance counselor:student ratio, etc⊠If we had lived in a district with a strong public, we wouldnât have bothered to make the shift.
We made the decision based on the quality of the high school academic experience, not what it would mean for college acceptance.
The young gentleman I spoke to mention that his GPA and AP are pretty much the same as the top 30 students in his school. He thinks he would have easily been the top 3 in his assigned public school without having to race the school resources and recommendations with his top peers.
At least based on what I have seen the admissions staff seem to be quite good at knowing how to compare results from a range of high schools, even though high schools can vary in terms of academic rigor and grading scales.
I attended a ânot Ivy League but similarly rankedâ university for my bachelorâs degree. The other students there had come from a very wide range of high schools. There was one student from a very highly ranked high school. He was the only student I knew who had not been in the top 4 students in the high school. However, if he had attended a normal high school he probably would have been. MIT admissions seem to be able to adjust for the difference between âBronx High School of Scienceâ grading scales and rigor versus ânormal public high schoolâ grading scales and rigor.
I had a similar experience when I arrived in graduate school. The other students there had come from a very wide range of undergraduate universities. Similarly one daughter is in a highly ranked graduate program. Again the students came from all over the place. The admissions staff seem to do a very good job of adjusting for the rigor of the school that you are coming from.
To me this implies that every student should look for a school (whether high school or college or university) that is a good fit for them and that they can afford to attend.
One place where I have seen a few student go wrong is to attend a school that is highly ranked but not a good fit for them, and struggle. This can be miserable.
If you are at a high school that is a good fit for you, then I think that a wide range of universities, including the top ranked ones, will know how to interpret your results.
