<p>How do colleges generally evaluate the quality of a high school academically, especially in states with large numbers of qualified applicants i.e. NY, NJ, MA, CA etc.? Obviously a 4.0 GPA/valedictorian status aren't the same in every high school.
When you look at how many students from a high school went to Ivies or the like, some schools send many students to HYPMS every year whereas other send one student there every five years. Do colleges generally look at how many students from an applicant's high school are currently attending or recently graduated from that college and factor that somehow into admissions chances?</p>
<p>Admissions officers have a good idea of how rigorous and competitive your high school is. For example, mine sent probably about 20 students to top-20 schools last year and this year’s graduating class is even tougher. We’re ranked around 60 in the nation among high schools so colleges understand that this is among the top high schools in America. </p>
<p>And for your question about sending students to HYPMS, if your school regularly sends students to top schools, it’s an indicator that it is a good high school.</p>
<p>Every high school publishes a school profile and usually posts it on the high school website under guidance dept. if yours does not, go ask for it; it is public knowledge. </p>
<p>Will probably answer almost all of your questions…</p>
<p>If your school has sent kids to the colleges you are applying to, doesn’t that say something?</p>
<p>My D HS graduating class of '11 had a handful of kids get accepted to Ivies this year. Not overall impressive
considering there were almost 700 kids in the graduating class.</p>
<p>In contrast, because we live in a bio and wireless tech hub, eight kids were accepted from the same class at MIT. Some people don’t believe me when I share that factoid.</p>
<p>So if you attend a HS known for academic rigor, the highly selective colleges will know.</p>
<p>So does your school’s quality count as a weight to your credentials then?</p>
<p>^They’re not evaluating the quality of an applicant’s high school. They’re evaluating the quality of the applicant. It just happens that the CONTEXT of the high school is important so that the college knows what classes were offered compared to which ones you took as well as what the average GPA is compared to yours and so on. Going to a better high school is not an automatic boost to your admission.</p>
<p>“Going to a better high school is not an automatic boost to your admission.”</p>
<p>I can’t imagine it’s not a factor, in some cases an important one, weighed along with all the other considerations. </p>
<p>But since kids usually don’t pick the HS they went to, no point in spending too much time thinking about.</p>
<p>^ I didn’t pick to be asian, I didn’t pick to be second- generation college student.</p>
<p>Yes. Going to a better high school can boost your admission chances, but only if your own application is very competitive at the start.</p>
<p>With regards to seeing what your GPA means, do colleges assume that a very competitive high school means that classes are more rigorous?</p>
<p>^ it can justify a lower class rank, I’m not sure about more rigorous classes because some classes maybe easy/ jokes while others can be really difficult.</p>
<p>On the subject of rigorous/joke classes, if your school has multiple applicants to a college (especially HYPMS) every year, to what extent to adcoms know how hard or easy particular classes are? Even for curriculum-based courses like APs, the lvel can vary tremendously.</p>