How do I know if my son's high school will help or hurt him in admissions?

Applying to College
1

<p>My son goes to an inner city magnet school. What are the stats to look at in figuring out whether the school will be an asset or a detriment in college admission? I seem to recall that the things to look for are the number of of students receiving free lunch (more is better) and the number of graduates who go on to college (less is better). Is that correct? Is there anything else they consider? And what is the range of good statistics?</p>

<p>Also, if the above is true, it seems they would be looking for the average student from the school. Would a middle class kid whose parents went to college also be seen as desirable by colleges? Do they just want applicants who went to these schools?</p>

2

<p>Well... everything is determined in the "context of the local environment". After that, you might be overthinking the whole process.</p>

<p>Colleges usually don't have the time to evaluate the subtleties of what the data means. A middle class kid who's parents went to college can still be evaluated in this "context" as the school environment is the same as of his peers. It'll probably be more based on the "feel" they get from the application than anything else. </p>

<p>I'm in a similar situation I suppose. I go to a school with 55 percent on free-reduced lunch, with a 10 percent four year college going rate... but my family is middle class. However, my activities, ECs, volunteering, focus, and influence have ultimately been from the local environment of my school. Not too sure how much this helps... it's hard to think in the mysterious ways of the college adcoms.</p>

3

<p>
[quote]
What are the stats to look at in figuring out whether the school will be an asset or a detriment in college admission? I seem to recall that the things to look for are the number of of students receiving free lunch (more is better) and the number of graduates who go on to college (less is better). Is that correct? Is there anything else they consider? And what is the range of good statistics?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You are looking at this the wrong way. Where would your son grow more and be challenged the most? These are the things that matter the most. I've applied for admission to a magnet school where the average math SAT score for graduating seniors is 140 points above mine. Sure that's going to hurt me if my scores really don't jump, but I know I'll grow more at the school.</p>

4

<p>^^No, no, no....my son is already there. It's funny you should even mention these things. College admissions was the last thing on our minds when we chose his high school. Just as graduate school is not a consideration now.</p>

5

<p>To be frank, why do you care?</p>

<p>If you care because you're just curious: the school he attends doesn't have so much of an effect that you can get a meaningful answer from this.</p>

<p>If you care because you just can't wait for the decision notification: only rarely can you know whether he will be accepted, and when you can know, it's never based on the school he attends.</p>

<p>If you care because you're deciding whether the application fee is worth it: finding the answer to this question isn't going to help you. Checking out the school's published information about applying will help you much more. If his stats/personal qualities compare to previous admitted students, he has a chance. You can't get precise calculations of his acceptance chances.</p>

<p>If you care because you're thinking about making him transfer high schools: my parents did that to me, and it was pretty cruel.</p>

6

<p>^^Definitely just curious fits the best.</p>

<p>We can eliminate B, C and D in a heartbeat so I guess I'm just curious.</p>

<p>But it's helpful to hear that it doesn't really matter.</p>

<p>OTOH the 2007 and 2008 classes did very well, which again confirms that this is interesting enough to be curious. As in: How did so many of these kids get into HYPS? But probably won't affect our decision making at all.</p>

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<p>bird rock -</p>

<p>Does your kid's guidance office have Naviance? (I think I spelled that right) This is a computer database system that tracks several years worth of applications from your kid's HS to various colleges/universities and links them with the students' GPA, ACT/SAT scores, etc., and their eventual acceptance in different majors at the different colleges/universities. Happykid's school has this. Juniors and their parents are given passwords and can look for similar stats to find out which places are decent options. Happykid was playing with it yesterday and reported that it was "interesting", but that her projected major (Theater Tech/Lighting Tech) is unsearchable in the database. I suspect that other minority majors won't show up either, but for your everyday Computer Science, Chem Engineering, English Lit, etc. it should be fine.</p>

8

<p>I actually think that the more kids who get into good schools, the better. Take Boston Latin, for example. Its students are evaluated not just in the context of the school itself, but in the context of Boston public school students. Colleges know that these kids are often low income, but receive excellent educations anyway. Latin's graduating class tends to do very well in admissions.</p>

9

<p>Yeah, they have Naviance, although they call it something else. That's where I saw the numbers that (pleasantly) surprised me. There's a parents meeting with the GC tonight which I'll go to. I should probably ask about URMs, athletes etc. </p>

<p>Serious question: Is there a polite way to word that?</p>

10

<p>Hi, bird rock,</p>

<p>Enjoy the parents' meeting tonight. I always learn a lot from those things. It is smart to continue your "out of school" research, too, as GCs often don't have the time or experience to individualize advice to every unique student scenario.</p>

<p>Not sure what you are asking about wording questions. If your son is an URM and your question is, "What is our high school's track record in matriculation of under-represented minorities at selective colleges?," that seems an appropriate question. A related query I might ask is, how does the school help URMs identify merit scholarship, admission and other programs specifically targeted to URM students? </p>

<p>There are a whole set of special "rules" for serious athletes that involve not only the GC/college admissions folks, but also coaches and college athletic departments. I gather that doesn't apply to your son, as you should already have received info on that unless his sport is a spring sport, in which case, now is the time to jump on that potential hook.</p>

<p>Middle class status doesn't really count for anything--that covers a huge number of kids. Any nod goes to the economically disadvantaged. And the other possible "bonus point" you reference is for kids whose parents didn't go to college, called "first generation"--it doesn't seem to apply to you. College admission officers expect more, not less, from kids of college-educated parents. </p>

<p>As for schools wanting "average" students, I'm not sure I follow the reasoning. In another post, you indicated your son was interested in Stanford and Vanderbilt. Those are selective colleges that most definitely don't want "average" kids. Even most state flagships these days have a fairly high bar of selectivity. You may want to check out a Fiske or other guide to colleges from the library and spend a little time studying the GPA and SAT/ACT score ranges and other interesting "Common Data Set" points. A different way to do it is to use the college search engines on this site and/or on College Board. </p>

<p>It's a little hard to tell what you are curious about vs. concerned about (alternating between curious and concerned is pretty much par for the course when you are the parent of a college applicant!). I think it's probably fair to way over-generalize and say, "Yes, college admissions officers will take a strong look at candidates from inner city magnets on the theory these kids had to work extra-hard to perform at the same level as kids from more advantaged backgrounds." It sounds like your family chose this school for the educational experience, but your background may not be considered disadvantaged. Arguably, this could mean some ad coms will hold your son to a higher standard of performance within his high school setting. Whether that occurs is really not worth pondering further, though, as your son needs to be performing at the highest possible level if he is aiming for selective colleges like Stanford and Vanderbilt.</p>

<p>(How do ad coms figure out your background? In addition to the fact that student essays often give away certain things, the Common App and most other apps seek some basic pieces of information about a student and his family that can be fairly revealing/profiling. There are lots of opinions about whether and how to answer certain questions in order to play up or dumb down certain things.)</p>

<p>I think it's also fair to way over-generalize and be curious/concerned about how well your school's graduates have performed in selective college settings, because even though the admits from your school may have had a bit of a leg up in admissions, their actual performance in college can be important to substantiating the feeling among ad coms that kids from this high school can cut it here...or the opposite. </p>

<p>Here are a few things I picked up over the course of this college admissions "game." YMMV, and the GC at your school may add, subtract or modify based on your school's unique situation and/or your GC's experience/opinion.</p>

<ol>
<li>Your high school's reputation with college admission officers - Start with the proposition that admissions officers are going to rely on any number of raw stats to get their first impression of your son's high school. (Of course, some will already know your school well; but others--possibly the majority--won't. Ad coms come and go. Newbies are hired. Geographical region assignments change.) One resource they will be furnished by your GC with your son's application (that's a good question, by the way--what does your school furnish to colleges in connection with your student's application?) is your High School Profile, which should be published on your school's website--otherwise, ask for it tonight. (If you don't know what a profile is, here is a sample published by the College Board:
Sample</a> High School Profile)</li>
</ol>

<p>A general question you might ask your GC is, what steps do the GCs take to further educate admissions officers about your school (and your child), i.e., do they supplement the profile in the written presentation? do they initiate phone calls (common if time permits)? does your school participate in college fairs, host reps on your campus or otherwise establish in-person links between college-school? </p>

<ol>
<li><p>One reason AP and SAT II tests exist is to help colleges compare students not high schools. In other words, if inner city magnet, East Coast elite prep and rural high school all offer AP Chem or equivalent, then in theory, all students scoring 4 & 5 on the AP Chem test and/or 700-800 on the SAT II should be considered of same/similar caliber regardless of which HS they came from and how robust or not their school's Chem curriculum really was (I'm just reciting scores for discussion purposes--they have no meaning.) So a question I might ask your GC is, what prep does our high school offer to help students make competitive scores on those tests?</p></li>
<li><p>In some competitive high school situations, which may apply to your magnet, some students and parents play one-upmanship and dog-eat-dog games with each other beginning about right now until the college enrollment papers are signed. Some students will go to crazy lengths to grade grub, rec grub, win leadership positions, apply to schools they don't really care about just to create a competition with a fellow student (there are a lot of other, more innocent reasons for "herd mentality" to occur as to apps to certain schools), etc. Some parents may helicopter these activities and also become secretive with other parents regarding the college application process (vs. openly sharing info, tips and lore) or, worse, drop misleading or even false facts. (Many senior parents naturally clam up to an extent about their child's pending applications, as the process is emotional and stressful for all concerned. I'm just talking about the potential for a change in dynamics of the usual parent coffee klatch.)</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I hope this kind of behavior doesn't happen at your school, but I just wanted to give you fair warning, as I was very naive about the process and caught off guard by some not-nice behavior. In addition to pure competitive forces, another driving force is often the notion that our children from our great high school are competiting against each other for that coveted spot at this special college. Honestly, you will make yourself crazy if you let your mind wander to, "How will the ad coms compare my child to fellow student from same high school who is also applying to the same college?" The party line is, colleges don't have a quota when it comes to admits from a particular high school. Each applicant sinks/swims on the merits. And as a practical matter, the two apps may, in fact, not be directly compared for any number of reasons, including one application may be early action and the other comes during rolling decision; one officer may read one and another officer is assigned to the other; etc. But formal or informal, there always exists the possibility of comparison of kids from the same school, which you really have to view as no different than comparison against the entire applicant pool, i.e., did you take the most rigorous curriculum available at your school? how well did you perform on that rigorous curriculum = GPA/rank? standardized test scores? ECs? teacher recs? essay? hooks? etc.</p>

<ol>
<li>College admissions is not fair. By that I mean, your child could be qualified, even over-qualified, for a particular school, but not admitted. There are any number of reasons, including yield management, hooks and the simple fact that ad coms are human beings, as illustrated in this blog post, which was much-discussed here earlier in the year:
Dirty</a> Secrets of College Admissions - The Daily Beast</li>
</ol>

<p>The takeaway from this is, applications need to stand out, to sing, to dance and to otherwise set your son apart from the crowd--clearly, his essay and short answer portions will be critical in distinguishing himself from the crowd; beware of getting too emotionally invested in certain schools; and make sure he develops a well-reasoned reach, match and safety list that includes at least one match school and one safety school that he'd be very happy attending.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Visit colleges as your time and budget allow. If he can visit the top few he's seriously interested in, great. But an equally worthy activity is simply visiting nearby colleges he may have no interest in, but which can help him pick up on factors that he considers important, e.g., campus size, student population, residential life, student activities, athletics, fine arts, class size, town life, campus location in relation to town life, transportation options, climate, etc. </p></li>
<li><p>If your son stays stuck on those two schools as his favorites, more power to him! But don't be surprised if new names pop up, and then more new names! And some may be colleges you know little to nothing about...there are so many great colleges out there. It is a lot of fun to learn about less well-known gems, and it can be very exciting for a student to discover that college XYZ offers a highly-regarded program in the very topic that is your student's passion.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Good luck.</p>

11

<p>I'll have more time to read your post carefully later tonight and probably respond again. In the meantime thanks for taking all the time and effort to put down all your thoughts.</p>

<p>To be more clear about my question for tonight - Can I say something like this: "I saw on Naviance that one of our students got into Princeton with a 3.6 and 2100. Do you mind if I ask if that's an athlete or a URM or is there some other kind of hook? And while we're on this topic, is there some way to know which of the Naviance examples don't count because there's something other than the numbers that's in play?"</p>

<p>The point is that if these kids don't have some hook then the colleges must LOVE this school, and we don't even need to think about safeties.</p>

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<p>Even if the colleges LOVE your school, you definitely need to think about safeties. Admissions are unpredictable and even if some kid did, say, get into some phenomenal school unhooked with a 3.6 and 2000 or something, you can't count on that happening for your kid, especially as there are so many factors that go into these applications that aren't on the scattergrams; 3.6kid might have been some sort of musical prodigy or have been publishing scientific research or doing any of the crazy things people are doing that get them into very selective schools and that don't show on naviance.</p>

13

<p>^^Not to be argumentative.....but</p>

<p>There are several kids from his school at HYPS now with not so great numbers and,</p>

<p>wouldn't those things you cite count as hooks?</p>

<p>Again, I'm really not trying to win any arguments here, just trying to clarify some stuff I said earlier.</p>

<p>And of course...things change from year to year, information isn't always passed on 100% accurately, etc. My safety comment was just hyperbole.</p>

14

<p>It might be considered a plus if you attended a high school with many students pursuing post-secondary options and had a high class rank or decile. </p>

<p>How would adcoms know about a high school's profile if it was outside the United States? Do they just take the strongest students from a country? Is the high school profile diminished in importance for international students? How do adcoms know which school inflates or deflates its grades (again, for international students)? Do standardized tests convey more importance if they cannot tell? Lastly, how do they adjust for the grading structure and level of difficulty for international students? For example, an "A" is considered anywhere from 86-100, whereas the sample high school profile indicates that an "A" falls between 94-100.</p>

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<p>TXartemis is right on the button. Excellent response! I could not agree more. We experienced the HORROR SHOW THAT IS COLLEGE ADMISSIONS in the 06-07 cycle. I can tell you long friends quickly became enemies and the games that were played were unbelievable. We transfered out of a prestigious private school after 9th grade because of outrageous rising tuition costs and we noticed that three public schools in our community had almost as good college admissions results as the private school. The private school did better with Ivy's and Super elite private colleges because of "connections and contacts", but otherwise they faired no better. Since we had NO interest in the Ivy League for undergraduate school (but YES for graduate or professional school) we shrugged and moved on. </p>

<p>But the process seared us with memories of peculiar conduct and behavior, lost friendships, very bizarre results. Our D is at one of her match schools and is thriving, so all is well that ends well. </p>

<p>The advice I give people is focus on your own objectives, remaining true to your values and real stats and dont worry about anyone else, whether or not they apply, get accepted or rejected at any particular school. </p>

<p>Success in life has little to do with "prestige" and more to do with character and work ethic. Whether you attend Princeton or Georgia State makes no difference to me. In fact, I might even give the edge to the Georgia State kid who is not so full of himself/herself.</p>

<p>The admissions process is exceedingly stressful if you let it consume you. And because of the sheer numbers and a myriad of agendas, issues, programs, athletic scholarships, affirmative action plans etc.....it really is a matter of luck if you get into your dream school. </p>

<p>And the parents, from our experience, were FAR WORSE than the students at playing unbelievable games of sabotage and deceit and arrogance. They were soccer moms on steroids. UGH! </p>

<p>Whatever college you end up at, you find kids with the same bizarre and amazing anecdotal stories to report about what happened to them, their friends etc. </p>

<p>There are TWO schools, which shall remain nameless here, who we thought we "wanted to attend" and we got all worked up about at the time. In hindsight, being waitlisted and rejected, respectively, was the BEST gift they ever gave us! We are SOOOOO glad we didnt go there and become "one of them." So you know.</p>

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<p>bird rock, it is great that alumni from your son's high school have matriculated at top notch colleges. The message I get from it is, your school is offering a rigorous curriculum and solid intellectual foundation to those willing to take up the challenge.</p>

<p>With that said, it seems you are weighting extremely heavily the high school your son attends. Many of us would disagree that the school counts that much. </p>

<p>There are many, many, many high schools in America that can boast sending fair numbers of kids to the top notch colleges. But those schools also send far more kids to other colleges. </p>

<p>The college admissions process is pretty individualized to the kid and his/her presentation as a potential member of that college community. </p>

<p>For a lesson about why even hyperbolic elimination of safeties from your list (for any reason) is a no-no, just read the rejection, deferral and waitlist threads already going here and which will be full-blown come the April 1-ish deadline for colleges to give those long-awaited answers. Valedictorians and perfect SATs get rejected from top notch schools, too.</p>

<p>FYI, high schools purchase/offer different features of Naviance, so it is advisable to learn what features and datasets your high school's scattergrams are based on and then be cautious about trying to compare with others from other schools.</p>

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<p>Conquestor, I'm not sure if you are really asking or offering good examples, but the issue of high school grade translation is not unique to international students. There are a jillion different grading systems in the US, too, and a number of schools that don't rank students. So it is extremely important that your high school, and your guidance counselors, do a good job explaining your school's assessment system to colleges. One way they do that is via the High School Profile (the College Board example is just that--every profile will be customized). Another way they do it is via supplemental written or oral explanation. </p>

<p>The same thing applies to demonstrating the rigor of the curriculum so the ad coms can tell the difference between a kid who looks off the charts, but only took "routine" coursework vs. a kid whose overall performance is high yet not off the charts, but who challenged himself with the most advanced coursework offered by his high school.</p>

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<p>When you look at the applicants with grades/scores within the 25/75 range of top schools who are rejected, and when the percent from your school who are admitted is several time the more rare than the accepted level of the overall public, you just don't want to look anymore. Its too demoralizing.</p>

19

<p>I went to the #4 magnet school in the country. I don't believe it helped in the admissions process when I finished high school 9 years ago. Perhaps certain stats matter more today, but I think challenging your child now will pay dividends well beyond college.</p>

20

<p>Thanks TX. In Canada, GC's and teachers are unaccustomed to writing letters of recommendation to universities, because almost all of them are public (you wouldn't want to go to the private ones anyway, but that's another story). My GC really had no idea what to include on the counselor recommendation, so she compiled a list of my "hobbies" and "achievements". I do not believe that she included an explanation of the assessment system. I feel as though I am put at a disadvantage because she may not necessarily cover what the adcoms were looking for in a counselor's report.</p>