@SwimmingDad I had heard this about Lexington HS now for a long time, and interesting that the NY Times covered that story. i have heard of many less talented students totally slipping through the cracks at Lexington HS as well, going to U Mass Dartmouth and flunking out. They were not well served at Lexington HS.
As far as what happens in Colorado, kids here are focused on the west coast, plus MIT and some Ivy, but Stanford is the school that seems to be everyone’s dream school, and they heavily recruit athletes from the top private public Colorado high school programs due to our well coached, and talented high altitude for runners, swimmers, volleyball, etc. So regular A students try and fail, but because “that athletic girl” got in, the tide will not stem, there is no understanding of the athletic recruiting process among parents and students who say “I am smarter than Ms. Long distance runner at Stanford”. Its arrogant and shows their lack of knowledge of this process but it keeps going!
The sad part is, some of the athletic recruits at Stanford seem really miserable and poorly matched to the academics there , but that will not change Colorado’s total obsession with Stanford, starting in the womb, for some kids. Age 5, they are wearing their Stanford gear by then, and starting on their EC journey! Its a bit silly and sad.
I see less well off students, often boys, apply to only three or four schools here, their “dream” and the local flagship and a random state school on the west coast that is not a remote fit like U of Oregon and they actually want to study engineering which is taught at Oregon State! . Top engineering schools like Purdue or UIUC are only just being mentioned among super smart math kids in Boulder. There have been boys at the very highest levels of competitive mathematics here to be rejected at their dream school and land at our flagship. Our flagship is rising in rank in part, because of OP’s premise: , IVY/STANFORD/MIT over focus so the smarty pants kids land there and help the rank. Leadership has improved as well at CU/Mines/CSU/DU. I want to change the narrative but how?