<p>How do you determine if college X likes your HS? Meaning, they tend to favor students from your HS, in terms of admission..</p>
<p>well, does your HS get a lot of students accepted into that college on a regular basis? That would be one clue.</p>
<p>is it just accepted or does it have to include how many people actually enroll?</p>
<p>Accepted . . . </p>
<p>Go ask your GC about how many students are admitted to XYZ university if you're so worried.</p>
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is it just accepted or does it have to include how many people actually enroll?
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Actually enrolled is a key factor. Many colleges are sensitive to being used as a safety for kids who really want to go somewhere else. Call this the "Tufts Syndrome" since it's one of its manifestations.</p>
<p>If your HS gets kids accepted to X but few of them enroll, the college will remember and won't be so generous in the future ...</p>
<p>They don't show that kind of preference. If the high school is a feeder school for one of the colleges such as Thomas Jefferson HS for UVA or some of the NY high schools are for Columbia, then you probably already know it. If it is just an average or below average high school, they don't favor applicants but they do look at the candidate in terms of the high school. For example, they would consider how many AP courses are offered at the high school. If the high school is one where a ton of people go to the elite colleges each year (but not a feeder for a specific college), a candidate can be actually disadvantaged because they can't take that many people from a single high school. In "Admissions Confidential", Toors at Duke talks about how they go thru the candidates in order by state and high school. When they get to one of the high schools with a lot of applicants each year, they will go so far as to review how many applicants applied, were accepted, and attended in previous years. Then they will decide how many to take in the current year.</p>
<p>oh i see... thanks for input</p>
<p>Many college adcoms do a road tour and I attended quite a few them this past fall when they came to our city. If you want to know where your high school stands, just go to one of these sessions.</p>
<p>The sessions typically began with the 30-50 students in attendance introducing themselves. As each student announced their high school, the adcoms almost universally gave welcoming nods to the students from the well-known elite schools and puzzled or blank looks to the students from unknown schools. These gestures were not lost on anyone in the crowd.</p>
<p>As someone above might have mentioned, the number who enrolled could be important. For instance, at my school Villanova is a common safety for a lot of people to apply to and a few years ago about 12 (out of a class of 50) applied and all were accepted, but NONE went. The next year, I think 10-11 applied and 3 or 4 people were rejected even though their stats were not that bad. and some of them actually wanted to go there so it was pretty bad.</p>
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The next year, I think 10-11 applied and 3 or 4 people were rejected even though their stats were not that bad. and some of them actually wanted to go there so it was pretty bad.
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This is why it is very helpful to have a counselor who's on the ball. A good counselor would know which kids REALLY wanted to go to a school and make sure the adcoms knew it. This also comes up when a kid finds a school (Tufts, for example) is their dream school but their stats are good enough for an Ivy or elite LAC. Normally this is an auto reject from Tufts since they figure they'll never get the kid, but a good counselor will contact the regional adcom and let them know the kid is serious about attending.</p>
<p>Lol, my school is a bigtime feeder school for USC. We're listed as one of the top 5 public high school with students going to USC (on their website, not our. ;))</p>
<p>Ask your counselor for a list of how many students went to what colleges. If you notice a lot of students going to a particular college (not community colleges...), then it might be a sign that your school is a feeder school to that college.</p>
<p>Works the otherway around too. Princeton hates our school, because about 8 years ago, an EA/ED (dunno which) acceptance turned out to be a murderer (long story) and was jailed, blahblah, criminal blahblahblah, so they hate us. No one from our school has been accepted since then, I believe. I think Yale might start to hate us too, after what my friend my last year pulled.... -_-</p>
<p>if the college sends representatives over to talk about their school and give presentations and Q&A sessions, they come across as really interested in the high school's graduates. </p>
<p>also at my hs, more than 70% of people applying to UIUC get accepted, but only a handful go. a rep also came to visit and got a rather big audience. other reps included bowdoin, tufts, lehigh, columbia and upenn.</p>
<p>"This also comes up when a kid finds a school (Tufts, for example) is their dream school but their stats are good enough for an Ivy or elite LAC. Normally this is an auto reject from Tufts since they figure they'll never get the kid"</p>
<p>That is completely untrue. Kids with high stats are not automatically rejected from Tufts. Look at last year's admission decisions thread from Tufts board for example. Many students with great stats are accepted, and as many in that thread express, it required no special begging by their great GC's. You shouldn't pass off statements like that such as fact when you have no evidence that "Tufts Syndrome" exists anymore, and even if it did to say that certain student's are automatically rejected above a certain level is laughable.</p>
<p>I agree that people with high stats are not automatically rejected from Tufts. However, there are colleges (and I won't pick on Tufts) where applicants with high qualifications have to show alot of interest in the college in order to reassure the college that it is not just being used as a safety. These colleges tend to be like WUSTL, Emory (and Tufts) who are just outside of the most elite of the elite.</p>
<p>I go to a math/science/tech magnet school in Michigan for part of the day, I'd say we are definitely a feeder for University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. Outside of that, our county isn't even close to being an academic powerhouse, even with a population of nearly 1 million.</p>
<p>For our area, I guess the results have been decent at best. About 50 kids a year graduate, and over the past few years I think we've had about one student each attend Penn, West Point, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, Harvey Mudd, UIUC, Vanderbilt, Caltech, and MIT. (The id at Caltech also got into Cornell).</p>
<p>So far this year the only really impressive one was my friend who was admitted to Princeton ED. He probably could have gotten into any other school he wanted, but his sister went to Princeton and that is what he picked. Most other people will attend public in-state schools, with Michigan being the choice of them and Michigan State the choice of the 15/50 or so who won't cut it for Michigan.</p>
<p>try a crystal ball.</p>