<p>I hear a lot of CCers say their HS is really competitive. But what exactly qualifies as "competitive"? Are only Private Schools competitive or can public schools be also. I go to a large, rather rich public school. There are about 2,600 students on campus. Most are average, but quite a portion of the student body takes APs and such. How do I know my HS is "competitive"?</p>
<p>I go to a public IB school that is practically private. The people who go there are pretty affluent as well. </p>
<p>I have a 4.45 weighted GPA and I’m ranked 14%. Another school about ten minutes away is still a good school, but it’s not nearly as competitive. A large majority of their school’s population does take AP, but I know that a 4.5+ GPA would get you into the top 5%. </p>
<p>People at my school complain about anything below 2200 on their SATs and an A-. </p>
<p>But all in all, class rank is a pretty good indicator of how competitive a school is. Especially if the school is hard.</p>
<p>Hmm. We have 3500+ people at my school, more than 50% of whom are Asian. There are places advertising SAT classes on pretty much every street in my city. I think the reason we don’t have class rankings is that the Asian parents may go out and kill the #1 student or their own kids if their kid isn’t #1.</p>
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<p>Uh, Stuyvesant, for one.
And my public high school, at which kids think taking 2APs and a couple honors constitutes a slacker course load, and most kids get 5 hours of sleep per night.</p>
<p>The average number of students that go to a top school each year; the average SAT/ACT scores; to a certain degree, the percentage of students that attend a 4 year college</p>
<p>^This, though the percentage attending a 4-year college may not be a valuable metric for CCers, who don’t think of all four-year institutions as being equally valid.</p>
<p>Basically number of students attending top 25 or so schools, average SAT scores, average number of APs taken etc.</p>
<p>Well to be honest this is a really tough question to answer, particularly for me. I definitely go to the best high school in the county but it is still rather sad. We only offer one AP class, rarely have more than 2 students go to top 25 schools out of a class of 135, and we have an average ACT of about 23. (No one takes the SAT) Honestly, I did not really have much of a choice when it came time to pick a high school but I think I made the most of what I was given.</p>
<p>Really what I am trying to say that this question is purely relative.</p>
<p>The amount of talk at school that centers around… school. :)</p>
<p>(I go to a high school that is considered competitive by many of the students, parents, and teachers.)</p>
<p>When three people in your grade have 2400s, three have 240s (the two sets are mutually exclusive, amusingly), and your usual group of friends (albeit pretty much the “smartest” people in the grade) has an average SAT score of 2350.</p>
<p>When you have 20+ people signed up to take a multivariable calculus class at the school.</p>
<p>When, in one year, half of the US IPhO team came from your school. (One was admitted to MIT and Princeton as a junior.)</p>
<p>When it is not unusual to have more than 20 valedictorians (4.0 UW).</p>
<p>When AP Bio tests have 10%+ curves.</p>
<p>When people change their lab data so they can get higher grades for a smaller percent error.</p>
<p>^ Your high school is really competitive.</p>
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<p>My classmates do that all the time but we’re not marked for accuracy so I guess it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p><a href=“I%20go%20to%20a%20high%20school%20that%20is%20considered%20competitive%20by%20many%20of%20the%20students,%20parents,%20and%20teachers.”>quote</a></p>
<p>When three people in your grade have 2400s, three have 240s (the two sets are mutually exclusive, amusingly), and your usual group of friends (albeit pretty much the “smartest” people in the grade) has an average SAT score of 2350.</p>
<p>When you have 20+ people signed up to take a multivariable calculus class at the school.</p>
<p>When, in one year, half of the US IPhO team came from your school. (One was admitted to MIT and Princeton as a junior.)</p>
<p>When it is not unusual to have more than 20 valedictorians (4.0 UW).</p>
<p>When AP Bio tests have 10%+ curves.</p>
<p>When people change their lab data so they can get higher grades for a smaller percent error.
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<p>:) Andover? <3 yeah andover is really beast, they sent 18 kids to harvard, 13 to Yale, another 12 to Princeton and Columbia each, another 11 to NYU, UPenn, MIT, CMU etc… I may be off by one or two, but really, no other high school except Exeter and maybe Jefferson compare…</p>
<p>^Not Andover/Exeter/TJ. (I wish I had those course offerings…) Non-magnet public high school.</p>
<p>(Many Asian parents move here, despite the expenses of living here, to get their children to go to our school.)</p>
<p>A high school is competitive… when it’s ranked in the Top 200 in the US News and Newsweek rankings.</p>
<p>IMHO, for a school to be competitive</p>
<p>Must have 20 or more APs, averaging 3 or more on the AP Test</p>
<p>Must be difficult to be in the top 5%.</p>
<p>MUST NOT HAVE GRADE INFLATION, as in around 25%-30% get A’s in honors classes.</p>
<p>Must be extremely difficult or impossible to have an average of 95% through all AP/Honors classes</p>
<p>Must send like 10%-15% to top 15 colleges</p>
<p>This is for public schools</p>
<p>For private schools, I think the rankings are accurate</p>
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I have misgivings about NewsWeek, because they specifically exclude schools that do extremely well, including Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and others, and their sole basis for ranking is based on how many AP tests a student takes…NOT the scores the receive, or the quality of program, or general picture. it’s really sad.</p>
<p>if its on on of the Forbes lists.
I know my school is competitive because its on the Forbes top 10 even though it isn’t mentioned on this forum. ever.</p>