<p>I can't tell if my school is competitive or large as indicated by the title. It offers 11 AP courses and has approx. 1100 students.</p>
<p>What can you tell me?</p>
<p>Do a large number of students get sent to top colleges each year? Do students work like packhorses to get their GPA and class ranks up? Does the school consistently churn out a large number of smart, well-educated graduates? Do the students honestly care about their grades and the material they are learning? It's partly subjective and partly statistic-based.</p>
<p>Haha I don't understand how you can measure any of this subjectively. Most students each year usually go to UW-Madison, local colleges, or Loyola in Chicago. 1-3 may get into HYPS or other ivies. My class rank is 64 out of around 285.</p>
<p>A super competitive HS has an average SAT of about 1400. Very competitive 1300, competitive 1200. Only objective stat.</p>
<p>So that's how a college will determine whether your school's competitive? Standardized test averages?</p>
<p>PS. <em>Most students at my school do NOT take the SATs at all. Most do just the ACT</em></p>
<p>If your class size is 685 and only 1-3 kids go to top schools (I'm assuming that's what you meant when you said HYP) then I wouldn't say it was that competitive...</p>
<p>If your class size is 685 and only sends 1-3 kids each year to top colleges, then I wouldn't say it's super-competitive.</p>
<p>i go to bronx science. about 120 kids out of 600 go to top shcools. this looks really abd for me right?</p>
<p>How would a college know how competitive my school is if I am of the first graduating class? We have about 600 seniors in our class. And, since we are the first class, nobody has gotten accepted to an Ivys yet.</p>
<p>Is it better to come from a competitive school or non-competitive school?</p>
<p>My school is on the low-end of competitive. We have about 5 students this year that have scored 2100+ on SATs and send one or two students annually to top schools. Last year was an anomaly with 3 students going to Ivy League.</p>
<p>^^ I was wondering the same... anyone have an answer?</p>
<p>My school's pretty non-competitive; I'd be very surprised to hear of anyone who went to a top 30 school.</p>
<p>First, they know competitive schools from history. Second, your school sends a profile with your transcript that usually has info such as average SAT scores for your class, distribution of grades and such.</p>
<p>kyledavid80:</p>
<p>If anything, being at a more competitive school means that colleges are more likely to look beyond the top 5 or 10%. My college counselor told me that the Ivies will look at the top 25% , top LACs a deeper.</p>
<p>I got a competitive, private, Quaker school. There are about 125 kids in each grade. From ED alone we sent 13 kids to ivies (2 to UPenn, 2 to Harvard, 4 to Yale, 2 to Columbia, 2 to Brown, 1 to Cornell). And other kids to top LACs (Vandy, Williams, Middlebury, etc.)</p>
<p>Because my school attracts and produces a large group of kids who go to top schools every year, we have really good relationships with our local reps from these colleges and they expect to take 2-3 kids from my school each year (at least, that's what I've been told).</p>
<p>I hope that helped....</p>
<p>Competitiveness: When you have rank two firing a rocket propelled grenade at rank one in middle of the quad at lunch.
Crowded: Simple, go 10 minutes late to the lunch line and find only cheap ranch salad and nacho chips.</p>
<p>The advantages of attending a non-competitive school:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Less applicants to a college from your school to compete with: If you have a 2100 SAT and attend a school where you're the only student aplying to Yale, you might have a better chance than a similar student who attends a super-competitive magnet school which has over a dozen students applying to Yale. </p></li>
<li><p>This is very true if you attend an inner-city school: Colleges will realize that you didn't have the optimal environment to excel academically. So if your grades are a little low, they might take into consideration the fact that your school is a hellhole.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The advantages of attending a competitive school:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Name Recognition: A competitive school is likely to be well-known by colleges. I'm sure attending a nationally renowned school like Stuyvesant could sway adcoms in your favor.</p></li>
<li><p>Reputation: If a student excels at an average school, it's a pretty big accomplishment. However, if a student excels at a well-known, highly competitive magnet school, it would be an amazing feat given the challenging curriculum.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>what about coming from a school ike bronx science? could that sway adcom in my favor?</p>
<p>^Of course it could. Bronx H.S. has a really good reputation, along with the other NYC specialized high schools. What's the average SAT there? I'm pretty sure it's over 1200.</p>
<p>i think about 1300-1400. how much wud this help? i mean coumbia didnt seem to like bxsci kids too much this year? does princeton know about the reputation of bxsci and wud they significantly care?</p>