Hi… so there has been rumors of Ivy League schools, and other universities blacklisting my highschool. I was looking online and asking others, but I still do not understand what that means, like the specifics. Say if Harvard blacklisted my school, would that mean I can not apply, or does it mean my application will be less appealing coming from a black listed school and how so?
If it is true (and it may not be), that would mean that you should not bother applying to the college in question, since you and others from your high school with be automatically rejected.
It is commonly rumored that colleges will put high schools on secret auto-reject lists if an ED admit fails to abide by the ED agreement. But it is difficult to confirm or deny that such a thing is true for any given college and high school, particularly if the college is super-selective, so that a pattern of rejections could happen in the absence of the high school being on a secret auto-reject list.
Of course you can apply to any college you want. Many high schools have these rumors circulating about one college or another. It is highly doubtful that any HS would be “blackballed” by any college. Why would a college not take a truly exceptional candidate just because they went to a certain HS? A more likely explanation is that the top colleges have ridiculously low acceptance rates (some around 5%)… There are simply more well qualified candidates than spots available.
That the accept rates are 5% is exactly what makes this possible. They are not compromising the quality of their admitted class in any way by choosing another similarly qualified kid.
Why would they blackball a HS? It’s about the only leverage they have over a HS. The counselor has to sign the ED agreement on the common app. The GC can make sure the kid understands the rules. What colleges don’t like is kids that play the ED school, getting the benefits of an ED app and then not withdrawing their apps from other colleges in order to see if they get an offer from a school they like better. The GC can help enforce the rules the kid agreed to (and the counselor signed off on) for, by example, making it clear the only transcript that will be sent is to the ED school. Burned once by a HS that lets kid break their ED contract, the college can make sure it never happens again from that school. And, thru the rumor mill, let other GC understand the consequences for their school.
Colleges will never admit to blackballing a HS, but to me the surprise would be if it did NOT happen.
However, it is really no leverage at all. An unethical ED applicant will not care if some student in a later class at his/her high school gets auto-rejected by that college.
Also seems possible that it could be rumor started by previous students that didn’t get admitted as the reason they didn’t get in. As in “it’s not my fault - I would have gotten in except that our HS is blackballed”
You (and all students) are very unlikely to get into an Ivy League school.
Spend more time figuring out matches and safeties that you would be delighted to attend.
Then spend a little money and apply to a couple of Ivys because why not.
There are AOs on CC. If there is a blacklist conspiracy, they would have confirmed it long ago. In fact is is the opposite.
I think there are White lists in admissions offices where students from schools get a little bump in the process. By not being on that list, one could concede they are blacklisted. But, I don’t think there is an auto reject list at any respectable university.
This comes up multiple times every admissions cycle. It’s an urban legend.
It’s simple math. There are over 37000 high schools in the US. Add to that homeschooled kids and international applicants. And Harvard accepts ~2000 a year. So there are at least 35K high schools without a single acceptance.
One such AO is @MITChris , who has, many times, denied that there is a blacklist. e.g.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20833205/#Comment_20833205
Harvard doesn’t do ED, so they wouldn’t ‘blacklist’ because of someone backing out of ED.
They may judge kids more harshly kids from the school if they admitted kids in the past whose grades and teacher recommendations would seem to indicate that they are academic superstars only to discover when the kids got to the school they turned out to be less than well-prepared for college-level work. In that case it’s not a blackball it’s a caution flag, and a spectacular enough applicant could probably overcome it.
Let me make another guess as to how these rumors start. A kid wants badly to go to [Harvard]. Thinks that the main obstacle to his/her getting into Harvard is that he/she won’t look as strong as 4 other people in his/her school (A) Spreads the rumor so that others in their HS are less likely to apply (B). Applies to Harvard without telling others that he/she is applying.
Sometimes they go a step further: ``a person X from our school went to Harvard 10 years back and was caught doing drugs and flunked out, so our HS got black-listed’’.
Both A and B are questionable on logic, but these are 17 year olds …
Harvard gets applications from students attending tens of thousands of high schools. They don’t have time to blacklist high schools they don’t like. Either way, your chances of getting into Harvard are going to be lousy. It’s lousy for everyone. Don’t sweat it. Just make sure you have some good strong scholarship schools lined up.
“impact future classes” kinda sounds like a blacklist to me…
Colleges can’t expect the typical over worked high school counselor to enforce early decision. If you go to a fancy boarding or prep school where the counselor has the admissions office on speed dial to help his favorite kids get in, that counselor is expected to be able to put pressure on families to honor their commitment and could in theory lose their insider track. But even that is unlikely: if the high school is a great source of qualified full-pay ED students, colleges probably don’t want to cut that off for one bad experience. It would have to be a pattern.
Hey i have the same issue as well, I really wanna ED for UPenn this 18-19 app, but it hasn’t been accepting students from our school for years, despite we are one of the tops in China (we have a lot accepted to other top unis). This year they finally accecpted one for international relationship, so just hope that these blacklist stuff isn’t long-term, or better not true.