@me29034 Setting the 6 year college graduation rate with a floor of 70% really does take care of selectivity being a problem. None of the schools we came up with using this method had acceptance rates lower than 50%; we were looking for significant merit money, which necessarily entails looking at less selective schools.
Most of the schools were moderately to less selective. Buyers to use the parlance of Jeff Selingo. These schools will accept many many students, are often test optional (so test scores don’t matter) and give merit to almost all students accepted, on a sliding scale of student desirability.
Some of these schools also boasted about their articulation agreements with community colleges as a way for students with fewer monetary resources/less than stellar high school records to still be able to attend for their final two years.
Did we find schools that wouldn’t work as well? Yes, the parameters we inputted didn’t remove the top colleges from the lists, colleges we knew couldn’t be considered ever due to the finances not working for us at need-based aid only schools. We just ignored those results.
Yes, graduation rates proxy student finances as well as admission selectivity. Screening by high graduation rates mostly means screening for a high enough combination of student finances and admission selectivity.
Totally agree. What I might not have made clear is that any school (imo) with graduation rates of at least 70% are acceptable to me. Schools that have substantially higher graduation rates don’t rate higher for me [personally] based upon their high graduation rate.
I think most of the schools my children have ended up applying to/attending have graduation rates between 72% - 84%. Seemed to correlate to the schools with enough resources to give good to great merit while also not so selective that admission was in question for my children’s good to very good but not necessarily ‘CC outstanding’ transcripts/records.
We found a lot of schools that don’t worry about Bs and even the gasp occasional C on a transcript. There are plenty of excellent schools where less than perfect transcripts aren’t an impediment; for either admission or merit.
I don’t know if anyone else has been watching Indian Matchmaker on Netflix but I feel the matchmaker when she reminds clients that getting 60-70% of things on your want list for a spouse is a good result. I’ve said similar things to my children when trying to get them to understand the differences between needs and wants. Especially helpful when looking for colleges while having financial or academic constraints.
Rigor and performance are evaluated based on what each school offers. For example, the highest rigor box is checked at my children’s school if and only if they are Capstone AP Scholars. Some schools do not offer this program. I have had several AOs tell me that each kid is evaluated against their peers at their school. My DD had two friends that graduated with 1 AP each. One is at Elon on a big scholarship and another at UTampa on a near full ride. Both had very good GPAs. One could argue that these are not elite schools but they are fine colleges and are good fits for these two.
Going back to one of your earlier posts in this thread where you indicated you don’t know where students from your school are going to college… i’ve learned that many high schools have an informal Instagram (often run by a senior) where the kids post where they’re going to school next year, their major, and if they were recruited for a sport. If you go on Instagram and search “(high school name) decisions 2022” you may be able to find yours!
My kids went to Catholic elementary school and, after eighth grade, the kids split between public and private high schools. I follow the college decision Instagrams for the local public school and the local Jesuit school, just because it’s fun to see what all the kids we knew are up to. I see a lot of the Jesuit high school kids going to Jesuit colleges all over the country. From my discussions with parents whose kids have gone through the Jesuit high school, it seems that the high school has a great pipeline and relationship with a lot of the Jesuit colleges.
Instagram is the only way I find out where students have gone in past years as well. It doesnt show where they all applied but many students do post their final decisions.
