<p>Please allow a rant. D's all girl HS is uber-competitive, tons of homework and honors classes are tougher than what I did in college. Because students are self-selected as wanting the best school in the area, many of them would be valedictorians at public school, but not here. They do not rank students but do give decile %'s. Stats just came out for 2009, and the 50th decile is 3.79 to 3.91- in other words a 3.78 GPA means 60% of students did better than you. AND these girls consistently win firsts in many state and national sports and scholastic competitions.</p>
<p>Locally good grades from this school go a long way toward college admission, but visits to schools on the opposite coast indicate that, not only is it not a plus, it is a big negative. ie, "Why didn't this student take more AP/honors courses?" (because everyone wants to go to Harvard, so everyone tries to get into them, and space is limited) and "why is a 3.9GPA in the 50th percentile for her school- they must give away A's like jellybeans" (no, they sweat blood for them). </p>
<p>Explaining this on the app sounds like whining and making excuses. The worst part is that if she had gone to the easier parochial school in our town, their 50th decile GPA is 2.8, and their homework load is a walk in the park. </p>
<p>Was sending her to the tough school a stupid move? Or do top college adcoms really pay attention to how hard a school is, even if it is across the country?</p>
<p>The college admissions deans who will read your daughter’s college application will know about your daughter’s high school and everything you said in your post above. Usually there are admissions deans by region, for example, one who reads applications from the Pacific Northwest, and one who reads applications from the Northeast. They are familiar with the high schools in those areas. So there is no need to explain all this, especially if that high school sends many students to top colleges.</p>
<p>It was an excellent decision on your part. She will have been better prepared for college than most of her peers. If your daughter’s HS is “uber-competitive… [and] self-selected,” as you say, there is no reason that the top universities and colleges wouldn’t recognize her enrollment and respectable success at the high school as an accomplishment in itself.</p>
<p>I attended a small, self-selecting, single-sex high school as well. If my school had ranked, I would have been in the top half. I am now enrolled at what is considered the premiere LAC. A significant number of my friends and classmates of the same strength and ranking managed to earn admission to top universities and colleges too, as well as to HPYS.</p>
<p>Your daughter’s burden will simply be slightly greater: she will have to distinguish herself from the crowd by spending more time to write superb essays about her passions, talents, and hobbies. Those essays, when considered alongside her strong academic performance, will ultimately help her get what she deserves.</p>
<p>if this school denies students into honors and AP courses because “space is limited”, i’m sincerely doubting it’s level of prestige and, you know, actually how good it is.
ditto to the above on how everyone gets A’s. I go to one of the top (private) schools in the nation, and while we have a ridiculously number of Ivy-bound students and hard-workers, everyone does NOT get A’s and A+'s (especially A+s…) because the rigor of the school MEANS that it’s harder to get A’s.</p>
<p>Obviously nearly every student at this school is brilliant and motivated. I think the real issue here is that the school ranks rather than grade inflates, because it sounds as though the grading system is legitimate.</p>
<p>And OP, I go to a top public school, and I haven’t been exposed too much to the system because I’ve yet to start junior year but generally these circumstances are explained to schools by high school counselors. Of course, if your school has a rep, to not underestimate your daughter’s ability to get into a top school even if she has a low rank. Class rank is generally useful only at schools that colleges are not very acquainted with.</p>
<p>Yakyu, everybody at Harvard get’s A’s so theres your answer.</p>
<p>You say self-selective. Does that mean that everyone gets in? And how can a school that as you say is made up of Valedictorians have limited AP class spaces? All the same, most adcoms know about the elite privates so it definitely was a good choice.</p>
<p>A few random replies-
how are they self-selected? The girls who decide to go there know it is the toughest school in our town. Yes, once they have chosen the school, there is an admission process to go through. Not everyone gets in. Poor choice of words on my part.
Why are there so many A’s? Many of these girls are driven to be the best. As I said, they also are consistenly top in our state for several sports and academic contests. </p>
<p>“If it is an elite school, adcoms will know about it.” It is a catholic school, with many scholarship students. The guidance counselors spend a good portion of their time helping kids who need financial aid to go to college, and while the school is well known for say, 1000 miles, I don’t think have enough time to concentrate on building the schools reputation bi-coastaly. I assumed that adcoms across the country would know about the school, but in initial interviews it seems a cursory knowledge. Quite a few colleges visit the HS, but few from the opposite side of the country</p>
<p>Not all classes can be AP or honors, so there is quite a bit of competition to get into those classes.</p>
<p>That said, I am comforted by the comments about adcoms knowing which schools are more rigorous. After our first cross country college visit I was discouraged, as it seemed every presentation emphasised that if your school offers AP/honors, you are expected to take them all and excel, but if the school doesn’t offer them, then you are excused.</p>
<p>I don’t think the explaining is up to you. Schools are supposed to have a “profile” that they send to the colleges and that should explain how rigorous they are academically and their grading system. One of the top schools in our area grades on an 11 point scale. Go figure.</p>
<p>At least the 11 point grading scale for that school makes sense. 11 = A/A+, 10 = A-, 9 = B+, 8 = B, 7 = B-, etc. On the other hand, another top school in the area grades on a 6 point scale where percentages mapping to grades depend on the department.</p>
<p>From what I understand, if it is a very good school, then while not being at the top of one’s class would hurt chances for getting into the most highly selective schools, the middle of the class will still get into good schools and then find themselves extremely well prepared.</p>
<p>And as mentioned above, the school profile will do a lot of the explaining as well.</p>