<p>I'm a total newbie and a bit confused. I tried to search but couldn't find this....</p>
<p>If the high school your child is going to is very academic and competitive amongst students and if the same is true for the athletics at the school, how does that work for the colleges you're interested in?</p>
<p>I'm thinking that not everyone can be top 10%, or top 25% in the class if the entire student body is on a rigorous college prep course.</p>
<p>Same with sports, if everyone is coached by former Olympians, participate in year round club/travel teams, and play hs sport, not everyone can make varsity or be varsity captain. </p>
<p>But these kids can be w-a-y better academically and/or athletically than someone from a less driven school, where there is less opportunity for hardcore sport.</p>
<p>So.......how does that work? Am I actually putting my d at a disadvantage in the eyes of a college by having her at this type of school is she's not the top of the top?</p>
<p>My sense is that it evens out in the end. Just as an example, kids from our high school who end up at Ivies are nearly always in the top 5% and probably closer to the top 2% - while at a school with more superstars those same colleges will look to the top 25% perhaps. And the kid who went to the better school will have the added benefit (one hopes) of being better prepared for the work of college.</p>
<p>You can get specific answers to this question for any given high school by looking at the matriculation lists, which will be available in the college counseling office.
There is a whole subforum devoted to athletic recruiting that you might find helpful.</p>
<p>You’re going to get many different comments on your question … here’s mine:</p>
<p>DD attended a competitive private that sends 100% of its students to colleges … mostly very good colleges. The school compensates by being very well organized with respect to getting students into colleges. In addition to retaining a long-term and professional Guidance staff, they have formal procedures for test prep, app prep and letters of recommendation. It works well for them and their students. Obviously, YMMV.</p>
<p>I don’t think so but who knows. All of the kids from my D’s senior class who were academically motivated got into very appropriate selective colleges. Not all got into their first choice. Our public HS is very rigorous and very competitive. </p>
<p>In a nearby town with a lot of low income students where D had a bunch of friends from ECs, she was amazed at how many people she knew got into the most selective schools, even though they were not low income or URM. D having gone to the more rigorous school, is positive though that she is much better prepared to succeed once in college. I think you are fine.</p>
<p>Our family did some analysis of private HS to decide the best spot for my kid. My take - yes the better HS is a trade off in some aspects of the college admin process. What we found was:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>In terms of admission chances, yes the more rigorous HS was going to put a dent into a good students (not stellar students) college app. It could also hurt at the “stat only” colleges where merit is based on stats only.</p></li>
<li><p>Most private HS do not rank in an effort to avoid some of the pitfalls.</p></li>
<li><p>A strong HS had students that transitioned easier into college. For us this was very important. I’d rather my kid go to a lower ranked college and successfully get thru in 4 years.</p></li>
<li><p>College ranking (outside of the IVYs) varies by audience. For us, we aren’t shooting for IVY and therefore wouldn’t be competing against HS classmates for a few spots at top schools (as well as the many other applicants). </p></li>
<li><p>Many prep schools become “feeders” into a certain set of colleges. Even schools that don’t set out to did appear to us to be feeders. This meant the HS counselor was very familiar with certain colleges programs, admission folks and know how to steer parents through FA and max. merit. These colleges loved ALL students from the HS, so rank in the class or “most rigor.” courses had little effect.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I suggest families look at HS grad class profile/college acceptance list. Most private preps have this info readily accessible on the HS website. It is usually available for a 5 year period and often lists the number of students accepted into each college. Some even list the average merit awards by college. If you are comfortable with the lowest ranked/lesser known schools on the list then the HS has no disadvantage in college app process for you.</p>
<p>Another thing our family considered is the opportunities the HS provided for students to explore different areas. Most prep schools we looked at required participation in a sport (even if it was just inter-mural), activity in an Art (music, theater, studio art, some had dance) and elective academics. Our public school is structured in a way that prevents the brightest students from taking part in arts and non-core academics (for example, economics). As a parent, I beleive this limits my child from considering many careers and opportunities before college.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your replies! I’m afraid we’re at a disadvantage already being that we live in CA and D is wanting East coast, particularly NYU… I’m not holding high hopes that our school is a feeder muchless have great advice/information for NYU particularly from the college guidance office.</p>
<p>I know that our private school is a better ‘fit’ for our D and it will definitely help her prepare to be more successful at college level. Was just hoping that it doesn’t do a terrible dis-service to her.</p>
<p>Many people call high schools highly competitive that when looking at the full range colleges do, are not. So are we talking about a high school that required testing to enter and almost all kids get above a 2000 SAT score or a solid high school where 20% of the kids get a 2000?</p>
<p>Few highly competitive high schools rank. This allows colleges to dig deeper into their classes without compromising the percentage not in the top 10%.</p>
<p>My kids go to one of the highly competitive, over 2000 average SAT schools. From what I’ve seen, it is harder to get into a very top college from their school. My sister and I compared Naviance data from our school and her solid public high school. Very notable was the difference in the SAT average of admits from the 2 schools. It’s clear colleges expect more from the elite school. There is much higher percent attending top colleges even if you just compare our school to her kids’ school’s top 20%, but it’s hard to say just how much higher because our schools has an enormous number of top school legacies which skews results.</p>
<p>Yet at the elite high school almost everyone attends a top 30 U or LAC, while the public had many kids going to colleges in all tiers. </p>
<p>I think most colleges give big advantage to kids from strong schools, just not the very top colleges.</p>
<p>Just seeing your last post, I would not worry if you’re shooting for NYU. That’s exactly the type of school where a good private is an advantage. What you see at most good privates is every kid wanting a top 10 school. I’d consider applying ED to NYU and I think with median stats your DD would be in great shape.</p>
<p>The colleges know the schools. The know, for instance, there is a difference in being ranked #100 at Scarsdale HS (if they ranked which they don’t) and 100 at Podunk High. Ditto for the private schools.</p>
<p>Colleges definitely know high schools, especially highly competitive high schools. Thus, they are perhaps a bit more willing to admit a student less highly ranked at a very competitive HS than at a mediocre or unknown HS.</p>
<p>That said, it still is in the student’s best interest to do as well as possible to have as many choices/options for college. In some ways, I do think that students are at a disadvantage if they are in the middle at a very good/excellent public HS. I would rather see those students at a mediocre HS and be ranked near the top. (If the student is an academic superstar, s/he would be ranked at or near the top in any HS.)</p>
<p>With respect to highly competitive sports: No college cares if s/he is on varsity or JV. This will have no bearing on the student’s admissibility. Of course, if the student wants to be recruited, then s/he needs to be on varsity and be a standout – but for ‘normal’ HS athletes, it has no bearing on admission.</p>
<p>Some of the top colleges talk a lot about increasing “economic diversity” and do make an effort to find kids from, for instance, a high school that has never before sent a kid to the school.</p>
<p>That said, I wish I had been able to send my kids to better high schools, for a happier high school experience, even if they had not then qualified as contributors to that “diversity.”</p>
<p>Overall, things may be proportional, so that the better schools send more students overall to a selective college, but an stellar individual at an unknown, lower quality, school may have a better overall chance at getting in to certain schools, if that makes sense- partly because the admission office’s assumption would be that the latter would be sort of self-made, or had “overcome obstacle.”</p>
<p>I read somewhere that an admissions person said, given two students with similar profiles and stats, one at a private prep school and one at a lower quality public, their office would choose the one from the lesser quality school. The rationale was that they could benefit more from the opportunity, whereas the student who received a great education in high school would do well anywhere.</p>
<p>Of course, this opinion did not seem to take into account the stress of keeping up in a more rigorous environment.</p>
<p>With some quick digging, I can’t find a ‘ranking’ for the school, besides based on population. Any suggestions on where to find that, besides calling the school?</p>
<p>What I did find was last year, 13 out of 405 students from the school were accepted at NYU. </p>
<p>Also, the stats for last year’s graduating class is:
California Public Colleges: 37%
California Private Colleges: 19%
Out-of-State Public Colleges: 25%
Out-of-State Private Colleges: 19%
International Colleges: <1%</p>
<p>That smells like a pretty strong school. Of course, you would like to know how many kids APPLIED to NYU, so you could evaluate those 13 acceptances better. But 13 kids being accepted at ANY selective college that’s not local is pretty impressive. It means that lots of kids are applying to colleges on the other side of the country, and it clearly means that NYU is paying attention to the applicants it get from that school.</p>
<p>You should also be aware: NYU is a very big college, and a very expensive college. It is popular, but it accepts a lot of kids who decide to go elsewhere, either (or both) because “elsewhere” is Harvard (or something like that) or because “elsewhere” is less expensive. Therefore, it accepts about 11,000 students/year, from 35,000+ applicants. If any college is going to accept double-digit kids from a far-away high school, it’s NYU.</p>
<p>Both my kids attended highly ranked, selective admit public programs which were part of a regular HS. (Average SAT for kids in the program my son attended was 2230 in his senior year; 2140 in the other son’s program.) Both knew it would cost them in GPA, but the opportunities were unparalleled. Neither school ranks, though they provide a grid that would show neither was in the top 10%. </p>
<p>In my older son’s senior cohort from the program, 38% matriculated to a USNWR top 20 school. An equal number went to the flagship, most with significant merit $$ and lots of AP credit. Younger S’s program sent 20% to USNWR top 20s, plus several top LACs. Also sent a large contingent to the flagship with $$ and soph/junior standing from all those AP s and IBs.</p>
<p>Neither had any interest in attending the local HS and being a big fish. The colleges did note their intense strength of schedule, counterbalanced by outstanding test scores and essays. THe GC package included good descriptions of the porgrams and that kids were taking a significant academic risk and commute to attend. Both got excellent results from college admissions.</p>
<p>Wherever your student attends HS, it’s what he/she does with the opportunities presented (or created, in the face of scarce resources) that will impress admissions folks. I recall one applicant a couple of years ago, who, when faced with no math competitions in her school, took it upon herself to find a sponsor, raise $$, and launch a program herself. Someone else spent months building robotics in the garage because he couldn’t find a mentor. My S was often asked at interviews and competitions how he landed a spot with his mentor (i.e., did he or we have connections?). They were impressed when he told them he’d written a resume, identified folks in the areas he wanted to research, and then contacted them. DH and I didn’t meet S’s mentor until the day S graduated from HS.</p>
<p>OP, read some of the NYU threads. They have a reputation for admitting kids but killing their families with loans to attend. If your school gets lots of NYU admits, it may be that NYU finds the kids well-prepared and the financial demographics attractive.</p>
<p>Our high school has had 600-700 kids in the graduating class and 10-15 accepted each year at NYU - about half of those who apply are accepted. We are a pretty middle of the road school - SAT scores at NYS average, though the top 25% of the class is quite strong. Unfortunately for you Californians wanting to go to NYC are a dime a dozen, just as New Yorkers wanting to go to California are, so you don’t get too many props for contributing to geographic diversity. Anyway, if your daughter’s stats are in range - I think she’ll probably have a very decent chance there. The bigger issue is NYU’s reputation for being ungenerous with the $$$.</p>
<p>The NYU acceptances vary a lot. Our local HS: suburban, upper middle class, HS quite competitive. About 1 out of 4 have been accepted by NYU. Per Naviance, no one with less than 4.0 had gotten in as of a year ago.</p>