Importance of a high school’s history in college admissions

Applying to College
1

Hi!

I had this question that I’ve been wondering about recently.

I go to a competitive public high school in MA which sends ~10 kids to MIT and Harvard each.
However, it is rare anyone goes to some of the other ivies like Princeton or Yale and other selective colleges like Duke.

Now I’m not sure this is because of the quality of applicants as I know some really amazing people at our school.

So I’m wondering the importance of a high school history with the college in terms of admissions and why some colleges don’t seem to ‘like’ certain high schools.

Just curious, but would appreciate any insight!

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It is what it is.

Your HS is in MA. Harvard and MIT are in MA. Yale and Princeton are not. HS students as a whole tend to.go to college close to home. Colleges as a whole tend to have its state most heavily represented in its first year class.

None of the 4 schools above has a min/max/quota per HS

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I hope you don’t mind that I amended your subject. The way it was written suggested HS history course, not the school’s history.

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Have you spoken to your GC and been told that those other schools have a history of rejecting applicants from your school the GC that got into Harvard or MIT? Or have other reason to believe they don’t ‘like’ your HS?

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Is it possible there are some MIT or Harvard faculty parents at your high school? I believe they get a slight bump in admissions if equally qualified as other applicants.

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I’m making this claim through what I’ve heard and Naviance. I’m assuming a lot of people who are applying to MIT or Harvard might also be applying to similarly selective schools (not very scientific i know).

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I feel like this makes a lot of sense. I never though about that.

I do think there is a Harvard legacy bump and I know a couple of people who have faculty connections.

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The bump you’re seeing are probably due to facbrats (children of faculty). Similar story with Princeton High School and Palo Alto High.

But what you describe does exist. Historically the bonds between high school and college admissions office has been strongest at boarding schools, particularly the east coast ones. It has since been extended to some public and magnet schools.

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As I understand it, there is no admissions bump for fac-brats at MIT. There is tuition remission though and I would guess that is a huge draw for faculty kids who are admitted. I believe that the opposite is true at Harvard where there is an admissions bump but faculty families pay full tuition for their kids (unless the family is eligible for needs based aid).

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Kids from my daughter’s fairly good, and decently well known public Chicagoland high school have acceptance rates that are far above average to UChicago, Northwestern, WashU, and LACs like Carleton. They have decent rates to Cornell on the East coast, but their acceptance rates to East Coast colleges which are as or even less selective, is average.

There are some other public high schools in Chicagoland with even better acceptance rates to rejective Midwestern colleges, and the magnet schools have really good success to East Coast ones as well.

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