importance of school profile?

Applying to College
1

<p>How important, exactly, is your school profile? I attend a somewhat large public school in Texas (over 3000 students). The average SAT score is around 1700. Not sure about number of students who take AP exams/number of students who pass.</p>

<p>Will the top universities actually look the school's average SAT score and other statistics and see that it is more competitive than, say, another school with an average SAT score of 1500? If I'm a high ranking student in my school, but I could easily be valedictorian at the other school, does my high school profile compensate for this discrepancy?</p>

2

<p>Colleges do consider the relative difficulty of your school, yes. However, a 1700 average on the SAT isn’t THAT great.</p>

3

<p>^ that is an impressive average. most schools have 1500’s</p>

4

<p>It’s fairly impressive compared to the norm, yes, but so are the people who apply to the top universities. A 1700 average isn’t going to wow them, although it definitely won’t HURT an application.</p>

5

<p>That’s 1700 for a 3000+ student population! I think it’s pretty good…</p>

6

<p>Are international school profiles looked at any differently from the domestic ones?</p>

7

<p>Right, I thought it wasn’t a bad average for a public school. However, the question is if it will compensate for my lower rank in this school, as compared to the easy valedictorian title I could have at a school with a lower average SAT score.</p>

<p>Or on the flip side, will the adcoms see the school profile, and, as amarkov hinted, think of it as “oh another high school like this…we want diversity” because I’ve heard instances of students from poor, urban schools with a bad record getting a slightly upper hand.</p>