I think the GCs should consider playing a little hard ball with the anomaly schools. Zero out of 35 at Dartmouth when the high school otherwise has a track record of getting a couple kids in to each of the top schools on a fairly consistent basis? i’d say that’s a relevant statistic for planning purposes. Do the data analysis on a rolling basis and publish the list of the outlier schools during the planning sessions with the kids and parents. Kids will still want to apply there, sure. But at least (1) everyone gets the message about which particular pinball machines are on tilt, so play at your own risk, and (2) Dartmouth has to start working to earn their 35 * 80 = $2,800 in application fees from the parents who are ultimately footing the bill.
Dart doesn’t need to earn their app fees by admitting more kids from one high school where there’s an abundance of apps. It’s the guidance counselor who needs to get on the ball.
Labegg, if you add up those figures (the top section alone,) it’s 23 admits out of 180 apps (and presumably some are for kids with multiple apps and admits.)
Yes, if these kids choose to enroll elsewhere (eg, if the $ and local affection for Texas schools overrides,) the big name colleges won’t be feeling the love.
The issue in post 16 is even more mindboggling. Who encourages 140 kids (45+/year) to apply to Stanford when 1 or 2 get in annually?
If anyone is very invested in their child going to one of these, you’d need to be uber on top of what they want and how they want it.
@lookingforward I would say that many GCs at large public schools are overworked, understaffed and, sadly, often ill-informed. Parents would be well advised to be “invested” if a top #25 school is their kid’s target, because there is not going to be a lot of help from the GC.
Update: Perusing our district website I see they were touting a student being accepted at Yale in 2017 and that number is not reflected in the stat I posted. So I will assume that when Naviance updated in late fall our school’s number switched over to be indicative of our school only, not the entire district. So wow, you can really see a huge majority apply in -state! Our graduating classes have typically been in the 600 range 2016 was 625, 2018 is currently at 575.
Just for kicks here are the most recently published admission stats for public magnet TJ HS of Science & Technology in Fairfax County, VA with over 200 NMSFs out of a 2016 class of approx 430 seniors. For privacy reasons, colleges with few applicants were not published.
University of Virginia 348/224
Virginia Tech 213/174
College of William and Mary 211/173
Virginia Commonwealth University 87/86
University of Pittsburgh 85/82
George Mason University 68/65
University of Michigan 152/61
University of Maryland, College Park 85/61
Pennsylvania State University - All Campuses 60/56
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 74/53
Carnegie Mellon University 145/50
Purdue University 64/45
Georgia Institute of Technology 123/42
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 40/36
University of California, Berkeley 90/35
Case Western Reserve University 64/32
Drexel University 32/30
Cornell University 154/29
New York University 43/29
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 56/28
The George Washington University 43/22
James Madison University 25/22
University of California, San Diego 27/20
University of Chicago 85/18
University of Miami 20/18
Duke University 116/17
Rice University 39/17
Washington University in St. Louis 61/17
Northeastern University 18/16
UCLA 41/16
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 126/15
Boston University 40/14
University of Pennsylvania 128/13
Yale University 83/13
Georgetown University 47/13
Rochester Institute of Technology 13/13
Columbia University 103/12
Princeton University 128/12
Brown University 77/12
University of Southern California 33/11
The Ohio State University 11/11
The University of Texas, Austin 29/11
Harvard 109/8
Stanford 136/7
What is the guidance counselors role in college acceptance rates? Is there something I am not understanding? Our school is similar to OP.
What the counselor writes about the student in his/her recommendation letter plays an important role in admissions. Same goes for the teacher recommendations.
Based on the information shared to date, I would suggest OP check the state rating of the school. I think the issue here is really the school is perceived as soft relative to others. IMHO, National Merit is not that impressive these days as it was 20-30 years ago. Kids are coached. And the SAT has gotten easier rather than more difficult. Not meant to hurt feelings but I know some kids don’t even apply as the value is so low. That aside, I don’t think there is enough data here to make a complete assessment. OP might know some of these kids, but we don’t. The Ivies have always been incredibly competitive nationally and regionally but now they also have international student changing the dynamics in various ways. If you told me these kids were regionally known athletes/scholars who had won national awards and had near perfect SAT’s than I would be more surprised.
The information on the Science and Technology School in VA is interesting. The shows the school is very well regarded. Again, this school might be a magnet by test? So they may have already culled the best students locally and this reflects strong students than would normally be put together in a public school.
@Happytimes2001: I don’t completely disagree with you. Although I think it is probably more of a case that the school is simply not viewed at all, whether it be “soft” or “rigorous”. I think this school is a slightly better than average school of its type and entirely typical of suburban Texas High Schools. It is ranked in the top 5 - 10% both nationally and within the state by USNWR (and every other ranking of high schools I could find)
Among the USNWR #50 and up ranked universities, it fairs rather well. I think that is probably a good match academically, student to university, but absolutely there are some kids (not mine) that would/could be successful at higher ranked universities and certainly a few more than are currently being accepted, that may be over looked because there is no meaningful reputation to bask in the glow of.
The fact of the matter is 75 -80% of this school’s graduates are not even looking at OOS options, let alone top #25. They are staying in-state, whether it is for financial reasons or simply because they are happy stay. I think that has an impact on it’s graduates in the national college admissions picture.
“The issue in post 16 is even more mindboggling. Who encourages 140 kids (45+/year) to apply to Stanford when 1 or 2 get in annually?”
That’s pretty common in California, esp bay area high schools. In fact, that’s actually a little low, many hs have 100 or more kids applying. And let’s say the encouragement comes from the parents, not the GCs who tell students every year, 100 kids apply from our hs, five get in. Despite that, students still apply, also Stanford is the first choice for many (and I’m understating) students in California.
I was struck by the difference in acceptance at Cornell for Thomas Jefferson 154/29 and the Bay Area Cali HS 107/24. Cornell clearly likes Cali better! (as does MIT). @ResilientOptimist are you able to devulge how your bay area school fairs in national rank against Thomas Jefferson? TJ is always a perennial favorite for “best” high schools.
@labegg Something looks off with your numbers. If they are district numbers for 3 years and your district has 3,000 seniors, then to have only 6 kids out of 9,000 apply to Duke, only 12 kids out of 9,000 apply to Yale seems really off.
@wisteria I thought so too, especially when I took a closer look at the Texas Universities, so I did some digging on our district website and I amended my original post…see comment #22. I think the numbers are reflective of our high school only (there must have been a change when Naviance updated in the Fall) I must have missed the school advising us of the update.
You also have to factor in, once they take a student from that school they get a better indication. One or two kids to an Ivy over the years doesn’t give the best universities the snapshot they need. Some schools are nationally known. Still, I think you might be off on the top 5% on the nation statistic. Hey maybe it is top 5%. If top schools are taking students from Texas they know which schools are the “best” historically. Outside of that definition it might be tough. Also, you still haven’t commented on nationwide standing for these kids. That matters more than anything else. Can they compete nationally? Top 5% means thousands of schools ( I checked and there are about 35K high schools, which gives you about 180,000 kids! ( I took 100 as an average class size) So it may not be a wonder why they aren’t getting in.
In New England the best school districts (where there are MANY legacies and boarding schools) send around 10% ( a handful send more). These kids are nationally ranked (sometimes twice in an academic field and athletics, sometimes three times 2x in sport and 1x in something else). The CV’s of these kids is outstanding and disheartening to normal kids and even to kids with the basics of what they think they need: great grades, great SAT and great local EC’s.
The level of competition is getting so fierce I’m afraid we are really going to create some problems in the future. Some kids are competing in their mind against other local kids who are outstanding. The kids going to the Ivies and some of the other listed colleges have resume’s which are more national in character. They are trained from an early age. Just as you cannot compare an Olympian to a local athlete, you really cannot compare kids taking international math competitions (and winning) to a kid taking calculus BC ( at the local high school).
Let’s face it, they would look seriously consider any kid with a patent who won the Intel Science Fair. Sounds like your school has an uphill battle if the kids want to go out of state. That’s sad. Makes me think someone there should rethink why they aren’t getting in. Have a conversation with admissions and ask. Someone will eventually tell them why if they are willing to listen.
If I read it correctly, it is only the absolutely tippy-tops where they are having a challenge out of state, and where national and international stature apply. They seem to be getting recognized at least at the 15-20 level of USNWR, and maybe higher. That’s a lot of excellent out of state schools. And the athletic route to HYPSM-plus is hardly unique (there seemed to be an element of not counting it, but it is such a part of the process it can’t really be excluded).
There is some rule of thumb. For example, every year there are 16000 NMSF and 10000 offers from HYPSM of which 3000 go to unhooked kids. Assuming 15000 of the NMSF are unhooked and all of them would apply to top schools you would have a ratio of NMSF to HYPSM admits (not matriculate) about 5 (15000/3000). A typical good suburban school with 20 NMSF should have about 4 HYPSM admits on average per year. In case of Thomas Jefferson HS in Va the ratio is 200+ (?)/55, much less than 5. So, TJ is definitely punching above its weight and you can say that it enjoys a “reputation effect”. In the HS of @ResilientOptimist the ratio is 45/8=5.6, still somewhat in line with the expectation.
“What is the guidance counselors role in college acceptance rates? Is there something I am not understanding? Our school is similar to OP.”
@FoxWarrior : Here are some ways a good GC can help kids to be admitted to good schools:
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By having strong background knowledge of many colleges and what the colleges are specifically looking for, they can suggest colleges that are not just a fit for the kid, but that are looking for kids like that so are more likely to accept the kid. What MIT is looking for is very different from what Yale is looking for is very different from what UChicago is looking for, to use pretty well known examples. A top 1% GPA and test scoring kid may be a genius, perfect fit and exactly what MIT wants, but if that student only applies to Yale and UChicago, might only get rejections since it’s not a fit for the school. In some ways this is even more critical for kids who aren’t top 1% because if they don’t know enough about the options out there, they’ll often think their options are only dream schools like Ivys or their state schools. But there are hundreds of fantastic colleges that aren’t Ivys but that might be a better fit and with scholarship less expensive than state schools, plus if the student is what they’re looking for the student is even more likely to get in under their holistic review process than the pure metrics of some of the state schools. This type of insider or experienced information from a GC can be invaluable.
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Giving feedback on the application itself. Even with something as simple as the Common App, it is very easy to show that wording choice, way you arrange/prioritize and general tone of the app matters. Greatly. It’s not just about writing great essays and filling in all the blanks, it’s how you arrange the picture. Some people call that “packaging”. It’s not lying, it’s simply making the presentation the most appealing it can be. Similar to how great realtors are geniuses about how they describe a home and which pictures they show in a listing; listings that are well written with attractive pictures get more traffic and sell more quickly. Same thing with students - there are definitely ways to make an application appealing. Good GCs can help with this or refer students to people who can help.
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Some GCs have even cultivated personal relationships with admissions officers at some colleges. So the GC can pick up the phone and say “John, you’re going to see an application from Jane Doe. I know her GPA is a little lower than you’d like but here’s why she’s a fantastic student and why you want her at your school.” Does that mean the GC has a magic wand and can get unqualified students admitted? No. But it does mean they can influence in benefit of the doubt situations or where there is a choice between several candidates.
“There is some rule of thumb. For example, every year there are 16000 NMSF and 10000 offers from HYPSM of which 3000 go to unhooked kids. Assuming 15000 of the NMSF are unhooked and all of them would apply to top schools you would have a ratio of NMSF to HYPSM admits (not matriculate) about 5 (15000/3000). A typical good suburban school with 20 NMSF should have about 4 HYPSM admits on average per year. In case of Thomas Jefferson HS in Va the ratio is 200+ (?)/55, much less than 5. So, TJ is definitely punching above its weight and you can say that it enjoys a “reputation effect”. In the HS of @ResilientOptimist the ratio is 45/8=5.6, still somewhat in line with the expectation.”
Wouldn’t the ratio predicted hold true just for schools with a mix of all students, though? At a school like Thomas Jefferson where there is an application process and only top performing students are admitted and attending, it would seem reasonable to assume that a greater percent of those top performers would be admitted to top schools? In other words, TJ is not a “typcial good suburban school”; it’s more like the top 10% of students from a typical good suburban school.
This is part of what disappoints me about my son’s school. It’s a public magnet type school so just like TJ, the students there are all high achieving; they had to be to attend the school. Even the kids at the bottom of the class would be in the top 10% of a typical suburban school. And although 100% go to college, the number of admissions to the most selective colleges isn’t that much higher than would be predicted at a typical high school, which has a mix of students including high performing and functionally illiterate. Hugely different populations but not hugely different top college admissions which indicates to me that class ranking still plays a fairly strong role in the admissions process, hurting the kids that go to magnet type schools.
milee30: Just talking to my kids about this. If you chose to go to the best high school ( public or private) there has already been a huge cut based on ability. When you apply to college the same cut doesn’t benefit you. Instead it hurts your chances as you may have been top 10% and now are in the 50% range at a great high school. This is not that impressive at all to admissions. This used to work better in the past as admissions would know the top schools and admit more with this in mind. Today there are just too many candidates. The good news is, if they chose the better high school route they will be better prepared for college when they get there. They just need to know it will be harder to get in. Same thing applies to grades. I laugh when I hear about schools where 40% of the kids get A’s. This is reality today. Take a kid with some outlandishly high GPA and put them against some kid who went to a difficult public/private school with no grade inflation and a moderate GPA. The first might look better.
Discussion about GC’s is dead on. If you have better marketing often people will buy your product even if it isn’t the best. That is why many send their kids to private school in our area. They know if they pay 50K the GC will write a glowing review of an average student.
Lots of truth darts on this thread:
Think twice before sending your kid to a magnet school:
[#37] “…class ranking still plays a fairly strong role in the admissions process, hurting the kids that go to magnet type schools”.
The ability of some HS to signal quality to the colleges has gotten lost amid the crush of applications:
[#38] “This [choosing the better high school–ed.] used to work better in the past as admissions would know the top schools and admit more with this in mind. Today there are just too many candidates.”
The existence of a steady, quality pipeline from a HS to a college affects the admissions performance of the next class of students who graduate from that HS:
[#33] “One or two kids to an Ivy over the years doesn’t give the best universities the snapshot they need.”
GC department performance matters to HS admissions performance:
[#38] “If you have better marketing often people will buy your product”
To the above I will add this one:
Enrollment Management
Story: Why would U of Michigan Engineering and Cornell Engineering be in a street brawl/knife fight over the seniors (esp. the women) at my D’s HS who have demonstrated that they can run with the fastest horses in the land in physics and engineering? Because the students are all full-pay and both of those schools have had great yields year after year by fishing in that pond.