<p>A child in the local paper finished at the top of her class and is headed to Yale. The child's parents are wealthy surgeons and the school their child is graduating from is one of the worst public schools in the state.</p>
<p>I'm not sure if she attended the school the entire time, but with ad coms focusing more and more on target zip codes and disadvantaged public schools, I couldn't help but wonder if sending your child to an inner city school for a semester or two, i.e., 6th and 7th semesters, is a "thing". With the benefit of dual enrollment, you could likely avoid the majority of on campus time during 11th and 12th grade, while still retaining that sought after zip during the admissions process. Unless the high school counselor went out of his or her way to write about the child transferring in on the school report, I'm not sure who would be hip to this tactic.</p>
<p>Does the family reside in the district? In my state, that’s the issue. If the family lives there, what is so strange about a kid graduating from the local HS? If the kid is getting dropped off every morning from a suburban gated community three towns away that’s another thing.</p>
<p>A child in the local paper finished at the top of her class and is headed to Yale. The child’s parents are wealthy surgeons and the school their child is graduating from is one of the worst public schools in the state.</p>
<p>Attending an inner city school is not a " hook", particulary with well educated & high earning parents.</p>
<p>Sometimes inner city schools are magnet schools. Our district has the IB program at such a school for this reason Some kids drive for an hour every morning to attend. The IB kids rarely live in the neighborhood. Many don’t even live in the city.</p>
<p>This varies by the school and its policies. </p>
<p>Many public magnets like the one I attended and the ones in Boston do mandate one live within the city limits. They will verify the family home address if they feel the suspicion is warranted and if the suspicion is confirmed, force the student concerned to go back to his/her home district for high school. </p>
<p>Interesting. Not here. In fact, they are called “magnets” because the whole point is draw people from other areas. Largely, because the area they are located in is a raggedy wreck and the school needs some students with potential so as not to appear statistically hopeless. That’s the whole point of our public magnet programs. </p>
<p>I can tell you it happens in Texas. We have a top 10% rule which assures admission to a Texas state college if you graduate in the top 10% of your class (top 7% for UT Austin?). Many schools will accept out of district transfers. My daughter attends an out of district school that is very academically competitive. Student have been known to transfer to less competitive schools to make it into the top 10% elsewhere. A “B” student in her school could easily make the top 10% in some of the schools in the county where we live. </p>
<p>Universities see the students application, essays, recommendations etc.
If they transferred in for two years, that would be noted as it would be evident where they took their classes.
A few " inner city" schools in my district have magnet programs to increase diversity, and they welcome the better heeled parents to stimulate giving, both of money and volunteer hours.</p>
<p>I can assure you that the child of two wealthy surgeons had many hoops to jump through for admission to a competitive school.
Perhaps she attended her high school to participate on a school team? Even with average academics, some lower ranked high schools may have very competitive sports teams and that * is* something that top universities are looking for.</p>
<p>We sent our 2 kids to an inner city public high school because we are residents of the city and because if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem. </p>
<p>This is not a Texas school, although I always wondered if this was a “thing” there. Do parents just send the child to the school during the 7th semester, or is there some requirement where the student has to spend a certain number of semesters at the school to qualify for the 10% rule? If more than one or two semesters, it seems like kind of drastic measure to attend UT. I was thinking this was more-so a possible tactic for those targeting super selective colleges.</p>
<p>Suburban students flock to the magnet schools in NHV. The resources are top notch, the students are able to take classes at Southern CT State Univiersity, University of New Haven & Yale for free. </p>
<p>The after school programs offered by Yale U are only for NHPS students. </p>
<p>Most of the magnets have a focus. Cooperative High School for the Arts & Humanites(many graduates are now actors on OITNB and soap operas) </p>
<p>Career High School Health & Business(with the anatomy and physiology students taking classes at the Yale School of Medicine with the medical students in the anatomy lab), </p>
<p>ESUMS Engineering/STEM school where the students begin taking Trig in 7th grade…very rigorous & only the strong survive…</p>
<p>Each school offers unique summer programs and NHPS students can attend summer programs for free at the universities that I listed above.</p>
<p>DD could have gone the private school route with FA or gone out to the suburbs for school. I’m glad that she didn’t. She would not have been able to take advantage of all of the wonderful offerings.</p>
<p>And the vast resources for LD students are not available in the suburbs.</p>
<p>Each Texas district makes its own rules. In ours, in order to gain college admission via the top 10%, you have to transfer by junior year, so you can do two years at one school and finish two years at the school with the lower top 10% cutoff. This was done specifically because people were gaming the system. Not only was it a hardship on the higher-end schools, who were losing students, but parents at the lower-end schools were ticked that kids were sweeping in senior year and taking spots.</p>
<p>@Youdon’tsay What % of the top 10% at some of the inner city Texas schools even end up matriculating to UT? Or perhaps these transfers were occurring at slightly less competitive suburban schools, where just about all of the top 10% is heading to a 4-year college, i.e., transfers in take very real spots away.</p>
<p>No idea how many end up at UT . I doubt it’s tracked anywhere. Still, finishing in the top 10% looks better than the top quarter regardless of where you are applying.</p>
<p>And, really, maybe it was all an urban legend. I mean, I do know a few people who did this (one didn’t just change schools but rented an apartment in another district to make it work), but I doubt it was as widespread as some thought – certainly not hundreds of kids are doing this in my district. And the instances I am talking about weren’t going from super-exclusive schools to metal-detectors-at-the-door, drug dogs every day kinds of schools – just urban schools that aren’t as rigorous and so have a lower cutoff. You COULD get a good education at those schools, just most choose not to take advantage of the fewer APs offered so it was easier to slide in with all your weighted classes and nab a top 5% or 10% spot.</p>
<p>They are! And DDs school offers most AP classes. One young man is the son of a Yale professor/Master of a residential College. He will be heading to P’ton in the fall. I’m sure he could have gone to Hopkins, which is an independent day school. Each and every year students from her school matriculate to Yale and the other Ivies. UCONN and the other state uni’s take a big chunk of the rest. </p>