<p>I have always heard that colleges compare you to the rest of the students in your school based on the school report. If your school is far above the college's average, however, and you have forty or so kids from your school applying to the college, would that put you at an advantage or at a disadvantage? Also, would a "B" average at TJHSST with a 1700 SAT be looked at as better than a "B" average and a 1700 SAT at a public school? Do you get a heads-up if your school is one of the well-known, cut-throat, super-competitive schools, or is it a disadvantage because more is expected from you? </p>
<p>Generally, these top-notch public schools send many of their students to ivy league (far more than the average school) and even more to the other top colleges. Surely, there are comparable students in other schools, but these students are often not accepted. I know many people from Stuy/Bx Sci/Tech who were accepted to a variety of excellent private and public colleges with much lower stats than kids at the normal public schools. </p>
<p>Does the high school's name really matter in the college admissions game? Will a student from No-name HS have an equal chance of getting into a top college despite an obvious difference in school reputations?</p>
<p>More than anything, i think that the colleges know the elite schools better. They know the curriculum they teach and the rigor of each of these schools. In addition, I'm sure that multiple teachers write multiple letters for multiple students for multiple elite colleges...the end result: the colleges learn that these teachers aren't lying. They're able to put a certain crediblity ranking on the recs that they just can't put on with podunk high school recs where teachers are really just trying to get their students into high schools. </p>
<p>However, it's important to remember that with the demographics issue at hand, one doesn't HAVE to come from either background to get into a top college. Even in high school, it's what you make of your career, not what high school you go to. </p>
<p>I see it in the same way as graduate school admissions. Graduate schools take students from random lower ranked colleges, but they also take tons more from high ranked colleges. They know the rigor and professors of the high ranked colleges better than those from low ranked colleges...</p>
<p>You're right. It's doesn't feel so. But capitalism does work, inheritance isn't wrong, and I don't think anyone here thinks a smurf-like cashless society is at all a possible alternative.</p>
<p>While a 4.0 at Exeter is not the same as a 4.0 at Jefferson, the Exeter students still have to compete against their classmates. For example, Harvard isn't going to take a dozen Exeter students whereas they might have taken each of those people if they had been spread out over various public schools. When it comes to getting into a SPECIFIC school (say, Harvard), then it's tougher, but in general Exeter students are going to do well - much better than in an ordinary public school - in the college admissions process.</p>
<p>That said, boarding schools are probably more likely to have a larger percentage of acceptances because the top colleges seem to be looking for geographic diversity more than high school diversity. Private day schools where all the students are from the same geographic area compete even more obviously against each other. Kids at my d's school were upset when the (probable) number two student applied to all the Ivies when she had no love for half of them; the other students knew they would be locked out from the Ivies. In a class of 65 with the average SAT score being 2100, probably 15 or so would have done well at an Ivy. As it was, though, one top student got into Princeton ED, and the probable second one got all the rest of the Ivy acceptances. That's not to say that the rest of the kids did badly; they are going to places like MIT, UChicago, Wellesley, Haverford, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Tufts, and Carnegie Mellon. In general, they have an impressive list of colleges, but only two are going to Ivy League schools, the Princeton ED student and the probable #2. In years past, when students didn't apply to as many colleges, maybe 5 or 6 would have gone to Ivies. (Part of that can be attributed to the tougher admissions year in general.)</p>
<p>"Harvard isn't going to take a dozen Exeter students whereas they might have taken each of those people if they had been spread out over various public schools."</p>
<p>Not true. Exeter sends at least a dozen students to Harvard each year (not sure of the exact number but I have read this.) Boston Latin, a "magnet" public HS, sends ~20 per year to Harvard. There are other schools, both private and college-prep public, with similar statistics. Why would anyone go to these schools if it actually LOWERED their chances of going to HYP? :)</p>
<p>BTW, it doesn't lower acceptances at all. I tried to make it clear that it lowered chances to ONE school. If Exeter sends a dozen to Harvard, I'd bet that TWO dozen would do well there.</p>
<p>Princeton HS (public) sends over a dozen (15? 20?) to Princeton U. mostly because faculty kids go there. The non-connected acceptances are much lower. Could that be the same reason that Boston Latin sends so many to Harvard? (I know Boston Latin is an excellent school; one of my former roommates graduated from there.)</p>
<p>When my daughter and I were at a Columbia University information session, somebody asked whether there was a limit on the number of students that Columbia would accept from any one high school. The admissions officer said that there was no official limit, "but we're not going to take 100 people from Stuyvesant."</p>
<p>At this point, about one-third of the kids in the room (presumably, the one-third from magnet schools) looked as though they had just been stricken with a new form of bubonic plague.</p>
<p>I don't know whether this applies to other schools, and I must say that this particular admissions officer was the nastiest one I have seen anywhere.</p>
<p>If your school is known to the admissions office because it has sent very good students to that college before --that is a definite advantage, even if the high school is not known as "very elite"-- it is harder to gain admission if your school is an unknown quantity--then your test scores, ECs, essays will have to pull more weight.</p>
<p>I'd definitely say the High School matters a lot. The elite HS's take more effort to succeed in. (Generalized Opinion) Whereas a lower-level HS would not be as well-known. You know. Either Princeton or Yale ( I forget )'s students. TWENTY-FIVE!! (YES 25%) ARE FROM ANDOVER/EXETER.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that to get into Andover or Exeter (or St. Paul's which sent 40% to ivies S & M last year!!!) you have already gone through an ivy-like admissions process. To get into a top boarding prep you prepare an application no less comprehensive than ones for ivies, get an equal number of recs, get interviewed, must have great ECs, have an SSAT score on par with an ivy SAT score......You're alreaqdy ivy league material. At public magnets, you've usually only been through the standardized test part of the process.</p>
<p>I agree with suze...the elite high school's prepare you to go to a great college. Not only is the admissions college-like, but the curriculum is structured to be very competitive. In a public high school, it's sort of what you make of it. Instead of all the kids in your school knowing that they want to go into college, you have about half of them that don't really care. The counselors don't push you to take a hard courseload. Everything is sort of on your own. They push you in the elite schools to do better and get those better scores. In my county...if you want a good SAT score...dont rely on the school to teach you. The best kids pay alot of money for tutors or they self study. Almost no emphasis on the college admissions process is taken by the administration until the middle of your junior year when they come out with "time to decide what your gonna be doing with your life." Take it from someone who is going to college from a high school where only 12% of the graduating is attending post-secondary education, and only 6-7% are expected to graduate from college.</p>
<p>I have to agree with Momwaitingfornew to some extent. </p>
<p>I don't know about elite private schools, but at least at the very well regarded public schools here in the suburbs of New York City, there is definitely a sense that only so many kids will get into HYP and the other very top schools each year. At the very well regarded local, public high school, a significant number of students apply to the ivies every year. The competition is stiff, and I know that this year alone 33 students out of a class of 560 applied to Harvard (9 got in, one more than last year, and two less than two years ago). Many get in, many don't. We always hear about kids with stellar grades, near-perfect SAT scores, leadership in ECs, community service ... you get the picture ... who don't get in to any of the top schools. The numbers of students accepted to HYP, etc. seems to falls within a range of +/- two students each year. I have to think that a student with similar grades, scores and ECs would have had a much better chance of acceptance applying from a not-so-well-regarded high school in rural Pennsylvania or Albuquerque.</p>
<p>I think the biggest advantage to an elite HS is the feeder-school connection to certain top colleges. A 3.7 at TJHSST will get you into UVA. In recent years it looks like TJ's also becoming a feeder of sorts for Duke. Competition to HYPSM-caliber schools will, however, be very tough, yet the fact that elite high schools get double-digit numbers in terms of admission may balance that out.</p>
<p>Or do elite high schools include only private schools? Magnet schools? Schools that produce many national merit finalists? What is the criteria for an elite high school?</p>