<p>How many top colleges now offer ED? S was admitted to the non-hooked school in the RD pool.</p>
<p>As an aside, admissions at competitive private HS's can be even more quirky than colleges because a large portion of the class is filled from associated lower schools, and there are preferences for legacies of the school and legacies in the Ivy League and URM's and competitive athletes and siblings and children of faculty and staff and development candiddates. If 40% of competitive college classes are typically filled by students with a preference of one kind or another, then 50-90% of the class in competitive HS's is filled with students with some kind of preference. For this reason students in the top 25% relative to their peers at such schools, academically, are routinely denied admission.</p>
<p>H and P are the only top colleges I know of that don't offer ED or EA.</p>
<p>pullinghair: I think you are not going in the right direction. We were in the same boat with out D's HS selection and I did look at more than 100 HS in the country. I made programs to crunch all the information I could get for each school and provide me some ranking based on what I thought was important. I think we made absolutely a right selection wrt D's high school and delight with her acceptances and success at her high school.</p>
<p>My analysis say you should look for following in the high school
1. Resources: First and foremost things to look for in High School is curriculum, labs if interested in science and technologies, research opportunities, teaching staff, extra-curricular activities and % of students involved.
2. College acceptances and matriculations: Some time school list acceptances and not matriculation which might be more confusing and may not provide you the full picture.
3. School profile - This is sent to all colleges where a student applies along with their credentials. It is very important that the school report is solid and school is well perceived.
4. Student body: Legacy or non legacy, if the student body as a whole is not motivated to go to top schools then your child might be influenced by the not so motivated at HS and can be the cause of failure.</p>
<p>It is important to know how many legacies got into the colleges but still more important is whether the school has resources and those all available to all.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Legacy does count. 13% of Princeton's freshman class next year will be legacies.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is only meaningful if you also know what percentage of the applicants were legacies, what percentage of those legacy applicants were accepted, and what percentage of those accepted chose to attend. And you would also need the same statistics for non-legacies, so that you could compare them.</p>
<p>Princeton's legacy admit rate is 40%, far greater than any other top school I know of. Dartmouth's is about 25%. Here's an article with some numbers:</p>
<p>Reporting acceptances rather than matriculations is also a deceptive tactic used by some private high schools to create an illusion of successful placement. One student selected at 10 schools appears to be 10 acceptances.</p>
<p>Here's another take on choosing a high school - pick the school where the student is likeliest to be happy and grow well for the next four years. Trust that the college process will work out well because of those four happy, productive years. I worry for kids who get so focused on the future that they don't get to fully enjoy the present.</p>
<p>My kids' high school doesn't meet any of the criteria outlined by ParentofIvyHope. It doesn't have very many resources, few students go to "top" schools, many families have no history of college so they certainly aren't legacies, etc. But the students who have strong academic profiles get into selective colleges anyway. It's not clear to me that the choice of high school makes such a big difference in college admission - I think the student matters more than the high school.</p>
<p>I don't think it's an either/or situation. When we were deciding whether our son should stay in the local public or go to a private school, we looked both at the academic programs offered and also at the college acceptance history. It looked like there were enough offerings to keep him adequately challenged, some great programs some of which he ended up not taking advantage of, EC activities he was likely to enjoy. That was our primary concern, but if no one from his school ever got into a top tier college, I'd have been concerned.</p>
<p>curious14 my kids' school does give info about how many kids applied at a certain college and how many chose to go.
Marian like hmom5 said most kids who are legacies apply ED. I can't remember one instance when a legacy did not get in. The only rejection I heard of, was when a kid was offered a spot, at another college within the University he applied to.
BTW the reason I think Yale had so selective last year is because many kids who couldn't apply ED to H and P applied to Yale.</p>
<p>Most private school keep comprehensive records of where their kids apply and are accepted. They have detailed info such as sex of the applicant, whether s(he) applied early, legacy, athlete, performing arts, first generation, URM and special categories. It does make a big difference. Nearly all of the kids who were accepted to HPY from our school had one of those hooks. Others who were accepted were top students, taking top courses with top test scores.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Student body: Legacy or non legacy, if the student body as a whole is not motivated to go to top schools then your child might be influenced by the not so motivated at HS and can be the cause of failure.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Failure in what way? Top school in what way? Wow. </p>
<p>My child chose her school and it's one of the best enriched academic environment available to her. It suits her well, and it challenges her. But I would pull her out in a minute if I felt the school culture was such that she (or any of her classmates) should feel like "failures" for not demonstrating the right amount of motivation to go to a school that happens to have a high number in USNWR. </p>
<p>Don't get me wrong. We are not a bunch of slackers who undervalue education (we have PhDs and used to teach at an Ivy and have spent our life in academia). But we believe there is much more to one's youthful years and the highschool experience than working toward 'top school'. Contrary to the media hype and industry that greatly benefits from feeding our insecurities about our childrens' futures, there remain many many many wonderful ways to great success in America that do not at all involve getting into a 'top X' school.</p>
<p>What I've seen as a Harvard alum interviewer, is that the legacies who got in were just as qualified or more qualified than were the nonlegacies who got in. I also know many outstanding legacies who didn't get in, yet got into other top ten universities.</p>
<p>What I've seen in relation to my alma mater is that in general, alums will discourage their kids from applying if the alums know their kids lack the stellar credentials that are needed to get in. For instance, both of my kids had SATs in the 98th percentile, but didn't apply because I knew that their grades weren't up to par to have a chance of getting accepted.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>What I've seen as a Harvard alum interviewer, is that the legacies who got in were just as qualified or more qualified than were the nonlegacies who got in.<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>This is why I don't think it is justified to say that XXX got into HYPS because he or she was a legacy.</p>
<p>Northstar, I'm wondering, are you in general interviewing in a very affluent area? As a Penn interviewer I see lots of less stellar kids from families who give generously getting in. When an admit surprises me and I look up the category of parental giving, it's usually an ah ha moment.</p>
<p>I'm interviewing in a college town, so it's very unlikely that anyone is getting in because their parents donated millions. Even when I interviewed elsewhere -- Detroit area, a place that did have some people with big bucks-- I have never seen anyone get in who was a surprise to me. I have seen some excellent applicants rejected, but due to the fact that there are so many outstanding applicants, I wasn't surprised at their rejection either. </p>
<p>When it comes to legacies, I remember seeing a legacy URM waitlisted then rejected even though the student's parent was a past head of the regional alum interviewing committee. The student was accepted, though, to a top 10 school where the student wasn't a legacy.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, I have seen information regarding HPY and others that are highly selective that does show that the legacy pool of accepted kids do have lower stats than the rest of the kids. Not a lot, but, yes, there is a value to being a legacy. From what I have been hearing, the gap is narrowing each year, and I don't know what the story is for this year or last. I know that of the kids who were accepted to Harvard from my sons' school this past year, the legacy kids were the only ones accepted without other hooks, and there were kids with higher stats that did not get accepted. That info was available on the records that our private school keeps. The counselor said that legacy definitely was an important factor. Two kids we know just this year were accepted to Swarthmore and Oberlin when other kids who the counselor felt were more likely to be accepted there and were indeed accepted to like and more selective school, were waitlisted. The two who were accepted were legacies and those schools were by far the most selective school to which they were accepted. </p>
<p>MIT does not appear to have legacy preference from what I can see. Close to the same number of non legacies accepted as legacies looking at 5 years worth of data. For some schools like UPenn, legacy preference is only given during ED. </p>
<p>I know that our alma mater (my kids are double legacies) gives legacy preference. How much depends on the applicants that year, but stats show that legacy does make a difference.</p>
<p>However, I have yet to see anyone accepted to HPY that was a huge surprise. They were all high caliber kids who would have had a chance in acceptance even without the legacy connection. They just had a bit of tip in those stats being legacies.</p>
<p>To me Princeton bends big time. From what I've personally seen and the 40% acceptance rate I found in researching it today confirms this IMO.</p>
<p>My double legacy niece was rejected from Harvard last year. She was 3rd in her (large) class, had excellent EC and good though not tippy top SAT scores. Her Harvard interviewer was shocked. I don't know if it's a sign that fewer legacies are being accepted or it was just a very competitive year. Interesting that Princeton has a 40% legacy acceptance rate. This is what Harvard had to say a few years ago:
[quote]
Dean Fitzsimmons notes that at Harvard “legacy status is basically used as a tie-breaker between comparable candidates,” and our data confirm that legacy preferences are generally reserved for candidates with strong credentials. When we assign the applicants to the 13 colleges and universities for which we have sufficient data on legacies to three SAT categories, we find that the legacy advantage is much more pronounced in the highest SAT range than elsewhere. The adjusted admissions advantage for legacies with combined SAT scores below 1100 is just over 6 percentile points (and not statistically significant), the advantage for those with SAT scores between 1100 and 1300 is 18 percentile points, and the advantage for those with SAT scores of 1300 and above is 25 percentile points.
[/quote]
from A</a> Thumb on the Scale | Harvard Magazine</p>
<p>One factor I think gives a legacy an extra advantage is the HS. If a kid goes to a HS that routinely send kids to the Ivies for the past 100 years or so it's a hook.</p>