<p>My son is currently enrolled in a local high school. We are deciding whether or not he should transfer to a magnet high school for his junior year. This magnet school is in the top 30 best high schools in the US. Do colleges really care which high school he attends? Will attending the magnet school be better for his college applications?</p>
<p>My son (National Merit Finalist) and I have discussed this matter. We feel that the top schools cannot take all the kids graduating from a magnet school. In fact, it is probably easier to get into a top college coming from a poor, low socio-economic type of high school and being valedictorian, than coming from a highly competitive magnet. Only send your kid to a magnet if the program is a great opportunity for its education and great match with your child’s talents. Of course, if your child has something distinctly special and unusual talent, then the talent will be the star feature in your child’s application.</p>
<p>I strongly disagree with the previous post. While logical, it is not consistent with the facts.</p>
<p>High schools with strong committed students, and a matching rigorous program, are infectious academically. They create an atmosphere where excellence is “cool”, and the students challenge one another and themselves. They attract the best of teachers, and they have the best programs.</p>
<p>Selective colleges, from their past experience know this, and they accept a disproportional number of students from schools of excellence – certainly private ones, and also magnet schools. They know this works, because these students thrive at these colleges. They don’t need to come up to speed on focusing, studying, etc.</p>
<p>Colleges often provide lists of where their current students are from. I’ve looked at such lists. There are very few incoming freshman from low performing schools – valedictorians included.</p>
<p>Inpeng, there are a lot of things you’ll need to consider. </p>
<p>If your son is unchallenged at his current school and coasting along with high grades, a more demanding school might be just his cup of tea. It might also give him better work habits and make him better prepared for college. On the other hand, if he’s already working hard and the magnet is far more academically rigorous, your son may be unprepared for the workload. Talk to a counselor at the new school about what classes your son will be placed in. Will he be eligible (if it’s what he wants) for AP and Honors courses? Or will he not be allowed to take a “most rigorous” curriculum? </p>
<p>If your son transfers, he’ll be entering the magnet school as a junior, not a freshman. Find out what this means for his ranking within the new school, if the new school ranks. Compare that with his current ranking at his current school. If his ranking would change significantly, consider how that might affect his applications.</p>
<p>Look at where students from both the current and new school end up going to college. A top kid at the local school might do “better” than lower-ranked kids at the magnet. Or, all of the magnet kids may end up getting a boost from their school’s reputation.</p>
<p>Finally, ask your son if he’d be happier at one school or the other. Some kids will grit their teeth and go anywhere for high school if it’ll give them an edge in college admissions. Others would rather go to a school where they’ll be happier, and let the admissions chips fall where they will.</p>
<p>If the focus of the school is something that your student is interested in, has strong skills, or may lead to a career path, then it is worth investigating. Going to a speciality school simply to get an edge on college admissions can backfire and may not be advised if your student is doing well, and receiving a good education where he is. I agree that meeting with the GC at the new school would be a good idea to adress what classes would be available to your student. Many of the higher level courses have prereq’s that are built on early in high school. Also check your county requirements for transfer. They are usually by application in the spring preceeding the fall you would enroll. Depending on the program, entering in the Jr year may be too late to receive a certificate of achievement that is earned at many speciality schools.
Good luck.</p>
<p>S was recently accepted at a top magnet school. This is something he has wanted for years and although we are all very excited, I am nervous too.</p>
<p>As for college admissions, the students from this school do very well, however, as I have pointed out to S there is no “free ride”. Simply attending this school does not get a student admitted anywhere, you still have to make the grades, etc.</p>
<p>We have another (fairly new) magnet program in our area and the parents from the first few classes had the same concerns as you have. They have found that the program is becoming known to admissions officers, but same caveat as above.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>If he takes the exact same classes, gets the exact same grades, exact same AP or IB scores, exact same SAT or ACT scores, exact same ECs, and so on, it’ll probably be a very slight negative to be in a more competitive school than a less competitive school. If he does any better at all in the more competitive school, it will be worth it. </p>
<p>There really aren’t pros and cons to a decision like this. He should go to the best school he possibly can.</p>
<p>Our DS was accepted to the top magnet in the nation, at least back 5 yrs ago. TJJHS. It was a very hard decision to make regarding attending there. Fortunately, my cousin had a DS who attended there and her one piece of advice was the make or break factor.</p>
<p>She said don’t do it, if he doesn’t want to be in this world. Yes, it is great for college, but this is a very competitive community. Just because he has the smarts doesn’t mean he wants to live, breathe and eat it. </p>
<p>Listen to him, if he says “whatever, I don’t care Mom”, than that should be a blaring sign. If he is hounding you about what happens next or discussing what the classes are like there, then you know he should go.</p>
<p>If I were you the one concern I would have as a MOM from personal experience is transferring him as a jr in hs. My kids are military kids, they all went to at least 2 hs. It is hard to create friendships when the kids there already have their group of friends. Even if he is outgoing, socially this is uprooting his life.</p>
<p>Colleges look at many factors. One is the hs, another is the course curriculum your child is taking. If your child is taking the hardest course curriculum and doing well, he should be still competitive.</p>
<p>Finally, remember to the admissions board, it is not just about stats like AP’s, class rank, GPA, SAT. It is also going to be about their outside life…EC’s, such as athletics, school leadership, etc. Gone are the days of stats, schools now want a well rounded student. They will take the 3.8 uw gpa with 9 AP’s, NHS, Class Secretary, Varsity LaCross player, Life Guard employee over the 4.0 with 12 AP’s, NHS and nothing else.</p>
<p>I will say in VA, the schools are very competitive, thus TJJHS really doesn’t give a HUGE edge. Many of them attend the exact same colleges that the non-magnet students attend.</p>
<p>As my title says, it is worth it in my opinion of assuming the kid is OK in a more competitive environment, etc. My son’s high school is average in NJ probably ranks about 80 to 100. All the top ten kids including valedictorians get rejected by top ivies. I think only one is accepted at Cornell. The top 5 students with SAT > 2200 and very high GPA, typical EC, etc now end up in Rutgers, TCNJ or other schools ranks 30 or more. I know other higher school kids go to much better colleges with similar SAT, etc because their high schools ranks much higher! This is so true and I that’s why better school district get better real estate prices! Besides, the GC in my S’ high school focus on average kids because of limiteds resources. They don’t even counsel the better kids on how to apply to Ivy where better High School GC focus on!</p>
<p>Does the magnet school have an academic theme? Is your son very interested in the specific curriculum offered? If it’s a math/science school, say, and your son is very interested in languages/history/humanities, then maybe it’s not a good fit for him. Will he be able to participate in ECs he likes at the magnet school? What kinds of colleges does he want to apply to and what does he want to study? There are really too many variables here to be sure that going to a magnet school is always better in terms of college admissions prospects.</p>
<p>I think your focus for this question should not be on college applications, it should be on what happens once your student gets into a college. The thing with these boards is that most of the focus is on how to get IN to college, when really the hard thing is what you do once you’re there. You want him to go to the school that will most prepare him to succeed in college and in life. To the school where he’s the most challenged, has access to the best possible resources, teachers, classes, and to the environment that is most supportive of learning. That will help him build a strong fundamental foundation for college level work so that once he gets in whereever he gets in, he’ll excel. That should be the focus. So don’t keep him in a lower quality school just to increase your chances at some abstract numbers game that frankly, no one on these boards really knows how to play well, though we all purport to. Give him the best preparation and let him do what he will with it.</p>
<p>My DD attended TJ. We have debated this many times. </p>
<p>First and foremost of course, it depends on the student. How would they do at the base school? At the magnet, for the same amount of effort, at TJ they will have a lower GPA (I believe this strongly) but I am not sure about all magnets. At almost any magnet they will of course have a lower class rank. </p>
<p>But some kids will put in more effort at a magnet. Will do better socially, or discover new interests. OTOH some kids will dislike it and put in less effort.</p>
<p>But assuming comparable effort, here was our considered judgement about TJ and college admissions. </p>
<p>It definitely hurts wrt admissions at our state flagship, UVA, which seeks diversity of HS admits, and uses GPA and class rank as major factors in admission. OTOH most TJ students who apply to UVA are admitted, and thats a huge portion of the TJ graduation class. So its makes it hard to even prove the greater difficulty, a fortiori that its a big issue. It only really is a problem for the folks in the bottom quartile of the TJ graduation class, most of whom cannot get into UVA, but probably would have had a better shot from a base school.</p>
<p>At Ivies (including MIT), its not clear, but it may be a slight negative.</p>
<p>At the non-Ivy elites that typically get lots of TJ apps, like CMU, WUSTL, i suspect its about even.</p>
<p>At the instate schools other than UVA (W&M, Vtech) its probably also about even.</p>
<p>At the non-ivy selectives that do not get many TJ applicants, like Bucknell, Lehigh, RPI, a bunch of OOS publics, etc, etc. I think its probably a net plus, but not a huge one.</p>
<p>One of my kids went to a magnet. </p>
<p>She felt that going to the magnet did not impair her college admissions chances because the lower GPA and lower class rank she had at the magnet (in comparison to what she would have had at her neighborhood high school) were offset by the rigor of the curriculum and by the positive impact of that curriculum on her standardized test scores. For her, the magnet/non-magnet choice was a wash in terms of college admissions; she figures that she would have ended up at the same college or its reasonable equivalent regardless. </p>
<p>But she was in the top quarter of the magnet class, so her GPA was pretty high. And since the magnet constituted only 1/4 of the student body, her class rank was also high (top 5% of the overall senior class). And she didn’t apply to the very top schools anyway. She was quite happy to “settle” for a school in (horrors!) the second ten rather than the top ten on the U.S. News list. In fact, she applied to and was accepted at that school ED.</p>
<p>Many of her magnet classmates, particularly those who were not among the top students at the magnet (but who would have been at the top at their neighborhood high schools), felt that their situation was different from my daughter’s. They would have been outstanding at their neighborhood high schools, with top grades, top class rank, and extraordinary teacher recommendations. At the magnet, they were just ordinary magnet students, with lower GPAs and class ranks and less impressive recommendations. They felt that being at the magnet significantly hampered their college admissions results (and some are quite bitter about this).</p>
<p>But there is more to college than admissions results. There is also preparation. And there is no question that students from the magnet were better prepared for college. The experience of being at the magnet is also a factor worth considering. Although the magnet kids had to work much harder than they would have at their neighborhood high school, they also had the positive experience of being with their academic peers, in a setting in which the disciplinary problems that plague most high school classrooms were almost nonexistent.</p>
<p>My daughter is not sorry she went to the magnet, but there are others who are. Your mileage may vary.</p>
<p>" were offset by the rigor of the curriculum and by the positive impact of that curriculum on her standardized test scores."</p>
<p>Many kids at magnets already have an issue with imbalance between their SAT’s and GPA’s. If you have a kid who mighy already have issues like that at a base school (say a gifted kid with ADD for example) that can be magnified at a magnet. Different colleges seem to have different POV’s on the relationship of SAT and GPA.</p>
<p>“There is also preparation. And there is no question that students from the magnet were better prepared for college.”</p>
<p>My DD is not yet in college so I cannot speak to that, but hope very much you are right.</p>
<p>" The experience of being at the magnet is also a factor worth considering. Although the magnet kids had to work much harder than they would have at their neighborhood high school, they also had the positive experience of being with their academic peers, in a setting in which the disciplinary problems that plague most high school classrooms were almost nonexistent."</p>
<p>This is true. And in our experience, the absence of those disciplanary problems opens up a different, better relationship between students and admin, one involving more respect and freedom for students.</p>
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<p>It is quite common for kids from really good magnet programs to say that college is easier than high school. For some, college seems almost like a vacation. And these are kids who are attending well-known selective universities.</p>
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<p>this is terrible, isn’t it!! College is not the end of your creative life.</p>
<p>My kids went both to a top private school and a public magnet (albeit a relatively weak one, certainly not TJ or Stuyvesant). Based on what I have seen around here, at least, it is a MAJOR, not small, advantage to go to a better school. Sure, they are more competitive; sure, there are kids in the second quintile who might have been the valedictorian at their neighborhood school. So what? The valedictorians at the neighborhood schools aren’t competitive for hyperselective college admission. Maybe one gets in every 5-10 years. The best students at the best schools may not get into every college to which they apply (some do!), but they get into great colleges. And when the colleges go out on a limb a little, it is usually for a kid who has made his bones at a really demanding school, not one who has been a big fish in a really small pond.</p>
<p>That’s not to say that it’s night and day. There is overlap, and it’s kids that colleges accept, not schools. But I am convinced that “I would have been the valedictorian at my local school and gotten into Harvard” is nothing but a huge urban myth. If a kid doesn’t look like a Harvard student at the best school, he doesn’t look like a Harvard student. And at a poor school it may be next to impossible for him to look like a Harvard student at all.</p>
<p>It depends on where you live, JHS. Some students are in the position of choosing between a good regular public school and a magnet; others choose between a poor public school and a magnet. </p>
<p>My son attended our local good regular public high school. Someone from his class got into Harvard.</p>
<p>My daughter attended a highly regarded countywide magnet program. Nobody in her class got into Harvard.</p>
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<p>I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that for some ex-magnet students, college offers the opportunity to get sufficient sleep, get together with friends, and spend time doing frivolous things like going to the movies. These kids didn’t have time for such things during their high school years. Of course, college allows for a continuation of a student’s creative life; it just allows it on a more reasonable schedule than many magnet programs do.</p>
<p>"My son attended our local good regular public high school. Someone from his class got into Harvard.</p>
<p>My daughter attended a highly regarded countywide magnet program. Nobody in her class got into Harvard."</p>
<p>How many got into “selective” (lets say schools with a median ACT of 28 or higher, or average SAT of 1900 or above) schools from each. My graduating class at a good open-enrollment public school had 4 kids go to Harvard, a magnet school ~40 minutes away probably didn’t have as many. However, almost all of them go to Michigan or more selective schools, where it was only the top quarter at my school.</p>