<p>My high school is brand new in my area. I am in the second graduating class it's ever had. Will this diminish my chances at all?</p>
<p>There would be an obvious lack of information about your school, but I don’t think admissions would hold it against you.</p>
<p>However, I do think that they would give any AP/IB/SAT II scores that you have special consideration to watch for any early signs of grade inflation.</p>
<p>If your school provides a profile (which I assume they do) they will probably have enough information, however. Has any student from your school applied to Harvard in the past?</p>
<p>@Tiberium I have no idea, but I knew most people from the class last year, and I never heard anything about anyone applying</p>
<p>Generally speaking, new school’s don’t have a track record yet, so all colleges (not just Harvard) won’t know anything about your high school unless your guidance counselor specifically reaches out to various Admissions Offices and lets them know of your existence. How proactive is your GC? Have colleges visited your high school to give presentations to students? Have they sat in on classes? If not, colleges will just have to go by your high school’s profile, which might not contain as much information as other school’s that have been around for a while. </p>
<p>@gibby We’ve had plenty of colleges come by for presentations. Not sure if they sat in on classes, but we have had a good amount including some respectable schools like Duke.</p>
<p>^^ Great. Then colleges like Duke have your high school on their radar. If Harvard has not visited your high school for a presentations that may mean your school is not yet on their radar – so your GC should specifically ask Harvard to visit your school and speak to students.</p>
<p>@Gibby,</p>
<p>Is that necessary?</p>
<p>My high school (private, small, and new-ish) has never had someone from Harvard come by to give a presentation. However, we’ve been one of the only schools in the area to actually send applicants to Harvard (three out of around 300 graduating students within the past three years).</p>
<p>Besides, if it’s a new school with a low amount of students, would admissions officials want to speak at the school? It seems like a waste of time to only reach a few potential applicants, when they could speak at a larger school and address far more.</p>
<p>^^ I’m not sure how it works in your area, but here in New York City, colleges (Harvard included) stop by high school’s on a regular basis during the months of September, October and early November. What they usually do is hit about 4 high schools a day – one at 9am, the second at 11am, the third at 1pm, and a fourth at 3pm – and make presentations to students and sometimes sit in on classes to get a feel for the academics. Many of those schools visited send multiple applicants per year to Harvard and all selective colleges.</p>
<p>Hmmm…, I guess it might be just because it’s NYC?</p>
<p>I live in a part of California which is only reached by top colleges through Exploring College Options, and isn’t too populous with high school students.</p>
<p>I’ve gotten all my questions about Harvard answered by the ECO representative, but none of them generally stay long enough to visit any schools in the region. Other than that, we never see any top colleges.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s just too remote?</p>
<p>My school is pretty small and in North Carolina… not too far but maybe Harvard wouldn’t think it would be worth the trip to speak to just 100 students like @Tiberium said</p>
<p>My son’s school has graduated only 3 classes and has also had Ivy acceptance each year. Hopefully the school administration is getting the word out about your school. </p>