<p>Agreed phineas! I have heard a college president and the head of admissions at a different college make that exact point.</p>
<p>As a high school teacher I hear kids talking frequently about who is going where and who scored what on their SAT’s. Now, regarding the SAT scores, I notice I only hear about the ones who score high in the opinions of their classmates. In addition, my daughter, who is known as one of the “smart kids” gets directly asked about her SAT score by her classmates. When the kids get accepted to their preferred university they wear their college school shirts and hoodies and I have many just come up and excitedly share the good news with me. We only have an occasional student attend an Ivy-league, but when we do, classmates talk about it.</p>
<p>For the most part, the students seem to be supportive of each other regarding their college acceptances. Occasionally we have the kid who likes to brag about where they are going and act as if they are a lot better than classmates who aren’t going to as prestigious of a school. They end of irritating everyone and then wonder why. :)</p>
<p>Also, in my senior only class students post a picture of their college mascot or logo when they make their decision. Basically, I don’t have to ask - excited kids willingly share.</p>
<p>I have to disagree with “in fact my one overwhelming takeaway from the process is that admissions departments at the top colleges are probably a waste of personnel. I am convinced that any top college could train a temp, a clerk or a reasonably smart Dean to separate the applications by certain objective criteria (objective applicant qualifications and preferred class demographics) then randomly pick out the number of applicants from the appropriate criterion stacks needed to arrive at the desired number of matriculants after applying the expected yield rate.”</p>
<p>Having known several admissions officers personally who have worked at top/ivy schools, the nuance and the decisions are not something that can be completed by a temp or something similar and randomness. I could go into the details for years but I strongly disagree in this case. </p>
<p>I’ve been surprised generally but how much information some of the admissions officers (not all of course, but ivies, highly selectives mainly) know about research, predicting success in high school students, sat/act percentiles and scaling, socioeconomic variations by regions, demographics, nuances of high schools in their region (avg SAT’s, grade deflation, nuances of rank, which teachers write the greatest rec’s). </p>
<p>When parents, students and guidance counselors worry “oh princeton won’t understand my high school because of XYZ” in my experience they often know your high school better than the students who go there. </p>
<p>In my experience, I feel better knowing these people work in the admissions office and it’s not a “temp” just sifting through.
That said, at non-selective places, I think numbers do the trick and rightfully so.</p>
<p>I was tremendously impressed with one admissions rep who knew details about S2’s school I didn’t, including specific grade trends by semester in the program S attends. This person clearly had done homework and knew the territory.</p>
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<p>I always read the honor roll as well as the news about sports and other activities. Perhaps because I know many of the other parents as well as a good number of the students (lots of volunteering), I happen to be sincerely interested and if I see a student or parent I know I will mention it. People seem to appreciate this. I don’t go digging for information and would not consider ever asking anyone about GPA, test scores etc. </p>
<p>I don’t feel the need to know where a student applied and acceptances/rejections, etc. But I see nothing wrong in knowing which college a student plans to attend. D was the only student from her HS in several years to attend her college and she has been contacted by students from her HS who are thinking of applying and by one person who was recently accepted. Neither she nor I have a problem with that. She makes an effort to be helpful to those students.</p>
<p>Kids at D’s high school discuss college stats, chances with the frequency and intensity that kids at my high school discussed boys and girls. Local hot-shot celebrity “mean girl” was witnessed going class to class (including ones she doesn’t take) to announce her HYPS admittances while other students refused to tell anyone their results for fear of gossip. It’s not exactly a healthy or supportive environment.</p>
<p>Strongly agree with post 83.
:)</p>
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<p>I find this VERY hard to believe, and here’s why.</p>
<p>My kids go to a well regarded public hs in the Chicago suburbs with a mix of middle and upper middle class students. But for reasons too long to get into here, there is a huge mentality that the state schools are where it’s all at; the parents who are more well-to-do typically did so in careers that didn’t require fancy educations (e.g., owning a chain of car dealerships, restaurants, things of that nature versus being doctors and lawyers). </p>
<p>But let’s face it. This is a school that only sends maybe 5 or so kids a year to what I’ll classify as top schools (and I’ll count both top 30 unis and top 30 LAC’s in that, to be generous). And the kids who get there are kids who sort of sought that out on their own, not through the school. There just isn’t a mentality that you’d pay money to send your kid to the East Coast or the West Coast or whatever when you’ve got the perfectly fine U of Illinois right here. (And I can’t say as I blame a lot of the parents for thinking this way. Their U of I educations got them to million-dollar houses, and why would you want to get on an actual plane??)</p>
<p>The top schools that are outside of the Chicago area, esp the LAC’s, aren’t coming to visit my kids’ school. They’re visiting New Trier, Highland Park / Deerfield HS, Glenbrook North / South, Evanston Township. They’re visiting Hinsdale Central. They’re visiting the Naperville schools. Etc. (And of course the elite private schools.) </p>
<p>Come off it. How are they <em>really</em> going to know this school? How are any of them <em>really</em> going to know the GC’s if they tripped over them? I don’t believe it for an instant. They’re going to go off the school profile that gets sent it and beyond that, who the heck knows. They don’t have “relationships” with the GC’s. There is little point for them to cultivate relationships with overworked GC’s who are spending 95% of their time and effort finding scholarships for the B and C students at the directional state u’s.
There’s nothing I can do about it at this point, obviously, but please, don’t try to tell me that they’re going to “know” that the AP USH course that my kid got a B in is really a difficult one or whatever. I don’t buy it.</p>
<p>We had a U Chicago adcom come to the school and give a presentation on getting into highly selective schools. And she started talking about how the elite u’s know the schools because they visit. And afterwards, I went up to her and showed her the list of what schools come and visit. Tons of Grand Valley State; maybe only 2 - 3 schools that anyone on CC would classify as “elite,” and even then probably nothing beyond NU, U Chicago, Notre Dame and WUSTL just because they are relatively local. So, please. My kids are looking at Bryn Mawr and Haverford and Mt Holyoke and Kenyon and all kinds of other neat places. But I don’t delude myself for <em>one minute</em> that their adcoms are going to know a darn thing about their school. It doesn’t pass the sniff test, at all.</p>
<p>“but please, don’t try to tell me that they’re going to “know” that the AP USH course that my kid got a B in is really a difficult one or whatever.”</p>
<p>The ad coms don’t need to know that the course is a really difficult one. From your school profile, they should know what % of kids at the school take that course…or at least take AP courses. And…your child’s score on the AP exam…for the most selective schools…is how they’ll know about the course and your child’s ability to do college level work.</p>
<p>There are lots of high performers from mostly affluent suburbs and private schools at all of the top colleges. Although the schools could fill their freshman class with those kids a few time over, they won’t. The competition for those “spots” may even be more fierce than for high performing kids from lesser known high schools.</p>
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<p>Using info from helpful parents on CC, I examined our school’s profile and made very specific suggestions to the head guidance counselor on how it could be reworked and offered my help to help re-do it. She went on maternity leave and the project went nowhere. The regular GC’s just aren’t interested; it’s irrelevant for 95% of their students, who are applying to the tried and true state u’s. I did try!!</p>
<p>PG, keep working it. She’ll come back from maternity leave, right? The profile is sooo important.</p>
<p>On the question of how much students (and parents) know about other students’ college apps and admissions, I do think that this is a matter of culture of the school. But I think it may also matter whether your kid is a boy or a girl. You can’t entirely generalize, but my observation is that my daughter knows a lot more about what is going on with her classmates (and talks about it) than my son ever did. She may just be nosier, but I also think that she just pays more attention than he did.</p>
<p>^^^ Second that!</p>
<p>Hunt… Agree completely. My son goes to a private school that graduates about 100-120 kids per year. It is a very close group of kids who know a lot about one another. They are friends, they share info like friends should. They support one another, congratulate one another, etc… My son wouldn’t think twice about talking to many of his friends about SAT scores, where he is applying, where he got accepted/denied. That is part of their culture. The kids start doing mass college counseling in 8th grade. They do individual counseling too, but several times a year the entire grade is in the auditorium with the college counselors. </p>
<p>I am sure there are students that don’t share their info and don’t want others to know. But most do.</p>
<p>^^ My D is in a similar school, with fewer than 100 kids/class. Everyone knows everyone else’s SAT’s, college aspirations, and outcomes, pretty much in real time. They even compared and commented on each other’s essays. Despite the fact that they were applying to overlapping colleges, they supported each other throughout the process, and are still helping each other deciding which college to attend. It is a great environment.</p>
<p>Does anyone have a sample of a really good high school profile? Sadly, our big public high school has a horrible one too (even hard to read as it’s been Xeroxed too many times). I’d like to get a sample to show them how they could update it.</p>
<p>I agree with Pizzagirl on this one. The adcoms of elite schools might know quite a bit about the schools from which they always receive a lot of strong applications, but that doesn’t mean they know one bit about the average, run-of-the-mill high school or schools well outside the geographic area from which they receive the bulk of their applicants. Furthermore, adcoms do retire and get replaced and I’d think the kind of knowledge that would matter takes time to acquire. Also, though I’m still not sure if and how much interviews matter, my son’s college interviewers most definitely didn’t know about his high school either, which my son was a little concerned about. For example, at my children’s high school, all club meetings are held after school. At some high schools club meetings are held during an activity period which is part of the school day, or every Wednesday afternoon which is always a half day for the school, or in before school or in the evenings. Since all sports practices are also held after school at our high school, it is impossible to belong to clubs if you do sports seriously (I suppose you can if you’re uncommitted to either activity or are a low-level athlete in no-cut sport). We’re a large school which competes in the most competitive state grouping, and so few to none of the varsity coaches are going to let a kid skip practice to attend the ping pong club or whatever. My son was a three-sport varsity athlete, and yet almost every interviewer asked him why, if he was so interested in politics, hadn’t he joined the school’s JSA or Model UN clubs? He worried it made him look like he was manufacturing an interest for the sake of the application. We knever knew if that hurt him or not.</p>
<p>A few of you may be surprised to know that the CB sells profiles of high schools to colleges. My understanding is that includes data based mostly on CB’s data, which means that you should tell your kids to tell the truth when they fill out the surveys on the PSAT re grade point averages. I think it includes things like the # of kids in the class; the number of AP tests taken broken down by subject with the median score; median SATs broken down by area; median SAT IIs broken down by area; number of NMSFs, etc. So, if a college gets an app from a high school it knows very little about it can buy the school report from the CB. Admittedly, that doesn’t help the folks from ACT country, but the administrators of that may do something similar.</p>
<p>I think that sometimes colleges will call the college adviser at a private or top public high school in the area and ask about a school with which they are unfamiliar. </p>
<p>I am personally convinced that if a college takes a kid from an unknown high school, that kid’s track record impacts the kids who come after him. So, if Joey from Podunk Central gets into Princeton and graduates PBK, Princeton is now going to be an easier admit for other kids from PC. If Joey struggles and barely makes it, PC kids won’t get much slack.</p>
<p>Our HS does not have a “school day” activity period, except for Band/Orchestra. All others are after or before school. (School start 8:15, so some clubs meet at 7:30). A few meet in the evening.</p>
<p>A number of Varsity athletes manage to participate in these activities. I don’t know how they do it…unless it’s mostly the before school activities.</p>
<p>Our high school profile isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty good. It’s basically a folder plus pocket. </p>
<p>Page 1
School Address
Names of Superintendant, and Asst. Super.
House Principals and phone numbers
Counselors and phone numbers
Description of community and the high school
-size, location, diversity for community
- size, diversity, examples of awards students have gotten in the past
-number of teachers and staff, spending per pupil</p>
<p>Page 2
List of AP tests taken and number of student who took each tests (score results not listed, I wish they were_
List of number of AP Scholars, Scholars with Honors and Scholars with Distinction
SAT 1 scores with 75th and 15th percentiles and mean for all students and mean for those attending four year colleges
List of SAT subject tests taken, number of students taking each test and their mean scores
List of graduation requirements
List of what percentage of grads go where (four year, two year, military, employment, other)
List of honors courses (it’s confusing, but shows for example that Latin honors is only available for Latin 4, while Italian has it for 3rd, 4th and 5th year courses.
List of number of National Merit, National Achievement and Hispanic recognition scholars
List of courses that are dual enrollment</p>
<p>Page 3
Dumb blurb about the curriculum
Description of a senior internship program
Dumb blurb about EC activities (“we have lots”)
Blurb about arts program (which results in a special designation on the diploma)
In the pocket they put the transcript (which has grades and class rank)
On the pocket they repeat class rank (they must ink it in)
Also on the pocket is a description of the weighting system, the fact that it includes 8th grade high school level courses, and that transfer students have approximate ranks.</p>
<p>Page 4
List of colleges that accepted students from the previous class (no numbers)</p>