<p><a href=“http://admissionsaddict.■■■■■■■■■■/[/url]”>http://admissionsaddict.■■■■■■■■■■/</a></p>
<p>look at the november 29th post. it should look something like that</p>
<p>Okay I looked under acknowledgement. The decision date is listed as the 15th.</p>
<p>well that doenst do us any good LOL</p>
<p>Exactly. Hah it definitely isn’t the 15th.</p>
<p>^Why do you think that Holocene?</p>
<p>It has never actually been the 15th, and it is almost always a Friday (a few years ago a Wednesday though, I believe). Also, the legacy letter said the 14th, so they wouldn’t release it later than that.</p>
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<p>1) It’s a Saturday. Decisions are pretty much always on Fridays at Stanford.
2) The alumni letter said 14, and while they might release them earlier, they certainly wouldn’t release them later.</p>
<p>Edit: Just saw coffeeandtea’s response. Whoops, I basically copied you :o</p>
<p>No worries. So how is the rest of senior year going for everyone? I still have a tremendous amount of homework… I don’t know how I will handle the next week/2 weeks waiting for a response AND doing all of this work.</p>
<p>Ah, I knew those reasons, but I was wondering if you had heard something more concrete ^.^ A girl can dream!</p>
<p>While you are all waiting and want to have something to kill the time, let me post a question that you may have good answers.</p>
<p>I have a 8th grader. For HS, we have a choice to go to a feeder school. Actually two feeder programs: one is a gifted program in a public school and the other is a private school that produced Bill Gates. We can also go to a decent public school that is top 100 in the country. </p>
<p>So the question is should my kid go to that decent school to be #1 or go to a feeder program and be one of the top 5%? Which one will have more weight during admission?</p>
<p>The gifted program has been sending 50% of the students to the tier-1 schools: the likes of HYPSMCC. The likes of Berkeley, Cornell, NYU, Dartmouth, Columbia are usually their safeties. But need all the stars to aligned to be the #1 in the program just because of the talent pool. </p>
<p>What are your experiences? I believe that at tier-1 schools, admission officers use the rigor of curriculum as a diffetentiator because the majority of the applicants have SAT/ACT/GPA way above the threshhold. So I am leaning towards being one of the top students instead of being THE best student in HS, but does a class rank of #15 out of 500 students look bad?</p>
<p>^ Quite honestly, it’s not the high school that makes the kid, but what the kid makes of the high school. What makes you think that he can be number one at the public school, but a lesser rank at the private school. Just because private schools are filled with wealthier students, does not necessarily mean that those students are at a higher level of intellect. </p>
<p>Back to your question: I’d go with the school the kid likes better as long as it is a academically-respectable institution (which by your post, I’m assuming both are). I had the same dilemma as an 8th grader, deciding between one of the better private schools in Oregon (on scholarship) or going to a competitive public school. I chose the public school because it was an environment that would allow me to be myself, and thus achieve more EC goals and discover my passions. Also, the public school felt more like a community than the cut-throat private school did upon visitation. </p>
<p>The same isn’t true for everyone. Some would find the private school more appealing than the public. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is visit both schools and pick the one the kid likes. The same could be said for colleges ;).</p>
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<p>Ask the kid. Seriously. Do not choose for your child. Obviously you can put cost constraints and not allow anything that doesn’t align with your family’s priorities, but it sounds like they are all viable options. Discuss the pros and cons with your child. </p>
<p>Do not let your lives revolve around ivy admissions. Most of us on this thread are going to be rejected from Stanford. That’s okay. Life will go on and we will be fine. Ask yourself and your child what a diploma from Stanford vs. a diploma from UC Berkeley will do for his/her life. The answer is not much, once you are in the ~top 30 schools. What is most important during this application process, personally, is that I am confident knowing that I pursued my passions in high school and will continue to do so in college - working as hard as we have for any other reason (i.e. a name brand) is absurd.</p>
<p>Now, to address individual points:</p>
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<p>Either is fine. But honestly, it’s very presumptuous to assume this of your child. IME, though, I’ve seen that feeder school kids tend to have a leg up.</p>
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<p>I don’t think Cornell, Dartmouth, and Columbia can * ever * be safeties unless the student is a developmental admit or recruited athlete. </p>
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<p>I go to a fairly competitive public school. I am ranked among the top few students. I don’t know for sure, as it’s not released. But I did fight tooth and nail to get here. There are many very intelligent students in my class. I considered boarding school and think that personally it would have been a better fit, but family necessities and funds did not allow for this. Other students will thrive more in a public school setting. I got a lot out of my public school education (also in the top 100 Newsweek) and feel adequately prepared for college/life.</p>
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<p>They look at what the applicant did in the context of what was offered to him/her in his/her high school and home and community environments. </p>
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<p>Again, you can’t assume things like this. But theoretically speaking, no, a class rank of 15 does not look bad. It is freaking excellent and you should celebrate it in your family if that happens. It will never look bad on an application either, assuming it is a decently competitive school.</p>
<p>I’m going to be honest. Your post worries me. Your child is what, 13 or 14 years old? Let them be a kid. Ivy admissions will not bring your child eternal happiness, nor will pushing him/her to the brink of exhaustion. Don’t forget that among the flurry of competition and brand names, your kid is trying to * grow up. * And growing up is hard, I tell you. Leave room for mistakes. Don’t worry about the name of the college your child goes to. If s/he enjoys what s/he is doing, and at the end of the four years an ivy quality application has been produced, great. If s/he has a 3.8 and goes to UC Davis, that is just as great. Obviously there is a certain amount of effort expected as a citizen, student, and son/daughter. But that amount of effort should not be at such a high level that s/he is burnt out. Believe me, it happens. And by the way, 5 years after he/she graduates, no one will care where s/he went to college but you and your family.</p>
<p>I love Holocene’s post above!</p>
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<p>To reinforce this, I’m guessing we live in the same city as HYPSMClessHY, and our kids qualified academically for the highest level gifted programs plus we offered them top private school options, but they both opted instead for neighborhood public schools. Both have excelled, have had some AMAZING teachers and many unforgettable experiences. Both left/will leave high school with fantastic grades, very high test scores, have earned national level recognition and have as good or better shots at top schools than many friends who opted for more “elite” high schools. </p>
<p>This worth repeating…</p>
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<p>I know the same can be said of universities, which is only one of many reasons that I know all of you on this thread are destined for great things no matter where you land for college.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the wise inputs. </p>
<p>The choices are three schools: Lakeside HS (Bill Gate’s HS), Public HS #1 with gifted program and Public HS #2. It’s correct to say that there is no certainty where my kid will end up in the ranking of any of the 3 schools. Just statistically speaking the chance of placing higher is option #3. I am leaning towards option #2. My specific question is if a top 5% finish is equivalent to Valedictorian in the eyes of adcoms. I suspect it is assuming the curricula are equally tough. </p>
<p>Anyway, we are all forced to play this “wholistic game” and I am aware that my question only concerns one aspect of the whole package. I just want to figure out how the screening process works in the undergraduate admissions of HYPSMC.</p>
<p>The private school for sure.</p>
<p>I am currently at a large public high school. It worked out great for me, but it didn’t for everyone. Some kids get lost in the midst of 3200 students. These big schools often have a lot of resources to get involved EC-wise, just because of their sheer size. However, I hear that many private high schools have fantastic college advisers who can (apparently) contact college admissions. This is something high schools just can’t do. In reality, I think that the difference between a top 5% rank at a private or a top 1% at the public would be irrelevant. But if this question is solely based off of Ivy-equivalent (since this is a Stanford thread…) admissions, well, you said it yourself. More kids go to top schools from the private. But first and foremost, make sure your now 13 year old can exhale a few times throughout high school; it actually can be a fun time if one allows it to be.</p>
<p>honestly, think about your kids life. there are things you learn in public school that can’t be taught in private school. You learn how to deal with certain situations that would never show up at a private school. Public makes your kid a pusher. In order to succeed in public school you have to push yourself because most teachers will have 200 other kids to worry about who wont be doing as well as yours. You also have to push people to get what you deserve. Your kid will learn to do more things for themselves cause there definitely won’t be somebody holding their hand like in a private school. and if it is large public school the competition will make them thrive because other people will be trying to push them too, but they have to push back…hard.</p>
<p>I think everyone has given great advice HYPSMClessHY. It might sometimes sound like generic “Just do what makes you happy” advice you could have received from a dove chocolate wrapper but I cannot emphasize how correct it is. I assume most of us posting here are seniors in high school, so we should be authorities on what we’re talking about and I agree wholeheartedly with them. Your child is in the eighth grade, there is still a long journey ahead of him. He’s smart? Great, put him in the most challenging and rigorous courses you can and he will probably be amazing! But he also needs to find out what it is he loves, and that is something he must do on his own without the pressure of HAVING to get into an ivy/equivalent. My public regularly sends a few kids to top schools and let me tell you, it has only once been the valedictorian (he was an exceptional kid, he’s at Stanford now, loves it there, just btw 
). Usually it’s just really passionate, talented, driven kids who did not make it to Val. who get in, just because our school is cutthroat and large (90% of kids in top 10% have 4.0’s, ranking just matters on # of AP’s) Our Valedictorian this year is just a stereotypical, generic kid who had really tough parents drive him rly hard to get into an ivy, so he worked his butt off and got to Val, but I think I can confidently say he will not get into ANY of them simply because he did not have enough time during high school to simply EXPERIENCE life and become - with all due respect, he’s a lovable guy - a REAL person. Top schools as I see them are for extremely intelligent and talented kids who already know what their passion and direction in life is, like I know mine, and even a LOOOOT of us don’t get into these schools. It’s not everything! :)</p>
<p>I should also add that it is totally ok not to know your passion before college! I mean, that’s what college was meant for right?</p>
<p>Not to revert the subject back again but if they don’t tell us Friday I might kill somebody. This is so lame but I can barely sleep thinking about it haha</p>
<p>All my friends have like disowned me because its all I talk about it. I seriously can’t think about anything else.</p>