<p>I am currently in the application stage of my college search, and I am so far applying to Bucknell, Sewanee, UTK, and probably Vanderbilt, and I'm looking into Vassar. I have some good scores (32 ACT = 1420 SAT) and a 4.0 GPA, but my High School is quite frankly a very lame institution. We have 2 classes of Anatomy and Physiology with 57 kids and 22 textbooks. Calc 2 was dropped as a class offering because we couldn't get 15 people to sign up. We have had maybe 3 5's on AP Chemistry tests in the past 5 years since our AP chemistry teacher is more involved in Yearbook than teaching, and I have honors and AP classes with more than 35 kids. I live in an Appalachian Tennessee town of about 25,000 with about 50-60% of kids on free lunch, and needless to say, while we ranked somewhere in the US News and World report, it wasn't an actual number rank... more like a low tier...</p>
<p>I've heard in my search that places like Bucknell have a very low rate of public school kids compared to private school (something like 40/60 or 30/70 at some schools). Since I go to a public school with highly inflated grades about something like 50 people above a 4.0 weighted GPA, do my scores mean less and therefore hinder my chances at a more selective school? Or will my class rank of 7 in a school of 357 and my location in a more rural and less recruited area make me more attractive to colleges?</p>
<p>to expand on ilmors data, 71% of bucknells enrolled class of 2011 came from public schools. further, the acceptance rates for public and private school students were virtually identical: 29.8% for public school students to 30.1% for their private school counterparts.</p>
<p>most colleges dont publish that much data, but they usually will provide a public/private school breakdown for enrolled students. vassars class of 2011 profile, for example, notes that 37% of students come from private schools.</p>
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<p>in terms of what all of this will mean for your chances at admission, the keys in coming from an uncompetitive school (mine didnt even pretend to offer calc 2 and is rated nowhere by usnews) are being near the top of your class--check--and posting a competitive, even if not great, standardized test score--check again. youre fine there. and the fact that you would bring some geographic diversity to both bucknell and vassar will help in admissions at each, too.</p>
<p>Wow, Irish. Your situation sounds exactly like mine. 32 ACT, public HS, doesn't offer Calc 2, and to top it off: currently ranked 7 out of ~350. That is creepy stuff.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies on the public school data. I wasn't exactly sure on the public versus private data. I'll admit that it's nice to hear about more people coming from public schools than just 30%. It makes me feel a little better knowing my status doesn't hinder me at all, so I'm really looking forward to getting into Bucknell if I can.</p>