<p>I was wondering...as many students on this forum may be...if you go to a hard school how do admissions officers know how HARD your school is relative to another. One can be top 10 percent in one and top 5 in another....I've heard stuff about scouts rating schools...how do they rate if they don't acutally go there...they just base it off paperwork?</p>
<p>anyone who truly knows about this stuff ... i'd appreciate if you would enlighten me thanks =)</p>
<p>You're right, admissions people do visit schools and can get impressions of the difficulty of that particular school.</p>
<p>From what I've read, a very telling statistic about a HS is the percentage of students who go on to college. A student ranked in the top 5% of a school that sends 97% of the their students to college would look very impressive. A student ranked in the top 5% when the school sends 40% of students to college would be impressive as well, but would not be as impressive.</p>
<p>Then again, a person applying from a school taht sends 40% to college looks good because they obviously took initiative and didnt have the best councelors and tutors feeding them all along the way. So college admissions officers like that too</p>
<p>Also true. I think both the hypothetical 97% and the 40% schools would be difficult but for different reasons.</p>
<p>is a school that sends 90% to college a good school?</p>
<p>we have around a 20% college rate.</p>
<p>A school that sends 90% of students to college may or may not be a good school. That's hard to tell. The colleges could be mostly community colleges or mostly Ivies...it's an ambiguous statistic, and that's a fault of the system. And then you could argue that going to a community college/Ivy doesn't gauge how intelligent a person is. And THEN you could argue that the intelligence of the students doesn't exactly make a great school.</p>
<p>The collegebound student statistic basically tells the adcom more about your rank. 90% collegebound = pretty high competition.</p>
<p>I think to that schools also can tell by the avverage SAT scores and so forth. My school, which is one of the hardest publics in the country, doesn't class rank because it would make strong students look weaker than they are. At my schoool 99% go to college, 95% to four year schools, and the average SAT is a 1280.</p>
<p>yeah my school has 100% to college and 99 - 4 year colleges and 1% - 2 year/ community (1 % is like 1 or 2 people lol) and well average sat is prolly 12 something (old one) and i'm considered top 5% (but they don't rank like dmctNY8) but I still don't get how an admissions person would know that and like I don't think that an admissions person from every single college in U.S. is going to visit my school. I guess they'd have to look from profile and from profile, you can't really compare (Atleast I don't think so)</p>
<p>my counselor knows NOTHING about US schools and i have to take own "initiative" and figure everything out by my self AND (!!) face the immense competition at my 95% azn school (basically 100% ivy-bound)...pity me</p>
<p>merudh: School difficulty isn't something that is built over a short period of time. Since new high schools are not constructed in large numbers, many universities, especially those regarded to be "prestigious" or "highly-recognized" already know which schools are among the best in that particular state or city. School reputations are built over a matter of time and usually, new schools take awhile in order to create that certain "good" or "well-esteemed" reputation. Often times, universities choose schools that have, in the past, sent students to their particular school. But, the most important thing that they see is the school profile. The school profile tells a lot about your particular high school, and you can look at it through your high school's website (they are usually asked or required to display it for the public). School profiles show a number of things regarding the opportunities and academic strength of their particular schools, showing median SAT scores and ACT scores, number of national merit scholars, number of Advanced Placement and Honors classes offered, alumni schools, etc. Through these statistics, a college can more accurately determine which high schools have the greatest concentration of potential applicants.</p>
<p>I'm lucky- My school is a famous prep school
:-)</p>
<p>But this is a very valid point. Students at great, but lesser known, public and private schools are at a disadvantage in the college process. Hopefully, test scores, essays, etc. make up for a lesser GPA or class rank</p>
<p>well out of the 90 percent 6 go to community college and 84 go to 4 year schools.</p>
<p>This is true. Lucky for me I go to debatebly the top school in country(TJ). It helps us and hurts us. We get a great education with remarkable students(1480 Old-SAT average) but when your SAT score is higher than many IVYS... it lowers the chances of students who are not top at TJ to get into an IVY because IVYs cannot take all the kids from TJ due to diversity.</p>
<p><<<lucky for="" me="" i="" go="" to="" debatebly="" the="" top="" school="" in="" country(tj).="">>></lucky></p>
<p>I could debate that :-) (Phillps Andover and Phillips Exeter!)</p>
<p>in my school 100% go to college - and about 45% get into top tier schools- talk about pressure</p>