We have two choices for our youngest, have a higher rank and look good EC and rigor wise in a A- school or be a small fish in a very competitive A+ school. What are the pros and cons in your opinion. He is targeting elite colleges as well.
Why not take advantage of the best opportunities and education for the next 4 years–that will benefit him no matter where he ends up. I would choose the more rigorous high school unless you feel he would be significantly happier at the other school. I would focus on having a good experience in high school rather than hypothesizing about positioning for college. Please think of him as a person and a child, rather than a resume and an applicant.
I would always pick the school where I think my child would get the best education and be the happiest.
I agree, but it’s hard to know what will make a kid happy. I used to feel guilty that my oldest didn’t go to a high powered high school. But even though on paper our high school didn’t look so hot, it turned out that the cohort of kids taking AP classes and their teachers was great. He might have gotten a little further in math than he did, but when enough kids took BC Calc as juniors they offered a Linear Algebra class for the first time. (In the past kids had to do it as an independent study.) In return my kids got a school where the AP rat race was not out of hand. My kids had enough free time after school that they could pursue their own interests and still get plenty of sleep. So I’d look a little closer at the A- school. If the top kids are still getting into the kinds of schools you think your kid will be aiming for and those kids do well on AP exams and other assessments, I wouldn’t worry too much.
In the end though I think it all comes out pretty even. From our school you have to be in the top 2 or 3% to get into the HYPM type schools, in the high powered private schools they dig a little deeper.
No easy answers. My kids had definite opinions about what they wanted and I listened to them. No regrets.
Most who target elite colleges do not get in, so it is important to consider how well each fits the student no matter what post high school destination follows.
If you are in Texas, you may be forced to include the class rank game in your criteria.
Only pros or cons for me would be which is the better school for your child? Visit both, pick up on the vibe, check ouyt the facilities and offerings, maybe talk to some students or parents if you can. The competitive school might be enriching and stimulating, or it could be cut throat and miserable. The less competitive school could have poor instruction and offerings, or it could be a humane and interesting place that values learning for its own sake. We cant know this. What a lot of us here think is that high school is not just a launching pad for a fancy college. These are 4 years of your child’s life.
We don’t seem able to convince some posters that rank isn’t everything. Here we are, asked to parse between an A- and A+ high school. Really? More to it than rank and some leadership titles.
For the record, I’m for the hs that most empowers a kid, whatever that means for the particular kid. During high school, not some early attempt to game admission. We don’t even know about this kid.
Of course happiest is most important. Different schools really feel different. When my son was entering his sophmore year we contemplated a switch. He begged me to tour a nearby school and I agreed. Both are private. college prep schools that send many kids to elite colleges. The education at both schools is considered top notch but after we toured we both felt the schools were very different.
He did not switch schools. One of his lacrosse team mates switched schools and has been happy there. The very things my son didn’t like about the other school are the things his friend loved about the school. The things my son loves about his current school were the exact things his friend didn’t like.
A school where the student feels happy, fulfilled, welcomed and has friends is the school where they will do well, thrive, even. We drove our D out of district to a small school few know about, and that doesn’t have near the “rank” as the one she’d have attended here in our own district, or even other HS here that she could have chosen. But the support she got there, the fact that everyone understood her, the opportunities afforded her and the fact that she was not one of roughly 1,500 kids but one of a tiny class <30 was the best place she could have been. It had nothing at all to do with grades or EC’s-she got the grades and found EC’s all over the place, not just in school.
If you wish to “package” your student, then go for the school that offers the best “packaging” but I suggest you let him have a positive HS life and not one geared only to some difficult to obtain college admission.
If the goal is admission to a very elite college (and that may or may not be what you’re asking), then isn’t this just a twist on the old classic -
Question - “Is it better to take an regular class and get an A or to take an AP class and get a B?”
Answer - “It’s better to take the AP class and get an A”.
These schools are looking for students who challenge themselves and excel. They aren’t just looking for who can play the gpa maximizing game best (in fact, I think they’re on guard for these types of kids in order to weed them out).
Having said that, I suppose I’d say that they’re definitely not looking for “small fish”, regardless of the pond.
Otherwise, I do think ucbalumnus 's point about being in the top 7% is a very good one.
Our school districts have discovery nights for all of the schools where you can visit, meet teachers, ask questions etc. If you have something like that, could you and your son visit both and get a feel for the schools? The difference between an A- and an A+ school is not so very much on paper. But where you feel comfortable and what offers best the classes and enviornment you are looking for can be a very big difference.
I was talking to someone yesterday about how where we live you can live on one side of the street and go to one school but go to another just across the street. I had mentioned where our address funnels kids. He said get them out of “xyz” school! It’s bad news. He hadn’t realized that both of my kids had graduated and both loved the school he was bashing. It isn’t the top ranked in our district. Kids from all kinds of neighborhoods go there. It’s a little more racially diverse than the top school and there have been fights among students. But both of my children thrived there. Both graduated with honors and moved on to college. One of them 4th in her class and now going to a top tier school. I don’t think that A- will make much of a difference. Pick based on fit and where your child will thrive the most.
He’s a smart kid, he’ll do fine either way. I assume you’ve taken to heart what multiple posters have already told you - his life success does not revolve around getting into HYPS. (You do believe that now, right?)
@livinginLA, you and I coukd be living in the same neighborhood, on the same side of the street. (Except that it appears we live on opposite coasts.)
It is a lot easier to see the differences in high schools and the effects they have on different kids years after the fact. All three of mine are out of high school now. Their friends who went to the A+ high school did not do appreciably “better” (as a whole) in college applications than those (including my own) who went to the A-/B+ school.
The very very top kids at the A+ school were accepted into (generally) the same schools as the very very top kids at the A-/B+ school. Below that top %, there are differences, though. And the stress to stay in the very very top of the class is much higher at the A+ school.
The competition at the very top at the A+ school is immense. Some kids will thrive on that, some will crumble. For the kids below that top (maybe 5%), who are striving to be among the top 5%, but really want to take band or (fill in another non-AP class), the decisions can be excruciating.
The vibe at the A-/B+ school is definitely different.
^^Same here. And we’re in the middle, between the two coasts.
My kids went to the A- high school; our town is split between that and the A+ high school. Plenty of those kids are going to colleges that don’t particularly impress me, and my kids got into top notch schools. It’s the student, not the school, at this level. It’s not like you’re choosing between a subpar school and a great one.
You have GOT to stop worrying like this. You are petrified that you will make a wrong move and your kid will miss out on the golden prize of HYPS and be doomed to flipping burgers. Please, stop. Take a breath.
Ask yourself the following questions regarding each individual student:
Will he/she be the type of student who’d thrive better in a highly competitive HS environment or not?
Does the less competitive HS offer something the more competitive HS does not for him/her?
Depending on what answers you get from an assessment which INCLUDES asking the prospective student concerned his/her own aspirations/ideas/desires and taking them into account…the answer will hopefully become clear.
When we moved during hs, we were at the edge of two hs turfs and could choose either. A+ or A-. The right choice for me was one, for my brother, the other. Neither of us regrets.
Talk to families at both schools, and have the kid visit, preferably for a full day if possible. Find out what ECs are available and how competitive it is to get into them. Consider travel times and what effect that will have on your kid’s ability to participate in ECs and to get enough sleep.
I started at an elite public HS which took only 10% of those who tested, the name of which would probably be known to most people on this forum. Although I did well and was in honors classes even there, I was very unhappy. I cried every day because students could only write for the school paper in senior year and I wanted, in those days, to be a journalist. I didn’t want to be a doctor or a scientist. I also cried because I hated math class so much, especially the honors class I was in that my parents wouldn’t let me drop. I wanted to go to law school and be a journalist. I didn’t like that English and social studies were considered the poor stepchildren of the curriculum. After 3 semesters, my parents finally agreed to let me transfer to the local HS, which was highly ranked but not elite. I was SO much happier. I wrote for the newspaper for the rest of my time in HS and realized that journalism wasn’t for me as a career. Despite that, some of my happiest HS memories revolve around newspaper activities. You might ask why I went to the first school at all. Well, I had attended a very strict yeshiva from 1st through 8th grades and my parents told me that if I refused to attend the elite public school, I would have to attend an all girls’ orthodox yeshiva HS. That option was even worse than the elite school, which at least had boys. The school I wound up graduating from was categorically rejected by my parents when I was in 8th grade.
I can’t speak to going to an elite college because I had no access to that type of information and in the 1970’s, the idea of a Jewish girl from the projects going to an Ivy was not even something that ever crossed my mind. I went to a CUNY school and then attended a non-elite law school. 40 years out of HS, I don’t regret leaving the prestigious HS. I do regret having gone there in the first place. I truly believe that had I been at my second HS from the beginning, I would have been ranked higher than 48 out of 600 and maybe someone would have told me about other college options. I did get into GW, Syracuse and BU but couldn’t afford any of them.
I think about how things turned out for me. I am a lawyer, so I accomplished my dream. I met my H at law school so if I had gone somewhere else, I might not have met him or had the kids I have. Could I have gone to a better college or law school had I stayed at the first school? Perhaps, but I honestly think it more likely that I would have burned out and developed serious emotional issues. I literally cried every day and, towards the end, I would stay in my bedroom just throwing my math book against the wall and screaming, picking it up and doing it again and again.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t meet the academic challenges. I am super competitive academically and always prided myself on doing well in school. It was that that school was a complete mismatch for my interests and who I was and still am.