<p>I go to a very very small private school, about 150. The kids are smart but no one goes to ivy league schools or other top schools. In the past 8 years I can only think of 2 or 3 who went to a top 20 school. I also think that the average SAT is around 1100/1600. Will this hurt my chances at top schools. I have good scores and stats (1550/1600). If this is a detriment is there anything that can be done about it? Thanks.</p>
<p>It depends. It could be in your favor if you're low income and the school is rural or inner city.</p>
<p>No, def. not low income. Private school with mostly, but not all, wealthy kids.</p>
<p>i am in the same boat collegebound</p>
<p>my graduating class is going to be 30 students. but, we are all smart, with an average SAT score over 2000. </p>
<p>we dont typically send too many students to top schools. we have about 3 students at cornell, one at columbia (but he was a world class fencer), but this past graduating class was particularly succesful, with students going to Princeton, MIT, UVA, and one getting accepted to Tufts, but turning it down due to cost. However, most kids wind up going to Rutgers or TCNJ, even though if they went to their towns public high school, they would probably have been ranked in the top 10% and gone to an amazing school.</p>
<p>It could hurt, only because colleges probably don't know your school very well, so if you have grade deflation, they won't know. Or if you don't offer AP courses, the colleges will have no way of knowing how rigorous your courses actually are.</p>
<p>But ultimately, if you have the stats to get in to top colleges, it shouldn't be a problem.</p>
<p>Same boat here as well (graduating class of 38).
But to counter on the previous post, it may actually help.</p>
<p>Although my school is small, many top schools know it well (although maybe 1 or 2 have gone ivy the past few years).
Especially LAC's... my school is obsessed with (and well known by) them.</p>
<p>Don't stress about it- nothing can be done about it now.</p>
<p>Your high school will send along with your application information about your school. It will include, the number of AP classes offered, average SAT score, % of kids who attend college, grading scale, ect. Also, a lot of colleges love kids from rural areas who attend small schools, but I'm doubt that private schools fit into that category.</p>
<p>Small schools are fine. They look at your class rank differently. But it is top 5/6 kids instead of top 10/15. And being 30th out of 30 is never good.</p>
<p>It will probably only hurt your chances if other people from your high school apply to the same schools as you are. </p>
<p>I happen to go to the same school as mrchipmunk and be another one of the 30 kids in his class. The one kid that is going to MIT next year was one of three kids from his class that applied. (No one else in the history of our school applied there though. Very new school) He got in but the other two didn't. Why? Well I have to assume that MIT would only choose one person from our school since we were so small. Hence, only one person got in. Granted the others made up the Princeton and UMich (oos) he mentioned but that makes no difference.</p>
<p>as long as you have a good GPA.</p>
<p>In my experience, it will hurt. When you pay the big bucks, the school doesn't perform, and the school doesn't have a record or a good record with a specific school, then your chances are very much lowered. Of course, you can still get in good places (and should still apply)... just might not be HYPSC.</p>
<p>My graduating class was 55, and I actually thought that a small school does not detract from the application.</p>
<p>Sure, going to a big school might give you the "connection" with the adcoms, but it's much easier to show initiative and demonstrate leadership in a smaller setting. I'm not saying that small schools aren't competitive, but it's just way harder to be at the top when there's already 30 people with 2350s in your class. In the overall picture, you're just a number in those 30 students. In a smaller student body, you might have the chance to stand out more and demonstrate your interests, rather than being lost in a sea of faces.</p>
<p>I might be generalizing a bit, but I'm fairly certain adcoms put every student on a even playing field, regardless of how big their respective high schools are.</p>