Does the OP really KNOW the weighted GPA of all other Students at the public high, where top students WILL have jumped on AP and honors courses – and continue to?
Can anyone predict if the switching of schools and social circles will impact academic performance for as semester or two?
Also - did I miss which Grade the daughter would be starting in. Is she switching as a rising senior, just so that the public school will issue the HS transcript? Is that the proposed scheme?
If not, then who knows how her weighted GPA will develop without more APs, vs. everyone else’s who will continue to “take more APs”?
Just to clarify. There are no feeder schools. Colleges accept students, not high schools (to beat @skieurope’s drum). As noted above, test-in rigorous high schools form cherry-picked student bodies of high achievers and, if the HS has a finely-honed college admissions staff and process as @ucbalumnus posted above, all of those students find seats at colleges that are great matches for them without regard to magazine rankings. The college matriculation results of competitive high schools are a function of the quality of the pools of students they admit, not some magic conferred by the HS, but these types of students can be found across a range of high schools. Certainly not all go to privates, in fact, most don’t.
Also, colleges DO understand the academic rigor of competitive high schools, but they do not show lenience for those curriculums. Instead, they evaluate the private student within the context of their peers in their same pool (not against a public HS they didn’t attend), and some of those peers ARE earning top grades and test scores, so a mid-pack private student may not be as competitive, on a quantitative basis at least, for some highly selective colleges as their higher-achieving peers, but students are more than stats, and rigorous high schools prepare their students well for whichever fine college they attend. And that’s all that matters.
I agree with all the reasons listed above for keeping the OP’s student at her current school if she’s happy there.
I disagree. I have spoken to AOs that told me the feeder schools they work with. They use that term. We can change the name of the word “feeder” but some schools send a whole lot of students yearly to certain schools. Year in and out. Not sure what you would call that?
Moreover, we now have solid empirical evidence that shows applicants from such feeder schools are accepted at a substantially higher rate than students with identical characteristics—ethnicity, socioeconomic status, legacy status, grades, test scores, and extracurriculars—who attend public schools and less-selective privates.
Funny the 2 Illinois High schools that are in very high socioeconomic areas are on that list. Think full pay. That was 2 of the many colleges mentioned.
It was Chetty’s choice to categorize them as religious. As a group, there isn’t much question whether religious schools are less selective than independents in these metros.
Maybe I’m misreading it, but I don’t see those being described as less selective. Westminster, for example, has mandatory chapel so that may determine the designation as “religious”.
Don’t do this to your kid. Don’t let your kid do this to herself. Childhood is too fleeting.
We can never say it enough, and those who have been through it all and are now out the other side know this to be true: your child will end up at the best place for them.
I appreciate all the feedback. My daughter is currently in her first year of high school. Although school only began a few days ago, she’s come to realize that many of her friends opted to take summer classes with the aim of “getting ahead” in various subjects, particularly in math. To my surprise, a few of her close friends have already progressed to Pre-Calc and even Calculus as a 9th grader. This has triggered a feeling of panic within her and regret about how she spent her summer, mainly focused on her sports activities and art work.
It appears that this “get ahead” phenomenon is quite prevalent in her competitive school. Many students seem to have completed the standard high school curriculum by the time they reach the 10th grade, subsequently advancing to college-level courses or post-AP honors classes. This trajectory often leads to instances where some students graduate with an unweighted GPA as high as 4.0+, for instance.
I wonder how much is the parents pushing these kids.
Let your kid be a kid.
No matter where she goes to school there will be comparisons to make.
That she spent her time on passions is awesome.
While some may have more academic desires, that alone won’t get them into a selective school and frankly it’s sad if that’s all they have in life.
There will be many kids at your daughter’s level or they wouldn’t have accepted her clearly they offer the classes. And you don’t need to be through a high school curriculum b4 12th grade to get into a top school.
That she’s just staring hs, it’s way too early to be worried about selective schools or otherwise. So please try to remove that focus. She has no clue where she might love one day to continue her education. And when she thinks she does that will change many times over the next four years.
Given she’s not been at the school but a few days, she should decide where she wants to be.
Peer pressure comes in many ways and topics. It will be anywhere. And everywhere.
But this does seem a bit crazy at 14.
But she’s doing great and will have a wonderful well roundedness if she stays the course. At 14, she should be doing what 14 year olds do. Algebra, geometry etc. not multi variable calculus.
“Getting ahead in math over the summer” v.s. Sports and art. Hmmm. I’ll take sports and art please.
Your 9th grader can’t spend the next four years panicking about kids who choose grades over enjoying life. So maybe she should go to a regular high school where there isn’t as much pressure and just do her best.
Kids at regular high schools go to HYPSM and all other top colleges. They also go to top LACs. Or they go to state schools, knock it out of the park, and go to med schools, or Master’s programs, or they have great work experience and do well despite not going to HYPSM.
These posts make me sad.
P.S. One of my kids only got as far as precalc. She’s finishing a master’s at a top university. All colleges offer calc classes. Lack of calc doesn’t determine whether or not a kid gets into HYPSM.
I can’t answer to your specific situation, but I can share that we experienced the same with our kid at her private high school when making that transition from 8th to 9th grade. And she also was concerned (and quite anxious) that we parents were not guiding her to make the best academic decisions because she had friends who took math over summer.
In our case, we wanted her to be a kid and enjoy non-academic activities over the summers. This was due to her personality and the stress she put on herself during the school year so it was a very personal decision. We met with the class dean to discuss our thoughts and make sure we weren’t doing a disservice and we were 100% supported by the school. So our kid graduated with calc BC and not multi-var and she did just fine with college applications… as did other kids who made that decision for whatever reason. We felt our kid was more well-rounded due to having those other experiences… but most importantly happier.
It is normal as a parent to want to help your kid, but it is entirely fine to support your kid pursuing more than academics. I’d argue it is often better, but that is once again a personal decision.
You are being a good parent by asking these questions. Hopefully the feedback is helpful to you guiding your kid to do what is best for them. Hugs.
Based on what I’ve seen over many years, kids who attend a HS that prepares them well will get into the college they should. I don’t expect your D will have markedly different admissions results regardless of which HS she graduates from. It is not worth trying to game the system.
College admission officers take HS rigor into account (among many other factors) when making admissions decisions. Each HS provides a school profile to go with the transcript which gives information about the school (ex. average GPA, average standardized test scores, levels of classes offered etc.) so students will be evaluated in the proper context.
In addition, other factors such as ECs, recommendations etc. play an important factor in college admissions so if your D is on a good track at the private HS I don’t know why you would alter that path. Plus a happy student is typically a more successful student and a change in HS (especially if she doesn’t want to move) could disrupt her.
If your child is happy and successful at the private HS and if it is affordable, I don’t see any reason to move her.
Please keep in mind that HS is not a four year college-prep class – it is an experience in and of itself – a time of growth, learning, trying new things etc. Let your D enjoy the HS years to the fullest and don’t stress about college now. She sounds like a great kid and will find her place.
This is a race to nowhere, imo. What is the point of doing this really? WIth the exception of a few super math-loving kids who crave the challenge, the majority of kids are killing themselves to get ahead and for what? Their odds of getting into T10/T20 are not significantly increased, especially if they do so at the expense of ECs (for those schools that have holistic review).
Same thing - with a few exceptions, what is the point? High school is for learning high school curriculum. There are no prizes for advancing beyond that and no long term life advantages. And the acceptance rate at Harvard is still 4%, meaning most of them, despite “getting ahead,” still won’t get in.
She made the absolute right choice and I hope she continues making this choice. There is far more value in this, imo, then aimlessly trying to “get ahead” academically.
But since your initial question was about continuing at private or changing to public…I will say that the same phenomenon that you have described here can absolutely be seen at my D’s PUBLIC high school. Public schools - especially “good” public schools - are not immune to this kind of competition among students, to the point of them also sometimes having quite toxic environments.
What?? She spent her summer getting ahead in sports and art? How will the others catch up?
I say this tongue in cheek, of course. This is where your D has passion and wants to excel. As a parent, your “you do you” is often a whisper to the shouts of peers, but you can reiterate the importance of following her heart. High school is not a race. Your D can do well in the classes she takes and have a great GPA and great ECs.
My kid attended a boarding school that really emphasized the importance of putting yourself out there in a way that was authentic. Course selection always started with questions like “am I sleeping enough?” Do I have enough time for things that matter to me outside class?" There was intention around how the 24 hours of each of the 7 days would be spent.
These are 4 important years of life, not an extended admissions test. Your D can spend next summer differently if thats what she wants. But it should be what she wants, not what she thinks others want.
You’ll hear it a million times. It is far better to be authentic and find a school that fits you than to try to fit what you think a college AO might want.
Actually, M at least strongly prefers applicants to have calculus in high school, unless it is not available to the student. Although high school precalculus is the prerequisite for M’s lowest level math course 18.01, that course could be rather tough (covers what is typically a year of single variable calculus in a semester).
However, colleges that want calculus in high school is a small minority in the US. None states a recommendation or requirement for math beyond single variable calculus in high school.
It’s gratifying to see all the “let your kid be a kid” and “you can’t game the system” and “they’re going to turn out fine” responses here. Because they’re all correct. The OP’s child is just barely starting their high school career and should just focus on figuring out who they are, as a student and otherwise, before even thinking about what they might want at the next stage of life. Good on the community here.
In any event, I think one error in the original post here was equating an “upper middle” student at a big-time competitive private high school to “top 1%” at a good public high school. If we’re talking about a public with a class size of 300, that’s…3 kids. You take the top 3 students in any public high school class in an area that has the demographics needed to support an uber competitive private school, and drop them in that private school, and I guarantee they’re going to do better than the 35th or 40th percentile. The translation from upper middle group at the private to the public is probably more like top 5-7%. As others have noted, of course, college admissions officers know how to compare applicants from one school and another, and at most places they’ve done so many, many times already for any given schools in their assigned geography.
