Here the school officials chose to put the magnet program at the most underperforming / socially disadvantaged high school. I think a lot of districts do this to raise the test scores at that school and get buy in from those parents to put money into that school. If done right this can be good for everyone if done badly it can create a have/ have not situation at the school where the magnet program is located.
We were forced to move after my husband lost his job and then found one 250 miles away. My DD was at a selective private school with a 1/2 tuition scholarship before the move. My husband took a significant pay cut at the new job, so private schools were not an option at the new locale. I feel she did much better at the new public school and was able to attend a top 20 private university that I don’t think she would’ve been accepted to had she stayed at the elite private HS. She was ranked in the top 1% at the public, but her grades would not have been as high at the private, and the competition was greater at her previous school. It all worked out.
I don’t think those schools qualify as elite for many many reasons.
UChicago has a very robust outreach program for CPS kids, with specific scholarships for the children of Police and Firemen. UChicago also specifically targets local minorities in their recruiting efforts.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that the percent of kids from the Midwest has been dropping over the last four years, going from 32 percent to 25 percent per class, and this is a direct result of Chicago’s push to become a more high profile “Elite” institution.
@blossom #37 hit the nail on the head.
We have our kids in the local public high school. It’s large, overcrowded, urban, mostly non-white and mostly free/reduced lunch. About 5 percent of the graduating classes each year are National Merit Finalists, and each year students are accepted to all Ivies and other top schools including Stanford, MIT and the University of Chicago. They actually have a higher percentage of NMFs and elite attendance rates than any of our city’s “best” private schools. The school offers every AP class, as well as several tracks for non-college-bound kids. Graduation rate at the school is in the mid-90s percentile, so I guess the kids find their place and have lots of opportunities to succeed, regardless of where life takes them.
“If that is true, it is likely an outcome of other admission decisions and not by design.”
I don’t think you are right. The local HS guidance counselor has said its by design that Northwestern favors locals The stats bare that out. Kids barely skimming the top 10 percent with a 32 ACT and normal but not special ECs can consider NW a likely from our HS.
. I know at our Penn info session the question was asked if Pilly kids were got any kind of leg up. And the answer was that “we value our neighbors and take that into consideration in Admissions decisions”
UPenn is known for giving a boost to local applicants. This dates back to when UPenn was not nearly as selective and, as the largest Ivy, had to fill the school with high quality locals. They continue to it because of the legacy factor.
I posted the question in the Northwestern forum. It will be interesting to see what the comments are.
UPenn does it in part because it has an obligation in its charter to provide a free education to a number of Philadelphia residents, something that was part of the deal by which it obtained its campus. Through years of practice and litigation, the definition of “Philadelphia” has been expanded to include its suburbs, and the “free education” requirement has been interpreted to be satisfied by financial aid to qualifying students which, if it were aggregated, would fund the appropriate number of students. The result, however, is that Penn admits quite a number of local students, and often offers them financial aid packages that are much better than they get from other colleges, including the ones generally thought to offer the best aid.
While there are numerous exceptions, starting out with weaker HS preparation can have implications on things like major selection. For example, there was a study a few years ago (http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/grades_4.0.pdf ) that looked at what admissions criteria best predicted dropping out of a natural science/engineering/economics major at Duke. Among academic criteria, by far the best predictor for dropping out of these STEM majors after controls was HS curriculum. No other academic criteria was anywhere near as strong a predictor including HS grades, test scores, LORs, essays, and admissions reviewer personal qualities ranking.
HS preparation/curriculum is very different from public vs private, percent non-white, percent free lunch, … Some of the best HSs in the country are publics, some of which have large percentage lunch vouchers. Unfortunately some of the worst HSs in the country are also publics. One of my relatives grew up in very small, rural area. The high school did not offer any AP/IB/DE classes or even any honors classes. Instead everyone took classes at the same level, and that level was far below typical public HSs. Most students didn’t graduate HS or take the SATs. Instead they stayed in the same rural community after HS, often working on local farms. She followed a different path and went to Stanford. Her difference in HS preparation was very evident, particularly in math/science type classes. If she really wanted to major in engineering, I expect she could have caught up. However, she’d have to take longer sequences than most students, which would likely have added an extra year, given the large number of credits required for an engineering major.
I attended a basic public HS and also went to Stanford. My HS only offered ~3 AP classes, so I took higher level classes at a nearby university. Among the students I did talk with in my freshman dorm and such, it sounded like almost all students attended more demanding HSs that I did that offered larger numbers of college level classes and such, including students attending public HSs, which is the vast majority of students at “elite” colleges. I didn’t get the impression of stark differences between HS preparation at this type of quality public vs privates, or stark differences in behaviors in general.
When USNWR published their first college rankings in 1983, Stanford was the number one university in the country. Even 3-4 decades ago, it was in the HYP tier.
I could be wrong but my son participates in math competitions and most of those type kids use an online resource, AoPS, which has been around for a few years but I suspect only now are their students working their way into/through the colleges. AoPS and similar programs allow kids to significantly accelerate beyond kids who only take the typical high school courses.
My son is an eighth grader and since he is accelerated does independent study during his math class. I am not able to assist him so he periodically has a tutor. The tutor is a math professor at a nearby college. Today my son came home and indicated that the tutor commented that only a few of his students would be able to solve the problems in the AoPS Precalc course that my son is taking. My son does well but there are quite a few in our state that are much more advanced. I am sure kids can “catch up” but it will take them quite a bit of time to do so…
I am only familiar with math but I would think there are courses in most subjects on the internet and I am sure there are some industrious kids out there taking those courses. I think the internet has changed education from the time many of us were in university…
Quite frankly my kids barely have time to sleep between their actual classes, EC’s and work.
I don’t know who these kids are who study a bunch of extra stuff on the internet in their “free time” but they don’t live here.
For some kids, math competitions are an EC.
Based on what I have seen, top tier private high school will only make it harder to get into top colleges due to fierce competitions…
@paul2752 I don’t see that with my kids school. When I look at acceptance rates I see our kids getting in elite universities are higher rates than the overall acceptance rate.
Our school gets 17% of applicants into Columbia vs 7% overall. We get 30% into Vanderbilt vs 12% overall. I see the same trend in other top end schools.
I wanted to add that although kids at elite private schools do get into elite colleges at higher rates that isn’t the reason we choose private schools for our kids. We wanted them to get he best education possible. We had no idea how the competition for college had become when we chose a school for our oldest. He was in 6th grade. It wasn’t until he was a junior in college that the whole college thing became apparent.
That is going to vary from state to state and district to district. In our area, the public school has better placement than the local area privates. As far as acceptances at elites, for some elites we outperform the overall average, for others we under perform.
@Zinhead I agree that it will vary. Schools (public and private) are all so different across the US. I was responding to the comment that fierce competition makes it harder to get into elite college from elite private schools. I don’t see that at my kids school.
In Chicago, Notre Dame is one of the most popular colleges, and many families in the area enroll their kids in Catholic schools in order to boost their chances for enrollment. However, if you look at the raw numbers, our public HS has better placement at ND than the parochial schools.
Something else to consider about magnet schools:
I go to one of the most rigorous magnet high schools in TX, but overall I think that going there hurt my chances at elite schools and kind of regret it. While I’m sure I will be quite prepared for college, I am pretty much in the middle of my class because it is so competitive. Even though my SATs/APs/SAT IIs etc are on on Ivy/elite college standards, my grades/rank really weigh me down and I have so much homework that I never have time to do any ECs. Peers from my middle school are applying to schools like Duke, Stanford, and MIT (with a fantastic school, UT, as a safety), while I’m stuck applying to schools like UT-Dallas and SMU.
I personally would never recommend anyone going to a magnet school if their goal is to get into an elite college. If you value learning for learning’s sake, you would probably find going to a large public school to be more valuable since you can stand out easily to your teachers and more attention and good rec letters (I’m sure mine will be lackluster since I was nothing special). Private schools have the benefit of having amazing guidance counselors, so even people that end up in my situation can make it to places they want to go to.
I wasn’t able to pursue my passions these past three and a half years due to the immense workload, and while I will still have a good education at any of the schools I am applying to, I will never be at a college where the vast majority is driven, motivated, and incredibly smart. Going to a magnet school is very unfulfilling.