<p>owlice, my D goes to Cornell.</p>
<p>oldfort, HA! So why on earth are you dissing that excellent school, oldfort? Did you want her to go to Harvard?</p>
<p>DadII, "You think you know exactly what I want to say"</p>
<p>I have NO idea what you want to say. If you want to say something, say it!</p>
<p>I was not dissing Cornell. I was just stating the fact it is easier to get into Cornell than HYPS. This is a discussion about if high school makes a diff, not the marite of going to top schools. My daughter is very happy there.</p>
<p>I fail to see how one can attribute college acceptance to the high school environment one came from (AA and all that good stuff aside, of course). In central Austin, TX, there's one particular older legacy public school that is extremely competitive. Many of the houses in the surrounding area have inflated property values, and the school is practically bursting at the seams due to the influx of students. I originally wanted to transfer there, but decided against it at last minute because it would require a ton of paperwork, a 45-minute commute, and an earlier awakening time (yes, I am lazy). Instead, I went to a fairly new high school (I was in the beta class) in a lesser-known district that many would frown upon. In the years I was there, the prestigious school has graduated probably 20 or so to top tier schools, while ours successfully produced about 2. And yet, if you compare the stats of these 20 + 2, you'll find that they are for the most part, the same, if not the 2 from our school better than the 20. Ask us 20+2 about what we know; it's about the same. Ask our unweighted GPAs, our IQs, our research, our AP scores: about the same. What has the prestigious high school contributed to the 20's resume, besides the claim that it's a "competitive" high school? Perhaps if the other school was an advanced magnet school that was co-enrolled with a local college and did extensive lab research daily, then one could possibly say that the opportunities that the student at the magnet school was given helped them shine... but the ratio of high-tier accepted vs. total graduating students does nothing to prove anything.</p>
<p>Someone, please enlighten me.</p>
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I was not dissing Cornell. I was just stating the fact it is easier to get into Cornell than HYPS.
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<p>Yes, but neither are easy in the absolute, so the fact one is harder than the other is pretty irrelevant when you're down at that low level of acceptance. You would have more of a point if you were talking about a moderate state flagship with high, numbers-driven acceptance rates.</p>
<p>And in your Colgate vs Williams hypothetical, you'd have more of a point if you were comparing a moderate state flagship with a top school. By any measure, both Colgate and Williams are excellent schools.</p>
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It really depends on the kid -- so I would encourage you to let D2 have a say in the choice. </p>
<p>I am very glad that I did not send my kids to competitive high schools, particularly with my daughter -- and I think now she actually has an advantage in college because she came from a more relaxed high school experience. Obviously, it was an advantage for getting in that she could have a top class rank and strong GPA without working all that hard in high school -- but she has an even better GPA in college. </p>
<p>I do think that emotional resilience, flexibility, and the ability to work well independently are also important skills for a college student to have, and an overly structured or competitive high school may not be the best place for these qualities to be cultivated. </p>
<p>I think that while one student might thrive in a highly competitive environment, another might be crushed by it; similarly, one student might thrive and excel in a more relaxed environment, whereas another might simply slack off and a third might be bored and frustrated. So the point is: fit is important in high school as well as college.</p>
<p>^ Point well taken, Calmom. Actually, I have advocated moving D2 to a more laid back hs but she and her dad are totally against me on this. I have my fingers crossed that it will work out for her. The public hs has major discipline problems, lots of drugs, some gang presence, high dropout rate and low teacher morale. D2 really doesn't want to be in that environment. And in all honestly, the kids we see coming through this particular school are just not well prepared for college. If we lived in a more "average" school district where the schools weren't quite so challenged, it would be a different story.I'd love to move but who wants to try to sell their house in this market??</p>
<p>Sometimes there's no perfect "fit" available.</p>
<p>This group of cc parents clearly thinks the quality of the college matters; otherwise, what would we be doing on cc in the first place. So, why would we not agree that the quality of the high school is extremely significant? And the elementary and middle school, for that matter? At every level, the education that our children receive matters. So, if the resources, level of teaching, and peer group ability were higher at one high school than a neighboring school, it would provide (analogously to college) a better opportunity for education. And a better educated high schooler will have the advantage in the college arena, as well as the admissions arena.</p>
<p>Barring cost/safety/"fit" considerations, I would always chose the higher performing high school for my student.</p>
<p>calgal: I don't think the question here is whether the quality of a high school matters from an educational standpoint. There's probably generally agreement that the answer to that question is "yes." The question here is whether it is necessary to attend a high-quality/highly ranked/high profile high school in order to gain admission to a highly selective college. That's where the disagreement lies.</p>
<p>Why not just ask college admissions officers?</p>
<p>I find it hard to believe that they're not fully aware that the vast majority of students in this country have zero choice about where they go to high school - they go to the public hs where their parents live, and they're not responsible for whether their parents are able to afford the fanciest school district or the inner-city school district or anywhere in between. </p>
<p>You can't "ding" a kid for not going to (for example in Chicago) New Trier because it's not his fault his parents didn't earn the money to live in that district. You can't "ding" a kid for not going to private school because it's not his fault if his parents were never interested in or couldn't afford a private school option. Isn't it evident they'll look at what the kid did with what he had at hand?</p>
<p>I think JHSs post No. 42 comes closest to telling the real story. The high school doesnt make much difference to top, top kids. As long as the college (including HYPSM) can determine whats being offered at Unknown High and that the kid is taking advantage of whats offered whatever that may be the high school wont be an impediment. This presupposes, of course, that the applicant from Unknown High has top grades, top scores, excellent recommendations, and great ECs. That was the experience at my kids high school (mascot: the Utterly Unknowns) this year. </p>
<p>But at the margins, yes, a college will probably opt for the kid from the well-known, excellent high school over the kid from a nameless or start-up high school. Certain high schools are also feeder schools to various top colleges. In the Chicago area, there are several fine publics that get disproportionate numbers of kids into Northwestern every year.</p>
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But at the margins, yes, a college will probably opt for the kid from the well-known, excellent high school over the kid from a nameless or start-up high school. Certain high schools are also feeder schools to various top colleges. In the Chicago area, there are several fine publics that get disproportionate numbers of kids into Northwestern every year.
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<p>Right, I'm in the Chicago area myself and I know exactly what you mean. But again, is the disproportionate # of kids into Northwestern every year a function that Northwestern "favors" those schools, or is it a function of a disproportionate # of kids applying because they have parents who encourage, value and are willing to pay for that kind of school and whose mindset is broader than the state schools? See what I mean?</p>
<p>Pizzagirl: At the metropolitan Chicago area public I know best, kids routinely apply to private colleges (in addition to in-state and out-of-state publics). Of course, Northwestern is on everyone's radar screen. I'd say it's better known around here than any other private college in the country, except maybe Harvard and Yale. I just looked up some numbers for 2007 at this HS. (I don't have this year's numbers.) Out of a class of 400+, 49 kids applied to NW and 17 were accepted. Compare Emory, a school that occupies a similar spot on the selectivity chain: 22 applied, 5 accepted. I think these numbers show both how popular NW is around here and the extent to which NW favors students from feeder schools.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>...or is it a function of a disproportionate # of kids applying because they have parents who encourage, value and are willing to pay for that kind of school and whose mindset is broader than the state schools? <<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Why is it not both? Otherwise kids from our high school would be able to get into Yale. We evidently have parents who encourage, value and are willing to support that kind of school and whose mindset is broad enough to get their top students into Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and Princeton, because we get some accepted to those schools ... but not to Yale. Yale has never accepted a kid from our local public high school despite decades of trying.</p>
<p>To me that indicates that our high school is not on Yale's "Yale-worthy" list. The school's reputatation apparently matters to Yale.</p>
<p>I hear what you're saying, coureur, but I can't imagine any reason -- apart from bad luck and the somewhat mercurial nature of top college admissions --why a school that routinely gets kids into HSMP hasn't gotten a single kid into Y. If your HS is HSMP-worthy, then surely by definition it's Y-worthy as well. It just doesn't pass the reasonableness test to attribute your HS's bad track record at Yale to a calculated decision by Yale's admissions office that somehow your HS doesn't pass muster. Could there be bad blood between your HS's college counseling office and Yale's admissions office?</p>
<p>And as for a school's reputation mattering to Yale, two kids from my son's fledgling high school got into Yale this year. Trust me, no reputation, and no relationship either.</p>
<p>I don't know that it's Yale particularly. From the scattergrams it appears that our school is somewhat more favorably looked on by Harvard, than Yale or Princeton. Not enough data to tell about MIT. The only two kids who have ever in six years gotten into Stanford were legacies, URMs AND athletes with good but not stellar grades and scores.</p>
<p>There are schools in our county both private and public that are considered feeder schools to the top schools - ours isn't one, but the top 1 to 2% of a large class get into very good schools.</p>
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Then we agree and your daughter should be at the more rigorous school -- my point is simply that with this sort of choice, it should be the student's decision and not come from parental prodding. The problem I have is with parents who push their kids without considering the emotional & social issues that are probably more important to long term success -- in your family if sounds like you have raised these concerns, no pushing at all, but a daughter who is pulling -- which is a good sign that she's ready to take on a challenging environment.
But the problem is "higher performing" is a quantitative measure that doesn't tell much at all. In our neighborhood, the kids have a choice between 2 high schools -- one is a large, traditional high, the other is an alternative high school with a program that emphasized integrated and project-based learning; it also had block scheduling and an "outcome-based" approach. The big high has better "stats", but that's partly because it is in a higher SES area, whereas the alternative high is more centrally located and as a magnet draws from all over the district, and has a more ethnically diverse student body. So a lot of the poorer "stats" came from the different demographics. I could see from the outset that the educational philosophy of the smaller high school was a much better fit for my bright but quirky son - and sure enough he thrived, and his numbers came out just fine. The top kids academically all ended up in pretty much the same honors & AP classes -- whereas other kids brought down the school's overall stats, but also were at a school that was attentive to their needs and supportive. Plus I think my kid benefited socially from attending the more diverse high school. Also, to the extent that the larger high may have had more kids going on to "top" colleges, I think athletic recruitment played a large part - they had great sports teams, whereas my son's school tended to attract more nerdy kids and didn't have organized sports.</p>
<p>So the point is, to a parent, it doesn't help if your kid is attending a school where everyone else's kids are doing better than yours. My son was a B+ student coming out of 8th grade who ended up an A+ student in high school -- I think at less nurturing, more competitive high school he might have remained a B student.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>why a school that routinely gets kids into HSMP hasn't gotten a single kid into Y. If your HS is HSMP-worthy, then surely by definition it's Y-worthy as well.<< </p> </blockquote>
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<p>I agree. But Yale evidently does not.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>It just doesn't pass the reasonableness test to attribute your HS's bad track record at Yale to a calculated decision by Yale's admissions office that somehow your HS doesn't pass muster. Could there be bad blood between your HS's college counseling office and Yale's admissions office?<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>To the best of my knowledge our school has not been actively black-balled or kicked off the Yale-worthy list. I just think it somehow never made it on. It's a large, public high school of mediocre academic reputation. And Yale, for reasons best known to itself, has chosen to reject even its very best graduates for many decades - far too long than can be accounted for by mere chance or bad luck. The high school is clearly disfavored. I agree that it is unreasonable, but that doesn't change the facts. And the fact that some schools are disfavored strongly implies that others are favored.</p>
<p>From what I've observed in the four years I've had kids at our competitive private hs, it's not so much the hs-to-college relationship that matters but rather the GC-to-AdComms relationship. These people move around. I believe the head of admissions at Yale moved to Stanford just a year or so ago. The relationships between individuals can transfer between institutions. An Adcomm who develops a level of comfort with a certain high school's grads, may move to a new college. H/she takes his attitudes toward high schools with him to the new job.</p>
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From what I've observed in the four years I've had kids at our competitive private hs, it's not so much the hs-to-college relationship that matters but rather the GC-to-AdComms relationship. These people move around. I believe the head of admissions at Yale moved to Stanford just a year or so ago.
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<p>Dean Shaw did indeed moved from Yale to Stanford a few years ago. </p>
<p>Regarding the impact of the GC to adcom relationship, I believe it to be extremely variable and probably extremely overrated. Many accounts indicate that the days of a Fred Harpagon deciding on the fate of every Princeton hopeful are pretty much a thing of the past everywhere. It is interesting to follow the changes implemented by Dean Shaw upon his arrival at Stanford which all lead to a greater importance of committee and group decisions. </p>
<p>In addition, admissions seems to be a young persons' game that is relying more on electronic communications than ever. Again, the days of the GC who relied on a good ol' boys network where the right contacts matter more than the contents of the applications are long gone. It's only a matter of time for the clueless dinosaurs who still work at many high schools to realize that times have changed. </p>
<p>Of course, that would not stop some of the most clueless to decide to head a think tank such as the Education Conservancy. :D</p>