<p>I go to a regular suburban public school, but only one person got all A's in my graduating class: the valedictorian. Well, actually, some students in all regular classes might have, but we use weighted GPAs. What I don't like is that we don't have nearly as many levels of classes as other posters describe. For senior and junior English (required to graduate) there are only two options: AP English or regular English. I think the advantages that top high schools can offer (public or private) outweigh rhe potential risk of rejection from HYPSM (which is near 90% regardless of what high school).</p>
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Actually, Stuy DID send at least 9 kids to MIT last year -- 9 out of the half of the class in that article. When The Wall Street Journal did its high school ranking based on sending kids to Ivies (-Columbia, which wouldn't cooperate) / Chicago / Duke / Pomona (as a substitute for Stanford, which wouldn't cooperate), Stuy had something like 120 kids going to those 10 schools. Pretty stunning.
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<p>Just to chime in again, MIT accepted 13 members of the Stuy class of 2005 (I don't have 2006 stats yet), four regular decision and nine ED (a total of 58 kids applied to MIT), in case anyone is keeping track. :)</p>
<p>It kinda' reminds me of the story (apocryphal?) of Jews in Denmark in the 30s being told to wear yellow armbands or else, so they did, and so did everybody else. I hope it's a true story.
well not quite, but most of the Danish Jews did survive the war
By Order of the King
<a href="http://www.snopes.com/history/govern/denmark.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.snopes.com/history/govern/denmark.htm</a></p>
<p>The choice of highschool for a 14 year old can be the right or wrong one for any reasons. Yes, there could be some advantages for a particular kid to be in a certain type of school over another. Kids have made out in less competitive schools because they are the val or sal, something that may have been unlikely in a more rigorous sschool. If you are in a small school and a thirty kids apply to the same small LAC, and every kid applies ED, and are good picks for the college, someone is very likely to be turned down. And, yes occaisionally such situations do occur. </p>
<p>However, my observation has been that at the highly selective schools, two thirds or more of a class do apply ED, and about two thirds of those kids to get in early. It is not at all unusual to have many apps to the same schools as everyone in that scenario tends to target the most selective schools. But it appears to me, that most, if not all of those kids, if qualified do get into A selective school, though maybe not their first choice, which is pretty dang good considering what a crap shoot those schools are. I have seen, in general, that the highschools that are not as rigorous do not seem to do as well, even in equally qualified kids. When you look at Michele Hernandez's book and formula with the AI, a striking thing is that in the top private highschools, a kid with a 3.0 average gets the same grade number as someone in the top 10% of most schools that are not the Table C exceptions. And I am not convinced that a 3.0 in some of those schools is going to be in the toop 10% of most highschools. In most scenarios, only the val or sal in an "average" high school get into the HPY crowd, and there are many factors that can come together so that a kid who is more academically qualified does not get the top ranks. Playing with the class ranks, unfortunate, unfair rating, the luck of the draw happens more times than not. It is not easy to be a val or sal, and sometimes those kids who get the position get it through some quirk. In high level private schools, the ranking is not taken so much to heart, and kids who are in the upper quintile have gotten into top schools if they have high SAT scores. </p>
<p>I don't think it can be predicted with accuracy which scenario is best, except possibly through hindsight. Even then we are guessing. To say a kid who gets into Dartmouth from a rigorous highschool would have gotten into HPY is a stretch, as I can guarantee you that there are many, many regular highschool kids who are tops inthe class ranks who do not get into those schools--checking the data would verify that. I have seen a more generous range of grades for kids in a top highschool in getting into the selective colleges.</p>
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I doubt any differences in college admission success between them are a result mainly of whether they are in the top 2% or the top 4% of their class
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<p>mother, I agree with this, but it appears that being the valedictorian at a public high school, or even the sal, does make a difference in admissions, just as being a National Merit Scholar makes a difference in admissions even though it's just an arbitrary cutoff on a single multiple-guess test taken junior year (score in the top 0.5% and you're a merit scholar, score in the top 0.6% and you're nobody). A student in a public high school that awards val and sal status based on weighted GPA is giving a significant reward to students who have done very well in school but not necessarily any better than the next 50 kids down the line. This has been my observation of D's public high school. My other kids, who attended prep schools, were not ranked; it was assumed, I guess, that only top-achieving students were admitted in the first place, and after four years of first-rate teaching and cultural enrichment all the graduates were ready for top colleges. That's the distinction I'm making.</p>
<p>My S just graduated from TJHSST. When he applied we told him that the competition would be fierce and that it could be difficult to get into a top school because everyone at TJ is an outstanding student. Some people have to be in the bottom half of the class. Despite this our son chose TJ becasue of its advanced math and science classes (optics, quantum physics, DNA science, differential equations to name a few.) His reasoning - he would rather be challenged and happy taking interesting classes than at the top of the class taking things he wasn't interested in studying. The class of 2006, with about 415 students, has quite a few going to HYPS, MIT, etc.</p>
<p>Brown (4), Columbia (5), Cornell (5), Dartmouth (3), Harvard (8), Princeton (21), Penn (2), Stanford (7), Yale (4), MIT (11), CalTech (1), Duke (19), Carnegie Mellon (9), WUSTL (7), Northwestern (5), Georgetown (6), UVA (105), William and Mary (34). TJ grads are attending many other fine schools - this is just the larger numbers and numbers to the most well known schools.</p>
<p>My S will be attending Carnegie Mellon, School of Computer Science, and wouldn't have traded his years at TJ for all the A's he could get at another school.</p>
<p>see <a href="http://www.tjhsst.edu%5B/url%5D">www.tjhsst.edu</a></p>
<p>A cheer for TJHSST, from which my S (now at Cornell) graduated in 2005...a point overlooked so far in this discussion: the peer pressure/"culture" of the school...at TJ, it's a-ok to be a good student, to try, to take risks, to stretch...and they're normal kids who kick up their heels, give their parents grey hairs, and are utterly delightful (as a group, and among the literally hundreds of individuals I've known in the five years I've done volunteer work there)...I'm with the posters who say the HS experience is the HS experience...great if it helps w/college choices down the road, but most important for the four years the kids spend there...for my S, TJ was an amazing experience that will influence his development for years (perhaps his lifetime)...it's a phenomenal HS as a HS...independent of its stellar record of graduates going on to selective schools...</p>
<p>fairfaxmom, I followed your link. TJHSST is a public exam school, right? I'd give anything to have something like that available for my son. The list of courses you gave would make my son drool. I just looked at the summer reading list - the assignment for the AP Gov't course would be quite appealing for my son (read Friedman's book on globalization and Greg Palast's opposing view, summarize, etc.) And the books on the English reading list looked great. I was discouraged to see The DaVinci Code on our HS summer reading list last year. </p>
<p>overanxious mother, I agree about the importance of the HS experience. I hope that my son will be able to attend an independent school that approximates the experience your son had. He used the word "endure" the other day, on our way home from CTY, as in "... if I could go to CTY for three 3-week sessions during the school year, it would help me endure [our public HS]."</p>
<p>NYmom:</p>
<p>I'm so glad your S liked CTY. He could try to see if he could join or create some academic clubs such as MathCounts/AMC; Academic Decathlon; compete in National History Day, join a Science Team. My S never seemed to mind having more work; he did mind busywork. For example, one reason he accelerated through math was that my H assigned enough exercises for him to get the hang of the concept, but not so many that he would be bored out of his skull. He'd have been very happy if there had been more academic afterschool activities than the ones he had (math enrichment).</p>
<p>overanxious mother, I think you may have hit the nail on the head with the most important aspect of a high school being it's culture. Just a bit south of you at that other gov's school it is exactly that desire to learn, to push themselves, to go beyond what's required and to admire these things in their peers that fosters the fabulous learning environment for the kids, the teachers, the administration and the parents. I wouldn't trade the experience my boys had there for all of the additional "A's" they might have received in their home school. It is precisely this experience that convinced our eldest son to again risk being a smalll fish in a big pond (academically speaking) next year as he heads off to the north. We are so fortunate to have these options and it's too bad these kind of public programs can't be offered in more places.</p>
<p>My older child attends the math/sci/comp sci program at Blair HS (Silver Spring, MD) and he (and we) would not have it any other way. Diff Eq, Complex Analysis, Thermo, Quantum, Linear Alg, Discrete Math -- all post-AP opportunities he would never see at his local school. No problem taking multiple APs in 9th/10th grade. Radical math acceleration happens with one's age peers. The social environment is unparalleled -- kids who are serious about school, share the same warped sense of humor, passion for challenge, etc. He tells me that had he gone to our local HS, he would not be having the academic and social success he's now enjoying. </p>
<p>Blair gets 6-8 kids into MIT every year, more on occasion. The top schools know the kids are prepared. I also like that Blair's program is part of the larger school, so it's 400 kids (9-12) in a school of 3100. Wherever he winds up, he is equipped to do well, because he found his voice and developed his passion at Blair. </p>
<p>A 5.0 is impossible in our school system -- several required courses for graduation are not available as Honors. Taking HS Algebra and HS foreign language in middle school, while they count for credit, do not count as Honors (even if one took Alg I in 6th grade...). No weighted points for music, and no weighted points for journalism, even with a senior editorial position. I figure the colleges will recaclulate GPAs to suit their goals in any event, so I don't worry about that too much.</p>
<p>My spouse went to Bronx Science and the closest friends he has are folks he met back there. That counted for a lot in our thought processes on local HS vs. public test-in programs. </p>
<p>Our younger child is entering a selective public IB program this fall and would rather work his tail off there than go to the local HS and have an easy time. He will probably not be an academic "star" at the IB, but feels he will be immensely richer for the experience.</p>
<p>The only problem I see with many of the top HS (granted we don't have the private schools where I am at) is the lack of great Practical/Applied arts and trades programs.</p>
<p>My sons are national merit, all honors and now AP math, Physics 2, blah, blah, blah. However their favorite classes were the cisco academy networking certification classes and some electronics classes that were desigend for students not necessarily going to college. The hands on aspects were amazing and they loved the challenge of making things work and troubleshooting labs where you had to figure out what was wrong and fix it. They would not have given that up for all the advanced science and math classes at the elite privates and they are better off having taken those classes. I think it is what got them interested in Engineering frankly.</p>
<p>In addition, there were some students in the class that my sons knew were not very interested in school. They came away with a very different impressions of them. They mentioned that one kid who used to try to sleep through Math was utterly amazing in electronics. It was a great experience and showed them the other side if you will of many of their classmates.</p>
<p>to each their own I guess.</p>
<p>I think that is a good point drizzit
My daughters private school had few if any vocational type classes when she was there- although now they have welding( industrial art) and they fix up computers to take to The Gambia. They also raise 40,000 bees on the roof and sell the honey to fundraise for other programs( the computer program and the honey are "clubs" I guess)
Then again because it was very small at the time she was there, the kids in the theatre productions also helped with set design and contruction, lighting etc, so you could get a bigger picture of what was involved</p>
<p>Her sisters public school has affliations with several local tech schools, and has some programs like Global technology Academy for the world that are very successful and both kids who are planning on college and kids who aren't sure are involved.</p>
<p>( this is one of the biggest advantages IMO- because too often, kids who are planning on college and kids who are'nt even thinking about it are on "different" tracks, and dialogue between the groups, at least opens up the idea in their minds for some kids about further education, maybe not immediately after high school, but it took me about 12 years after I left high school, before I even thought about going to a community college, when my therapist suggested it)</p>
<p>My problem with requiring more occupational courses to graduate than some thing like language or arts, isn't a problem with the class, but because there just aren't enough hours in the day to take a college prep schedule and the hands on classes.
However, both my kids really got into photography, which can be considered either a tech or arts class, and the skill can easily be incorporated into other areas. You have to be exposed to something to be interested in it, and kids start with photography and then might move into the local independent film industry.</p>
<p>One of the unfortunate consequences of NCLB is that vocational, hands on type courses are being eliminated in public high schools (like ours) to make room for the multiple periods of English or math that some students need to get them through the tests. I think of it as a 'crime against nature'. The very students who are struggling with academic work most likely sought relief in those courses (and sometimes found it) and are now denied the chance to use other parts of their bodies/minds. Really, if you'd never had good experiences in math, how would you feel about taking a double period of it every day? With the loss of tech and home ec type courses, students are also missing a chance to learn practical life skills.</p>
<p>Agree with LHOD. So many kids I know flounder in HS and college, when they could do so much better being exposed to technical fields</p>
<p>even elite college bound kids could benefit from many of these classes in my opinion. We get to wrapped up in more and more AP all the time to the detriment of many students who could explore some great options for hobbies, stress relief, or whatever.</p>
<p>As far as I am concerned, there is none. Peers motivate peers, which is the best thing that can happen in the teen years. Trust me.</p>