<p>Interesting story here: I go to a public high school in San Diego, CA that's considered the second strongest school in the county of 2 million. We have almost what you would call a tradition of getting turned down by Stanford SCEA. Make no mistake, these are very strong applicants (last year three people from my school were accepted to Harvard). A private religious school on the other side of town that is considered weaker academically sent nine people to Stanford last year alone. Is this a coincidence, or are the private school kids getting some advantage in the application process? Have any of you noticed the same trend where you live? I'll be applying to Stanford next year so I'd really like to know.</p>
<p>I remember a few years ago, before stanford switched to the commonapp, I checked out their application and it struck me that it was heavily geared towards private school kids. Just the whole tone of it implied that the people they were targeting were from private schools, like, it asked for a "headmaster/ counselor reccomendation". First, rarely do public schools call principals "headmasters", and it would seem quite uncommon to ask your principal for a reccomendation in a high school of 1000+ students...</p>
<p>I have, however, been told repeatedly from people that are currently at Stanford and have recently graduated that they see a considerable amount of public school people, and that in no way were they at a disadvantage. The other thing is that since the appliacation changed, my thought about the app isn't really relevant anymore...</p>
<p>I'm not really in a qualified position to give advice, but just based on common sense, I'd have to say that if you're a strong enough applicant, you've got a shot at getting in!</p>
<p>Actually, I went to a public high school and know many people at Stanford who did so as well. My public high school was not really well-known, but several qualified people still got in.</p>
<p>A girl from my performing arts high school (the fame school!) got into stanford EA last year.</p>