Interesting. I assume you are in the US? Sounds like your school is really good
You would think the TT schools would track that these kids are not doing well and stop taking them. Also, take the grade deflation into account, given the higher number of TT admits at the other school, sounds like they are not taking it into account.
My mom has a theory on grade deflation (she is discouraging me from going to a college that has it but so far I have no real options), she believes that no matter how well it is presented to colleges or grad schools they may forgive some of it but they will never forgive all and they would rather take the kid that has an A and has no clue than the kid who got a B- and can program better than most people at google (or do history or english or whatever the subject). When a school with a name (a high school or college) has grade inflation, everyone acknowledges it but no one cares, they want the kid with the A and they will take them and not care too much how they got there. They need those As for their stats.
We have exactly the same problem with some APs, I struggled through APush not because I found it hard but because the teacher barely taught and then would ask really stupid not important picky fact questions on the test. I did cram for the AP but not as much as other people. I got a 5. Still annoyed because my grades in it were not great all year (final saved me). I think there should be some way for teachers to go back and adjust grades up if a student gets a 4 or 5 and is not a senior (or even if he is, may want to do gap year or transfer). If an AP is supposed to be a standardized course, why not are the grades and tests during the year standardized
Yup, I’m in the US, and my HS is top 100 by most rankings, top 50 by some. The other HS I mention is top 200 or something at best but still has had SCEA admits to all of HYPS and a Wharton ED admit. We just have one to MIT so far (that I know of) and the way things are going that’ll probably be it for HYPSM this year. It really annoys me because I’ve seen so many people get rejected from basically every top college who have worked very, very hard for their grades and ECs despite my HS not having basically any ECs.
Your mother is right, especially for med school - med schools seem to want absolute GPA over everything, even if a 3.7 at one school would be a 4.0 at another. I don’t get why colleges don’t take AP scores into account more than they do - I’d think a nationally standardized test would be a more useful indicator of a student’s success in a course than each school’s individual grading policy. C’est la vie, I’ll go somewhere that appreciates the work I’ve put in.
Is one much wealthier as in no financial aid? Also, why have parents not complained and do something? Show them statistics.There is a neighboring public hs near us where no one is getting into anyplace great. The occassional UPenn (but she was brilliant, took ACTs once in 10th grade, no coaching, studied fom some book and got a 35). Meanwhile most of the recent Val and Salutes have not been getting into the Ivies except for occassional Cornell. With perfect grades, sats and great uncommon extracurriculars. The next school over has gotten Columbia, Harvard, Penn, Duke etc in recent years. I am told the GC department will be overhauled at the school. It was to the point that parents who care about this are not moving in even though it is a nice school otherwise.
Our guidance is amazing, it is just the teachers that like to deflate us. My GC just shakes her head when I complain. We have not gotten a HYPS admission in a few years (very small school but it has been a long dry spell) and I doubt this year will be the year as each of us who could do it has something that is not perfect, one of us could have had better grades (alot of which were due to bad breaks in close situations, missed an A by a two points over the course of a year), one could have had better ECs (by HYPS standards) and so on. Next year’s class is smarter