<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>I recently got my ranking and found that I'm among the top few students. I was pretty happy, but now I'm wondering how this is going to be viewed by colleges. I go to Westside High School in Houston, and there have been rumors going around recently that since we have so many students below the poverty line, we could be considered an inner-city school. This is ridiculous though; the school was built just a few years ago, facilities are nice, faculty is on the whole pretty good, we're ranked among the top schools for AP, et cetera. So my question is: how do colleges view your high school? Is this sort of thing going to be considered? (I just wonder if people might think it's easier to be at the top of a student body that they think is mediocre.) Some of my schools are MIT, Stanford, USC, Cornell, and RPI.</p>
<p>Thanks,
-Stacy</p>
<p>Colleges pay alot of attention to your high school. Each college admissions office has a representative who specializes in certain schools They make it their business to know, for example, how kids from your school have faired at their school in years past. Often the person who comes to your high school from each college is that person who specializes in your school. While I only know how it works in a handful of colleges, mainly small liberal arts colleges from the northeast and some from the south and midwest, they all follow the model I just described. At the colleges my daughter applied to last year -- Tufts, Skidmore, American U, U-Mass, Boston College, Trinity, Lafayette, Bates and colby, the regional admissions representative from each college (i.e., the one who specializes in your school) also is the person who reads your application and makes a case for you (pro or con) before the rest of the admissions office.</p>
<p>In the larger universities, I've heard that the process is less personal. Someone told me that at Boston College they had graduate studentss reading the applicaations and ranking them on the outside of foldiers by providing your G.P.A and SAT/ACT scores. </p>
<p>Finally, many high schools, like ours, keep records for parents and kids to see showing for each year the GPA and SAT scores for each of their applicants, grouped by college they applied to, and listing whether they were accepted, rejected, or deferred and applied early decision or r.d. Our school even puts the data on a scattergram so kids can see how colleges viewed past applicants by GPA and SAT (student names, of course, are not provided). See if your high school provides that info. It will give you a better indication of your chances.</p>