<p>I attend a very rigorous private high school in Michigan (85 students per grade, 20% NMSF's in Classes of 2009 and 2010, average SAT score around 2000 on 2400 scale). Needless to say, we don't rank, with the exception of the top 10% (top 8 kids) inducted into the Cum Laude Society after junior year and the top 20% inducted towards the end of senior year. Now here comes the odd part - the Class of 2010 already has had three Yale SCEA admits and three Cornell ED admits (no overlaps).</p>
<p>None of the six people mentioned were inducted into Cum Laude after their junior year, thus meaning that they were not ranked within the top 10%... and with the exception of one kid being a URM and another being a recruited athlete, none of them were hooked.</p>
<p>Can we have some stats for the kids you say got in? It would really help if we had their grades, the course rigor, their SAT / ACT scores, and a list of extracurriculars (including whether or not they hold leadership roles) for both on- and off-campus activities. Furthermore, we need copies of their essays and letters of recommendation, as well as times and dates of campus visits and alumni interviews.</p>
<p>^ Lol, I don’t know what their stats are like. I’m just honestly surprised that there would be so many unhooked applicants admitted from my school even though they were not ranked in the top 10%.</p>
<p>I get why you’re confused. I’m sure it made more sense to the admissions committees at those schools since they had all the information from the application and you don’t.</p>
<p>Bump… anyone else? After seeing all the admits from my school, I’m quite confused now - what significance does being in the top 10% have, in terms of Ivy admissions?</p>
<p>Top 10% in my son’s affluent PUBLIC high school is also pretty crazy. Very affluent and multinational community…huge school…not easy to compete in athletics at the highest level. There were 5 perfect math SATs from his BC calc class. So he is in the top 11 percent of his class…which will likely hurt him at prestigious schools out of state that do not know our area. I haven’t heard of a kid who hasn’t said the same thing about the transition to college, though…it was easy…so, there’s good and bad in everything.</p>
<p>Maybe there’s not a lot of difference between a kid ranked 8 and a kid ranked 9, 10, 11, 12, etc. Especially at a school of this size and competitiveness, the differences between each rank could be miniscule. Maybe the kid who is ranked number 1 has a 4.34 weighted average and 2150 SAT. Maybe the kid who is ranked 11 has a 4.24 weighted average and a 2290 SAT. Which kid is “better” Plus, as Jahaba pointed out, we just don’t have all of the information, but someone on the admissions commitee saw something of value in them.</p>
<p>I’m also amused at the fact that someone made a “jealousy” tag for this post… I’m not jealous at all, just very confused. I’d always thought it was absolutely necessary to be in at least the top 10% as an unhooked applicant in order to be considered for Ivy admission, but from the looks of my school’s results, this is clearly not the case.</p>
<p>I understand what you’re saying here, and a school may think they see the whole application, but let’s face it – an application is * just what the student chooses to offer for easy viewing* – even teachers who recommend them tend to be picked by the students themselves. While you’re correct that it would make more sense to the schools, this hardly means they’re making truly informed decisions. Someone who goes to the same school as an applicant and knows them closely probably has a better idea – not sure if this OP falls into this category.</p>
<p>However, yes I agree that in a highly competitive school, perhaps top 8 is a matter of pushing very ridiculously hard on GPA and things like that, and schools, while interested in good performance, may not be interested in perfect performance.</p>
<p>I think the real question is if those admitted were visibly not super-intellectuals and/or had no special talents. The advent of policies placing what I’d call undue emphasis on subjective essays has made for some very strange decision-making in some places, and far from easily explained. But other schools may rightfully choose to accept students outside the top 10% because the top 10% designation may not indicate higher potential, only persistant overcompetitive spirit in high school.</p>
<p>And I’m saying that someone who has transcripts, essays, SAT scores, and letters of rec and has experience working as an admissions committee member *might<a href=“not%20necessarily%20always,%20but%20%5Bi%5Dmight%5B/i%5D”>/i</a> have a better idea about who belongs in their school than a high school student who can maybe guess at the other student’s scores because of a lack of membership in an honor society. </p>
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<p>Admissions decisions have never been easily explained, at least since society decided that too many Jews were making it to the Ivy League over a hundred or so years ago.</p>
<p>Sure, Jahaba I understand what you’re saying, and was merely objecting to the exact wording in an earlier post that one can be certain things made more sense to the admissions committee. I find too many CC posters glorifying that an admissions committee has access to the “whole application” – a whole piece of something very little is not very big.</p>
<p>Your current stance is exactly what I have. And edit: sorry if my words seemed more attacking than they should have.</p>
<p>You’re right; I should have phrased that better. I’m not saying that the admissions committee can determine who is the best applicant, but they have a better chance of seeing who best fits in with their college than someone who neither attends that college nor has access to any of the information that colleges use in admissions.</p>
<p>So the bottom line is that at really competitive high schools (such as my own), an unhooked applicant does not necessarily have to be ranked in the top 10% in order to be considered for admission? Keep in mind that we don’t officially give out rank, but those in Cum Laude by the end of their junior year are those in the top 10%.</p>
<p>Yeah, basically. The vast majority of the people who apply to Ivy League colleges like Harvard could probably graduate on-time if they got in. They have great grades, SAT scores, and extracurricular activities. The only problem is that there are a limited amount of seats; they couldn’t possibly admit every single person who is “deserves” (as far as grades) to go there, even if they decided to arbitrarily limit it to the top 8 students of every secondary school in the world. That’s why they take into account all of those soft factors like essays, hooks, and extracurricular activities. So when you don’t get into Harvard, for example, they’re not necessarily saying that “You’re not good enough to go here” but only that “There wasn’t room for everyone”.</p>
<p>The good news is that good students can succeed just about anywhere!</p>
<p>Oh, this will interest you- I remember reading on another thread that this is why you don’t <em>have</em> to be in the top 10% at some private schools-</p>
<p>Since many of them don’t rank, when a college starts accepting students from that school, the college’s stats (# of top 10%) aren’t affected. So students from non-ranking schools are not included in the college’s stats when it comes to “number of top 10% students accepted”. </p>
<p>However, at big public schools where there usually is a ranking, the college’s stats are at stake.</p>
<p>Your school is exactly the same as mine. We routinely get people into Yale, etc. outside of the top 10% (again not officially, just people who aren’t Cum Laude). I believe top colleges get most of their applicants from competitive schools who don’t submit any rank. Look at Yale’s Common Data Set-</p>
<p>C10. Percent of total first-time, first-year (freshman) students who submitted high school class rank: 40%</p>
<p>Which seems to imply that 60% come from schools like ours. In short, what does this mean? Kids coming from competitive schools have a significant advantage over kids from public/not well known schools AND/OR competitive high schools intentionally do not screw their kids over, and colleges acknowledge that.</p>
<p>If your school does not officially rank (as in XX/YYY rank), but rather provides colleges with deciles (1st decile - top 10%, 2nd decile - top 20%, etc.) does the college report someone who was admitted who was in the second decile as one of those only in the top quarter of his/her HS class or are those considered as one of those students who did not submit high school class rank?</p>
<p>My school has an honor society, but that is not limited to the top 10% of the class, rather “the whole package.” We do not rank students in any way, and have no valedictorians. How do colleges view this (I’m confused to be honest)? If our honor society was limited to the top 10%, then less than 4-5 kids would get accepted every year. Some advice please? :)</p>