What exactly constitutes a "competitive high school"?

Applying to College
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<p>I see a lot of people here saying they go to a "competitive" high school. What makes you think your high school is competitive, relevant to what? I am just curious, as to what would be non-competitive. Do you base it on your AP courses offered, what your top 1% takes for classes, or probably most popular: how many of your top students go to Ivies.</p>

<p>Tell me about it.</p>

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<p>It is normally based on the number of students going on to colleges. Especially the top colleges. Some high schools are considered “feeder” high schools, meaning that colleges are familiar with students who have graduated from them and have shown that they can succeed in the university.</p>

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<p>^Yep. But that isn’t to say that there aren’t schools that are similarly strong in terms of academics without the same resources and relationships with colleges.</p>

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<p>A strong school with acadamics automatically should have a lot of its students entering better colleges. Needless to say the school would have a good relationship with colleges by the sheer number of its graduates entering.</p>

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<p>OP, a large majority of CCers claim to attend a “competitive high school” so take what they say with a grain of salt. Generally, the “competitiveness” of a high school is probably determined by it’s college matriculation stats.</p>

6

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<p>Not necessarily. My school, for example, is a magnet program within a larger public high school. My GC is responsible for an absurdly high number of students and doesn’t have time to develop relationships with colleges. It’s just not in the job description. That doesn’t mean that our academic program is any less rigorous than that of local private schools (an assumption made after talking to several friends from those privates), but that the GCs of publics and privates have very different job requirements. Because of that, our school doesn’t have established relationships with colleges (except the state flagship). I imagine, too, the fact that the few kids who get into schools like Duke from my school consistently turn it down for full merit rides elsewhere or the much-cheaper UNC doesn’t help either.</p>