What makes a "challenging" or "competitive" high school

Applying to College
1

I’m somewhat new to the site, but was wondering if there was a college admissions standard definition of a challenging/competitive high school.

Is it rankings (ie Washington Post, US News)? If so, what ranking (top 100, top 500) makes a high school competitive?

Is it something else?

2

No

My guess is that most AO’s follow the late Justice Potter Stewart’s “I know it when I see it” philosophy. There is no absolute algorithm (although every other HS student here claims to go to a competitive HS), but it probably includes track record for acceptances to top colleges (however those are defined), high standardized test scores, percentage of students taking AP/IB/DE courses, etc.

3

Thanks for your comment. I keep reading kids saying they attend a competitive HS as well; so I was curious.

The high school my kids attend stopped ranking in 2014. I know that most scholarships say they will consider students even if they don’t rank, but it makes it more difficult for sure. I like things to be concrete, but as I dip my toe into this world for the first time, I’m realizing very few parts of this process are.

4

More than half of US high schools, including most top high schools, do not provide a cardinal/ordinal rank (e.g. 5th out of 650) The best they do is a GPA by decile, so a rank is at best estimated.

5

Any high school in Texas where many students want to attend UT Austin is likely to have a “competitive” environment.

6

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeBakey_High_School_for_Health_Professions

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plano_West_Senior_High_School

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westlake_High_School_(Texas)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Vanguard_High_School

7

You can look at rankings of hs provided by your state. And then apply some critical thinking.

OP, if things need to be too concrete, wait til you dig into “holistic.” Take a breath, :slight_smile: