<p>I've seen a lot of people on this board saying they come from a "competitive" high school. Everywhere across the U.S., private and public, people apply this term to their high school. What exactly makes a "competitive" high school -- national test scores, magazine rankings, and GPAs? How does one go about finding out how competitive their high school is, and how do college admissions officers determine how competitive a high school is?</p>
<p>In my mind, it is one where a majority (or higher number than typical) of your classmates are collegebound and competitive students. If your classes are filled with a handful of high performing students who are accomplished in more ways than just academically, then i'd call that competitive.</p>
<p>I would say one where a substantial number of students are bound for Ivys and other top colleges. My high school sends maybe 25-40 students to the very good colleges and I would consider it semi competitive. Schools like TJ in northern Virginia send like 20 MIT, 15 Harvard, etc. That is very competitive.</p>
<p>i'd just like to add the following to venkater's definition: a competitive high school has a large number of people taking a large number of APs/IBs (3+ APs per year or full IB diploma), which is how newsweek ranks high schools</p>
<p>obviously magnet schools (public, but you need to pass a test to get in), like Thomas Jefferson HS of Sci. and Tech. in VA, are competitive because their acceptance rates are pretty low, so the people that get in are already top-notch students that could probably all, or almost all, be valedictorians of the other high schools that they would have gone to; however, public non-magnet schools can still be competitive (see newsweek rankings)</p>
<p>magnet schools, schools that have strong active ap programs, with college-bound students, high national test score averages, the works.</p>
<p>gpa is a poor register because of inflation issues</p>
<p>stupak: gpa is a poor register because of inflation issues</p>
<p>isn't it the truth...</p>
<p>at the same time newsweeks ranking that are based on number of AP of IB tests taken are a bit of a sham. Some schools require anyone who takes an AP class to take the test (usually because the school pays for it). This year my school adopted this policy pretty much just so they could get into newsweeks rankings. </p>
<p>Obviously most private and pub magnets are competitive because of entry exams etc. </p>
<p>if you're just looking at normal public highschools, i think the % of students attending a 4 year institution is most telling.</p>
<p>a competitive high school is not my high school :p</p>
<p>Ha ha. My school's median GPA is 2.98 -- almost a B! -- and we are NOT competitive. We offer 9 AP classes in reality, though there are more like 10 or 11 in the course catalog--nobody signs up for some of them, so they don't run. Then, for instance, AP French is combined with French 3 and 4 all in the same class because so few people get that far with French at my school. AP Spanish, I think, is almost always independent because too few people sign up for it to be a real class. Every couple years we have a National Merit finalist; sometimes he/she goes to an elite university or college... and sometimes to UW. Forty percent of each class, on average, goes on to a 4-year postsecondary school--usually Washington State U, UW, or Western WA U; another 35% go to a two-year college--i.e., the community college in the next town over. Hardly anybody ever leaves the state, and if they do, they go to whatever state they lived in before they moved to WA; for example, I know a couple people who have their sights set on Virginia colleges for that reason. Otherwise... well... we had a pair of siblings get into Stanford when I was in 9th and 10th grades, and years ago somebody went to Dartmouth. I think one year recently we might have had somebody accepted to an Ivy League school or Stanford, but she decided not to go because she was only 16, if I remember correctly, and not ready to leave her parents. Beyond that, I'm not sure. </p>
<p>I had never even heard of rankings for high schools until this year, when I started visiting CC. :p</p>
<p>Any high school with a high percentage of asians will be competitive.</p>
<p>Hmm...well I'm in a selective private school...in Hong Kong so like 99% asians...with only 50 people in the senior class...with an 80% A average at A-levels ( the British Yr 12 exams, I guess equivalent to AP) O.o sigh...screws up my gpa/class rankings =P</p>
<p>Competitiveness is simply a measure of how academically skilled the students in a given high school might be. There are two decent measures of this:</p>
<ol>
<li>Standardized test scores</li>
<li> Number/percentage of students attending the most highly selective colleges</li>
</ol>
<p>My personal means of categorizing goes like this:</p>
<ol>
<li> Super competitive high schools: Average SAT score at or above 1300 (old scale)</li>
<li> Very competitive high schools: Avg. SAT at or above 1200</li>
<li> Competitive: Avg. SAT at or above 1100</li>
</ol>
<p>(Note: Average/median scores are only a guideline. There are some schools where, for instance, the upper 50% or so of students are extremely skilled and the lower 50% or so extremely unskilled, so that the top 50% are are still in a very competitive environment)</p>
<p>AP courses and the like tend to go hand in glove with wealthy communities, skilled students, and the like, but are not as good an indicator. In my district, for instance, the high school with probably the least academically skilled students just put an IB program into place. That's admirable, but it doesn't change the competitiveness very much.</p>
<p>competitive schools means SAT average above 1300, 100% college matriculation and 25%+ to ivies/M/S/C and their liberal arts counter part</p>
<p>hmmm... according to my common app... 25% go to 4yr.....35% to 2yr.... is that competitive?</p>
<p>bearcats: competitive schools means SAT average above 1300, 100% college matriculation and 25%+ to ivies/M/S/C and their liberal arts counter part</p>
<p>a little extreme, me thinks.</p>
<p>SAT average definitely above 1150-200
college matriculation should be relatively high, like at least 65%
high matriculation, at least 15%, to schools featured on us news and report
BIG school (1000+)</p>
<p>if you have some time, this thread should shed a little light on your question:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=97742%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=97742</a></p>
<p>more specifically, post 254 is the start of an analysis done on high schools feeding elite colleges:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=97742&page=17%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=97742&page=17</a></p>
<p>I agree with the notion that one definition of a competitive HS is one that feeds to some very competitive colleges.</p>
<p>I think any high school that is not on the newsweek list because their average sat score is too high is competitive. I have also been told by a lot of people on here that a competitive high school is solely a high school that you have to take a test, apply, and get accepted too. That means taht any public school unless it is magnet or IB or of similar nature is not competitve. </p>
<p>I really don't know which one to believe but based on this forumn I think its the former.</p>
<p>runpunk, a high school filled with the attitude u hold is definitely not competitive, just ignorant</p>
<p>Papa Chicken:</p>
<p>Thank you!! Someone who actually did some work, collected some data, and did some analysis??? On this board??? In this forum???? I mean, whatever happened to the more effective approach of "Duuuuuhhhhh, I tink it's any skule wid a SAT score higher then whatevuh."</p>
<p>One of the issues here (and this is not your fault and has nothing to do with you) is that so many want to make the word "competitive" fit only a score or fewer high schools in the country. That's nonsense. There is a world of difference between Palo Alto High and Fulton (MO) High.</p>
<p>The US News rankings are ridiculous. Asserting that, among public high schools, only magnet schools are competitive is ridiculous. Many, many suburban Chicagoland high schools outperform Chicago city magnet schools by wide margins (as one glaring example).</p>
<p>I would still submit that, if one is looking for a single measurement of the competition among high school kids, standardized test scores provide the best place to look. I'm willing to bet that there's a very high relationship between median SAT/ACT scores and acceptances to elite colleges in those high schools you ranked.</p>
<p>my school....(Class of 2006)
45% White/28% Black/20% Hispanic.... </p>
<p>SAT Averages:58% Participation
474 CR
476 M
449 W</p>
<p>ACT Averages: 24% Participation
18.0 English
19.5 Math
20.1 Reading
18.9 Science
19.5 Writing
19.2 Composite</p>
<p>This year boundaries/gerrymandering/new school built makes it 39% White/32% Black/22% Hispanic... hmmm.... we went from 65/16/14 (Class of 2003) to whites being a plurality...</p>