<p>D met with counselor to show her list of schools. GC expressed annoyance/dismay with list; told D she needed to have more safeties (I'm so glad) but also that, alas, several schools on D's list should be viewed as reaches, not matches/likelies, for her--because those colleges "don't take many students from our school." D was not happy. </p>
<p>Checking Naviance, the GC's claim seems true: although D's stats are way into the "GO" area, historically--and to me, strangely--some of her desirable colleges accept relatively few students from her HS. Oddly, GC sees several Ivies as possibles, but several non-Ivies as reaches. </p>
<p>Her HS is a much respected, exceptionally competitive public, and D has great stats, scores, EC's, etc. D wants to apply to all on her beloved list anyway. I'm behind her; she'll never again have the chance to be accepted as a freshman at a school. </p>
<p>Has anyone had a GC say no to a school on those grounds, only to have the kid apply and get in?</p>
<p>I am the last person to have an answer for you (sorry!) but I too have wondered the same thing as I’m just starting to understand naviance. I can see at ‘our’ HS school, for some high ranked colleges, the acceptance rate is far beyond the average (e.g. 50% of applicants are accepted when the overall acceptance rate is like 15%), whereas for other high ranked colleges, tons applies every year and it appears no one has ever gotten it.</p>
<p>Unless finances are an issue, you don’t need a lot of safeties.</p>
<p>You need one very carefully chosen safety to which you are essentially guaranteed admission and where you would like to go.</p>
<p>Some colleges do seem to like and dislike students from particular high schools. From my daughter’s high school, for example, it is almost impossible to get into Harvard, but quite a few people have been accepted by Yale, Princeton, MIT, and Stanford. At a slightly lower level, things seem to work out pretty well for applicants to Northwestern, Duke, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins, but heaven help you if you want to go to Georgetown.</p>
<p>If your D has strong stats than she can just prove this GC wrong…LOL</p>
<p>First…has your D visited these schools. Has she let these schools know that she wants to go their school? </p>
<p>Secondly…do you know how many kids from your D’s school applied and were denied? While the GC can’t give specifics, she could tell you generally how the stats were of those kids. Maybe she’s been discouraging so many students from applying there, so she’s contributing to the problem.</p>
<p>Thirdly…and this is important…what is your GC doing to improve this school’s image in various colleges’ eyes. Ask to see a copy of the school’s profile that gets sent with transcripts. Does that need to be better written/designed/whatever? Does it sell the school? If not, then the school profile needs to be reworked. It maybe too late for this year (unfortunately), but maybe not. Maybe just a few changes on a computer file and some new printouts and a better product could be had.</p>
<p>What are your D’s stats, her GPA, any AP scores? </p>
<p>What are some of the top schools on her list?</p>
<p>Let me tell you this…</p>
<p>My son and his friend were in grade school together; their standardized test scores were both equally high. My son went off to a Catholic high school. His friend went to the one public high school that doesn’t have the good rep that the other public high has. When both were applying to college, they both had similar stats - both had 33 ACTs. But, when they both applied to the same competitive program at one university (with interviews), my son was the one who got picked. So, yes, I think the name of the school can make the difference. But, I wouldn’t let that be the “end all.” I would have my child do campus visits, appointments with admissions officers, appointments with department heads, whatever it took to remove that “stigma” that kids from “this” school aren’t worth taking.</p>
<p><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Unless finances are an issue, you don’t need a lot of safeties.</p>
<p>You need one very carefully chosen safety to which you are essentially guaranteed admission and where you would like to go.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<</p>
<p>** I think everyone needs at least 2 safeties (both should be financial safeties if money is or might be an issue), and this is why… **</p>
<p>If the child doesn’t get into his reach/match schools (or they prove to be too expensive), he’ll feel very deflated if all he has is one school left. </p>
<p>However, with 2 (or more) safeties in his pocket, he still has a choice to make in the spring. He’ll still feel like he has some control over the future of his education. </p>
<p>Also, “one carefully chosen safety” in the fall, may become a disliked school by spring, so it’s better to have a second choice available.</p>
<p>Applying to safeties is usually pretty easy. Many don’t require essays. Most have cheap app fees or are free if you apply online. Some are just “formula” acceptances…if you have the stats then you will get in … A popular safety school in my area will give your acceptance right after your campus visit if you arrive with a sealed transcript from your school that includes SAT/ACT scores in the envelope. What a deal…LOL 12 of my son’s classmates ended up going to that school. LOL</p>
<p>A high School’s reputation and past history with colleges can indeed have a big impact. Colleges can be influenced by past students from the school who attended and did well / did not do well, by the GC, by the school’s rigor, etc. This is touched upon in this thread:</p>
<p>All that said, I would still encourage your D to apply and make her best case with those colleges. but caution her to not put all her eggs in one basket</p>
It’s possible that in the past students have backed out of ED committments to these schools and the colleges are holding the HS responsible. It’s also possible that the exact pattern the GC says is why; if students admitted to Ivy’s and other top colleges from your HS always choose the Ivy, then the other colleges (that care about their yield) may figure there’s no sense in admitting the stronger students since they aren’t going to enroll.</p>
<p>Our GC made exactly that point. The high school has traditionally sent some students to most Ivies (for some reason, Princeton does not seem very popular, but HY, Cornell, Brown and Columbia have admitted at least one student every year). But when S1 was considering colleges ten years ago, the GC mentioned that a student with perfect scores had been rejected by Emory. Swarthmore also seemed hard for students from our high school to get into (one who did was a legacy besides being an excellent student).
Sometimes, students may be rejected because a prior applicant backed out of ED; or the school’s overall profile may not be high (that is the case of our very bi-modal school) and the adcoms, which are not familiar with it, mistrust a student’s GPA, teachers’ recs, and so on. Or they may have “Tufts syndrome” suspecting that a stellar student will accept an Ivy League school over them.</p>
<p>The student rejected by Emory got into Brown.</p>
<p>Emory likes demonstrated interest. Lots of it. If the student who was rejected never visited campus, I’m not surprised he was rejected. Emory’s materials (at least a couple of years ago) made it pretty clear that they expected a visit. Likewise, if a student’s app clearly gave the impression that he/she considers the school a safety, that could also spell doom.</p>
<p>If the GC thinks the college doesn’t like certain schools, the OP’s D should make sure she pays extra attention to the mission statements/goals/philosophy of said schools and demonstrate how her preparation will enable her to succeed there. Show how she fits. Make them want her! There are no guarantees anywhere – for years S1’s HS couldn’t get a kid into Princeton for love or money; then, his senior year, four or five were accepted.</p>
<p>Make sure the D has a copy of the school profile. If it doesn’t adequately cover what the school offers (or the intensity of same), it might be worth it to look at the course descriptions in her HS course catalog and send copies of relevant classes if appropriate. (Another CC-er did this and it was an idea we kept in our back pocket for S1 because he had a lot of post-AP courses not generally offered in HS. Wound up not needing to go that route; his research and essays conveyed what needed to be said.) She could also further elaborate on qualities of her program/school that are not included in the profile so that the adcoms can get a fuller view.</p>
<p>When D first mentioned her dream school to someone in the HS guidance office (not her GC), she was told " oh, people apply to that school all the time and they NEVER get in".</p>
<p>She is now attending that school.</p>
<p>Yes, your child should have some safeties, but if she really wants to apply to these schools (and it works for you financially), she should go for it.</p>
<p>Certain colleges develop relationships with certain HSs and not with others. It’s just a fact of life.</p>
<p>At our HS, lots of kids (really – LOTS) get into Ivies, and into other exceptional schools like Tufts, Duke, Northwestern, Georgetown, Williams, Emory, Vanderbilt, Rice. But very very few get in Stanford or Amherst. My sons’ GC said once that Amherst “just doesn’t like our kids.”</p>
<p>It makes absolutely no sense to me.</p>
<p>(Although now that I think of it, there’s a kid from S2’s class there right now, and a kid a year older that S2. Guess they’re the exception that proves the rule.)</p>
<p>Can’t get into Brown from our public high school. Students get into HY and P as well as Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth and Penn. Yep, now that I think of it, all the other Ivies as well as MIT, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, etc. etc. Brown, is just not an option, though kids keep trying.</p>
<p>Stanford “hates” my school; in 10 years, 2 people have gotten in, and not for lack of trying. We have no such problem with any of the Ivies. Yet, last year was one of those two; the student received a likely letter, in fact. So you never know.</p>
<p>It’s possible that your GC is right. I know my HS was “blacklisted” by Harvard for a really long time after three students in the same year “double deposited” and backed out in late summer. Ouch. Two years Harvard finally took a student from our HS again, after a ten year of no acceptances (and plenty of applications) for our HS. Interesting…</p>
<p>I really don’t like the logic behind punishing an unrelated person for what another did. Isn’t that kind of “stereotyping”???</p>
<p>It’s like saying…“Uh, a kid from this school backed out, therefore, another kid from this school will do the same.” That’s what a stereotype is. “We hired a woman and then she quit after her baby was born, therefore this other woman will do the same.” </p>
<p>You’d think a rather liberal bastion like Harvard wouldn’t engage in such practices…hmmmm.</p>
<p>I think this is a problem with lazy guidance counselors more than bias on the part of colleges. At D’s school they had the same gc’s for years, students went to the same half dozen colleges and were not usually not accepted at some others. We finally got a new gc with connections at new colleges and voila, suddenly those colleges don’t “hate” our school anymore. Some GC’s tend to get into a comfortable rut and don’t spend time creating relationships with colleges they aren’t familiar with.
The new GC was hired after loud complaints by parents in the past couple of years. Thanks to her many top 20 schools are visiting this year.</p>
<p>S1 & S2’s HS is the opposite. Colleges tend to love it. The GCs our not very good, but it hasn’t seemed to make a difference. In S1’s year 9/16 admitted to Stanford, 5/8 Harvard, 2/4 to UChicago, etc. No one really knows why this is, poor counselors, city public, students good, but rarely any national awards or unusual ECs. A mystery, but parents aren’t complaining.</p>
You may not like the logic, but its pretty much the only lever colleges have. The GC is supposed to explain to the student that if accepted to the ED school and the financial pkg is ok that they need to withdraw their other apps. Some ED schools even require the counselor to sign the app that they’ve discussed the process with the student. </p>
<p>At some HS’s the counselor will notify the other schools where the student has applied that the student has been accepted ED; and for those that don’t, the ED school lets the GC know of their acceptance and the GC is expected to discuss the next steps with the student. </p>
<p>There are tens of thousands of HS’s across the country. The admission process won’t work if both sides don’t act in good faith. I think its understandable why colleges will refuse to work with a HS that doesn’t uphold its part of the application process. The flip side, a reputation for honesty and accuracy, can help HS’s become “feeders”.</p>
<p>As a side note, ethics sure can be a funny thing. mom2collegekids, didn’t you suggest in a post a day or two back that a college student who did poorly at USC and is now at a CC could “forget” to mention the 1st school when applying to 4-year colleges?</p>
<p>Where does one find this naviance? Do all schools do it? Because our school has never mentioned it and there is nothing on their website and I’ve never heard parents in our school district refer to it. What is it exactly?</p>
</p>
He’ll still feel like he has some control over the future of his education. </p>