<p>1) If you attended another HS you may not have received as good an education as going to one of the specialized schools, which means your chance of being admitted to a school like columbia would have been more difficult. let’s say you attended francis lewis hs instead of bronx sci, you could be top 10% at francis lewis, but because of the less competition, the weaker resources, and the fact that folks have poorer sat scores, you would perhaps not have been competitive. this argument is thus based on a false presumption of equality among schools.</p>
<p>2) you had a choice to attend the school, and that means you accepted that choice along with the fact that competition is higher.</p>
<p>3) as it notes - there are still 3% of students who are not in the top 10% of their school. but let’s do a thought experiment - let’s say there is a student who is as cool as you, does as much as you do and yet also did better than you academically and is higher in the class…who would you admit? also i should note that it is of students that are admitted, not of students that attend, so that means it is quite a few dozen students are admitted that are outside 10%.</p>
<p>4) as i recall - columbia and other ivies are also aware that the higher your gpa at many nyc pub schools often only corresponds to the more singular you’ve been committed to your grades - that is insufficient to be admitted to a school like columbia that wants students with discernible character and ‘soft skills’ that demonstrate they would be good community members and great future alumni. so whereas being top 10% might be a firmer rule for a school where there is a confluence of talent and intellect only in top, at a specialized school this certainly means there is more variety in terms of what they will and can look for. it also means you have to trust the admissions officers know how to do their job, and having worked with the office as a student, i know they care a lot about their jobs.</p>
<p>ultimately though i think without knowing much about you, it is unclear if you would even be academically eligible for a school like columbia. we don’t know your grades, testing, what you’ve done inside or outside of school - in short it is unclear if you are a ‘stand out’ as columbia looks for it. but toward a bigger question, is this fair? who ever said there was fairness in the application process. </p>
<p>admissions is a murky world in which objective data, subjective interpretations are fused. in the end it is a misnomer to say columbia and other schools admit the ‘best’ students. what they admit are the students that they think are best for them to admit. it is nice for columbia to put out a statement like 97% of students are in the top 10% - to students that means columbia only takes smart kids, but to real observers what that means is that columbia’s applicant pool is so deep with talent that they are able to admit kids that fit their various priorities and it happens to be that almost all of them are in the top 10% of their school. you see - admissions folks care more about finding students that are interesting and from diverse talents that will fill the various academic and co-curricular offerings of the school, than just admitting students that fit within the top 10%. it is a simple question of which is the chicken and which is the egg? it is pretty clear that filling the university priorities matter more than just picking kids with top gpas.</p>
<p>if columbia’s applicant pool were smaller or had weaker students (especially weaker at the upper rung) they probably would be forced to dig outside of the top 10% of the school to find gems that fit the student culture they want to build.</p>