Will going to a small school hurt my chances?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I’m only a junior but my top choices are Emory and Duke (I’m a legacy at Duke)

Female
White
Not sure what my family income is but we’re definitely not rich
Maryland
GPA: 3.8
WGPA: 4.3

I’ve taken APUSH (3) and AP Governnent (5). This next year I’m gonna take AP World, AP Lit, and AP Calc BC. Senior year I plan on taking AP Physics, AP Psych, AP Lang, AP Stat, and possibly AP Chem.

EC: I was Captain of my school’s It’s Academic Team, captain of History Bowl, JV Basketball, Varsity field hockey, Varsity lacrosse, on my school’s ambassador team (which I am treasurer for), NHS, pit orchestra for the musical, and band for my school’s music showcase. Also this next year I have been asked to be an editor for my school’s magazine.

For my high school, I chose to go to the smaller, less prestigious one in my county, and my dad seems to think that that will hurt my chances of getting into my top choices. Is he right? There is a much bigger school on my street and at a lot of college visits that I’ve been on they have actually heard of that school, but I just didn’t feel like that school was right for me. Will this hurt my chances?

2

If you can produce high test scores, that helps colleges see that you are on par with their other applicants. It shouldn’t hurt you as long as you can do that in my opinion. My kids went to a small high school (~50 per graduating class) and had very good admissions results at schools similar to or higher ranked than those.