<p>Andover HAS to have a financial aid system that rivals colleges because it cost just as much (or more) to attend Andover than it does some colleges!!</p>
<p>AND</p>
<p>"top grades at a top hs is unshakable (versus being val at some random public school). "</p>
<p>In my experience, being the valedictorian of a large public high school shows that you worked your ass off for four years, studied long hours, gave it your all, etc. Don't discredit someone's good grades because they didn't come from Andover.</p>
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[quote]
i think you're generalizing--andover and other top boarding schools aren't filled with rich kids who just happen to be smart. a lot of them have great financial aid programs that rival many colleges and with the amount of resources they have, they can recruit top students from anywhere...
also, schools aren't going to admit kids who they don't think will succeed and top grades at a top hs is unshakable (versus being val at some random public school). in fact, many andover kids JOKE about how easy college is compared to hs...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What am i generalizing here? I am aware that Andover is a fantastic school its prestige is very high. But, my question was why do Andover kids who don't even rank in top 20% get into top schools while vals from other schools are getting rejected. As long as an applicant has taken rigorous courses in hs, has good ap scores, and have near perfect test scores, this proves that this applicant is very highly qualified academically regardless of what hs this person is from.</p>
<p>Besides, I attended a very competitive hs, and i'm not joking. Some of the hs courses i took junior and senior yr are even much harder in conceptual difficulty and tougher in workload compared to many of the courses at my college. In fact, I think that many kids in my AP classes were in many cases more intelligent than many of my classmates here at my current school.</p>
<p>"I am aware that Andover is a fantastic school its prestige is very high."</p>
<p>I wouldn't necessarily assume that a prestigious school is also a "good" (or fantastic) school. A lot of schools are good for the wrong reasons. Some because of the strong alumni network, some for the "extras". But when you think of good, the first thing that you think of is a school that you can get quality education from and some schools just aren't prestigious for that.</p>
<p>I agree that it means something to work hard and be the top kid in a strong public school. My kids were/are in that situation and one went on to an Ivy school. She found out that there is a difference between the very elite prep schools (not all private schools, but the very top) and public schools in terms of the quality of the program. Not only had some of her peers read works that had not been studied in her high school (in part because the school was compelled to meet all kinds of NCLB, district and AP dictated requirements and, in part, because public school houses all kinds of students and not just the cream of the intellectual crop), but some of them had read them in the original language. A school that can attract and admit the best and the brightest students in the country and can attract and hire the best and the brightest teachers in the country is going to be able to do some things that a public school cannot do. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. know that and they have to know that there is a different level of preparedness that these kids come to college with. So if they want a percentage of their freshmen class to bring some of that with them, I think it's understandable. It elevates the overall playing field of the classes. Not that public school kids don't bring something to the table as well - they do, but there is a qualitative difference between an elite prep school and a public school.</p>
<p>^ a girl i know wants to be a doctor. this would be a bit more believable if she had been able to take science her junior year (her chem and bio grades were too low)...i thought she was kidding but she tried to let our principal let her take AP bio to prepare her for med school!</p>
<p>Regarding the discussion of Al Gore's grades. I was curious so I did a little research.</p>
<p>Gore's Grades Belie Image of Studiousness</p>
<p>From his lower school years at St. Albans to his incomplete effort at Vanderbilt law school, Gore was often an underachiever. Though his IQ numbers and aptitude test scores were well above average, his grades were uneven, never approaching the plateau of A's and B's that might be expected of one who possesses such a pedagogical demeanor. His generally middling college grades at Harvard in fact bear a close resemblance to the corresponding Yale marks of his presidential opponent, George W. Bush, whose studiousness and brainpower have been more open to question during this campaign...</p>
<p>Gore arrived at Harvard with an impressive 1355 SAT score, 625 verbal and 730 math, compared with Bush's 1206 total from 566 verbal and 640 math. In his sophomore year at Harvard, Gore's grades were lower than any semester recorded on Bush's transcript from Yale. That was the year Gore's classmates remember him spending a notable amount of time in the Dunster House basement lounge shooting pool, watching television, eating hamburgers and occasionally smoking marijuana. His grades temporarily reflected his mildly experimental mood, and alarmed his parents. He received one D, one C-minus, two C's, two C-pluses and one B-minus, an effort that placed him in the lower fifth of the class for the second year in a row. </p>
<p>For all of Gore's later fascination with science and technology, he often struggled academically in those subjects. The political champion of the natural world received that sophomore D in Natural Sciences 6 (Man's Place in Nature) and then got a C-plus in Natural Sciences 118 his senior year. The self-proclaimed inventor of the Internet avoided all courses in mathematics and logic throughout college, despite his outstanding score on the math portion of the SAT. As was the case with many of his classmates, his high school math grades had dropped from A's to C's as he advanced from trigonometry to calculus in his senior year. </p>
<p>Regarding the girl this thread is about and her rejections: when I hear jerks talk about how ridiculous it is that they didn't get into a top school, like some people irate because they got waitlisted at GWU (gasp!) and acting like they were total shoe-ins and they were entitled to an acceptance...I can't help but think that this snotty attitude comes through in everything they do, especially in their college applications. If you're a pretentious jerk, chances are you portray that in your essay, your interview, and everything about your application. I think the adcoms can tell a lot about your personality without knowing you.</p>
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[quote]
In my experience, being the valedictorian of a large public high school shows that you worked your ass off for four years, studied long hours, gave it your all, etc.
[/quote]
Depends on the high school. some places if you don't drop out and you just show up to class you can be valedictorian.</p>
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If you're a pretentious jerk, chances are you portray that in your essay, your interview, and everything about your application.
[/quote]
I'm beginning to believe that's probably very true.</p>
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Andover HAS to have a financial aid system that rivals colleges because it cost just as much (or more) to attend Andover than it does some colleges!!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>...not so much. If you go past st. grottlesex and a/e (along with a handful of other schools) financial aid dwindles greatly while the cost of attendance stays the same.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In my experience, being the valedictorian of a large public high school shows that you worked your ass off for four years, studied long hours, gave it your all, etc. Don't discredit someone's good grades because they didn't come from Andover.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>narcissa is right--this all has to do with context; at some high schools achieving the honor of valedictorian isn't necessarily hard to do while at others it's a great achievement (public or private)...
i'm not discrediting public school kids (i'd much rather have attended mine!); i'm just saying that you have more to prove when you come from a little known public school versus a top private. i remember reading an article a few years back when the crimson revealed that harvard tracked freshmen's progress even after they were admitted to see if what they expected was gotten (i.e. if a student who seemed to have a great math record failed an intro to math course), which could potentially call into scrutiny other applications from the same hs...</p>
<p>I just had to say this: a girl at my school kept on acting like she was going to go to Oxford or Cambridge, and that Harvard/Yale/Princeton wasn't good enough for her. She got rejected from UC Davis and is now trying to appeal! Ha!</p>
<p>Of course it's contextual. That's why I said "in my experience." Some vals maybe had a 2.8 while others had to work exponentionally harder than those at Andover.</p>
<p>I just think something in the system is incredibly broken when a school that admits ~7% of applicants is accepting 25+ students from one school.</p>
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[quote]
There are public high schools like at least one in Newton, Mass., in which as many as 30 students get into Harvard each year.
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I go to one of two public HS's in Newton and this is not true for either one. This year two kids got into Harvard (about average), two into MIT (usually one or none), I think one into Stanford, three into Yale. </p>
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[quote]
Oh, by the way, if I would have applied to Harvard, I would have framed my rejection letter and hung it on the wall
[/quote]
My school has a "wall of shame" where people post their rejection letters. It's actually kind of fun.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Gore arrived at Harvard with an impressive 1355 SAT score, 625 verbal and 730 math, compared with Bush's 1206 total from 566 verbal and 640 math.