88keys

So...
Here's a list of schools people from my school were accepted to last year:
Harvard
MIT
Stanford
Cornell
Brown
Johns Hopkins
Amherst
Middlebury
Berkeley
UCLA

My school is ranked high according to WASC (western association of schools/colleges).

My question is: if universities receive your rank, do they look at what your school's reputation has been or do they look at the type of people you have competed against in your (only yours) class???
(they would know what you've competed against by looking at what your actual grades have been; B average would say little competition, A+ would say lots, etc.)

Do you understand the question???

HImom

This question has been raised many times. Highly competitive HSs have a profile that they include with the transcript that the send to colleges you apply to. The profile helps the Us understand the academic climate of the school. In addition, these schools develop a reputation among the schools where many of their students attend as to how well-prepared the students are & how well they adjust to college. The colleges do consider these factors in their admissions decisions and in evaluating grades & class rank. This is why rank & GPAs can be deceptive--e.g. some kids in our kids' HS with a weighted 3.5 & the middle of the class of 230 graduates got into schools which boast their incoming class draws primarily from the top 10% of grads & weighted 4.0 GPAs.

suze

They look at your high school based on history. At very top high schools 30% plus go to very top colleges year after year. That's unlikely to suddenly change. It's more likely that you might have a few more high achievers at a typical high school one year, so that four rather than 2 go ivy.