<p>“I think the real key was HS. Both went to very good HS’s where Ivies were assumed to be at the top of the college heap.”</p>
<p>Yep.</p>
<p>Everyday in my work I see the chasm between the students from even the wealthier public schools and the students from excellent privates. There is no comparison. Now, I don’t know the locale of the OP, so perhaps in that region there is not such a vast difference, or any difference. It’s just consistently true in my region: the factory approach vs. the tailored approach. An emphasis on thoroughness. A demand for excellent writing. Etc. Class offerings which often include non-standard high school choices & which require originality in the product. </p>
<p>It produces, potentially, several things: a student with excellent preparation (competent), a student with an outstanding transcript (competitive), a student from a recognizable school for the Ivy League (competitive), a college application which reflects that excellence (competent & competitive).</p>
<p>(Some posters are answering how to be competitive vs. how to be competent. Competitive can include athletic recruit or consistent donor, & in those cases the difference between the public & private label disappear. I am sticking to the competence of the academics; most applicants will have to focus on the academics as the baseline.)</p>
<p>However, I wouldn’t be focusing on Ivy League per se, because not everybody will be happy there, and most unhappy students do not benefit fully from their environment, whatever it is. So unless that student will be doing a lot of hanging out with students who were admitted because of reasons other than academics, it’s important to know that the peers on campus will be mostly also extremely well prepared. It is a very selective bunch. Some people cannot get enough of that, whereas others value a variety of competencies because they find that that promotes a more interesting & less intimidating social mix. (Again, how happy you are socially can affect the perceived value at the end of that 4 years, & during it.)</p>
<p>Just some thoughts…</p>