Looking for a house and flexible on location - Sugar Land or Katy. I and debating whether we should really go with Clements given the great reviews, scores, etc. or consider a less competitive school but still great like Cinco Ranch, where my current A+ middle school taking pre-AP classes might rank in the top 8-10% to take advantage of the 10% rule and go to UT or other great school in TX.
My kids are young but want to be ready for this challenging process of college application
Thanks
I live in the Austin area and understand your dilemma. There are 3 very competitive HS’s in our area: Eanes, Westwood and LASA. In those schools, to get into the top 10% (now top 8% at UT) is all consuming for the kids. My understanding is they are taking classes at lunch and push preAP classes down to the MS so they can take as many AP classes as possible in HS. At least at Eanes, they do not rank below 10% and that has boosted their acceptance rate into UT. I might even be wrong about them ranking above 10%. They may just give the state schools the applicable cutoff GPA.
My kids attended Lake Travis which is a good school but not as ultracompetitive as the above 3. It still is a challenge to get into the 10% but both my kids made it. LT does not rank below 10% again to boost the acceptance at both UT and A&M. Many of our students that were below the 8% mark did get accepted into UT.
A problem with UT, is that you can get accepted to the school but not to your major. I have seen top students not get accepted to their major so it should always be considered a reach.
Your decision should be depended upon your kids and what they enjoy doing. Are they purely academic or do they like doing other things that would decrease GPA. My kids were in band and swimming which decreases GPA. Also, check with each school on their GPA policy. Some schools limit the number of AP classes that can be taken or counted trying to decrease this pressure on grades.
One other consideration - if you are thinking ivy league, enrolling them in the ultracompetitive HS does give them an advantage but only if they thrive there. We have athletes that go ivy league but not as many for academics only. We only have a handful every year.
Good luck on your decision - lots of things to think about.
OP, are there any area schools that don’t rank? That could be an option.
Agree with GT that getting into UT and getting into the desired major are two different things. But let me add … when my sons were in eighth grade they both planned to go to UT. By senior year, they had other ideas. DS1 applied and got in to his desired major (with a scholarship!) but chose not to go there; ds2 wouldn’t even apply. I say this because you can’t possibly know what your kids will want in several years. I would not base the HS decision solely on whether it might be easier to get into UT. GT lists lots of other things to consider. For my kids, we sought out a comprehensive HS with lots of EC options with top-notch academics where kids are interested in their learning, not just checking off boxes to look good for colleges.
GT, I can’t speak to Eanes or Westwood, though I know kids at both. I know a lot about LASA. Neither LASA nor Eanes ranks (beyond the top 10% when kids are applying to state schools, but no student has to report a rank if they don’t want to). I’m really surprised that Westwood hasn’t gone unranked; that’s a school whose students would benefit from it, I believe. At LASA, there are no classes over the lunch hour (and they get almost a full hour); that’s when a lot of clubs meet. I don’t know about Eanes or Westwood.
If you can find a school which is not stressfully competitive or cutthroat for class rank, but where graduates going on to UT Austin and other colleges do well, that may be the best choice.
However, that data may not be tracked or made available. Perhaps slightly more accessible would be how students do on AP tests relative to their AP course grades. A school where students earning A grades in AP courses usually score 1 on the corresponding AP tests should raise some questions… (similar for IB course grades versus IB test scores at schools that do IB)
@Youdon’tsay, I’m most familiar with Eanes and less familiar with the other 2. I do know at Eanes, kids are taking classes at lunch. I don’t know if Westwood ranks or not. Can an individual HS make a decision not to rank or does a school district have to make that decision? I thought that would be a district wide policy, so I am surprised that LASA doesn’t.
GT, about four years ago, AISD passed a policy that left it to individual schools, assuming parental support for the decision. LASA and Ann Richards were the first. I’m told Austin High has gone unranked this year, which is a bit surprising to me.
I am surprised too about Austin High but definitely seeing it benefit the kids at LASA and Ann Richards.
I have a friend who’s kid went to Clements. She wanted to go to UT and was accepted but ended up going to Columbia.
OP, I’m in a different Houston suburb and thought about the issues you raise when we moved to the area four years ago right before S started seventh grade. It’s good to consider these things now, well before your kids are in HS. Our school district has two STEM magnet programs embedded into two different high schools, and we decided to move into the attendance zone for the HS with the STEM program that S wanted to apply to in eighth grade. The overall HS is not the top rated school in the district but is still excellent, so we figured if S either decided not to apply to the STEM program or didn’t get accepted he’d still have a great high school experience. He did end up in the STEM program and it’s been amazing for him, but he takes all his non-STEM classes (English, foreign language, art, social studies) with the general student body and they’re great too. There’s definitely a lot of pressure to take a very rigorous schedule and keep the grades up to stay in the auto admit range (which is actually now top 7% for UT Austin, no longer 8%). Out of my S’s junior class of about 750 students, probably at least 100 are taking six AP classes this year and another 200 or so are taking five AP classes. A few students are even taking seven APs this year. The school has excellent outcomes, with the vast majority of students scoring 3 or higher on AP exams and doing very well on SAT and ACT. Consequently, every year lots of students below the auto admit thresholds get into Texas public schools in their major, including competitive majors at UT Austin and TAMU. The universities know the quality of our school so generally students in the top 20-25% have no trouble getting into great schools and getting directly into their preferred majors. If we’d chosen a less competitive school there would have been less external motivation and pressure, but my S thrives in the faster paced environment. If your kids get stressed easily, have trouble with time management, or just prefer a more laid back atmosphere they might be better off in a lower rated school where it’s not as much of a pressure cooker at the top end. Just make sure they will be adequately challenged and that there’s a good variety of courses and ECs available. Talk with the counselors at the potential schools to find out what their college placement outcomes look like; if the higher rated school typically has no trouble getting their kids into UT Austin or TAMU on holistic review (ie kids who miss the auto admit cutoff), then the 7/10% range isn’t quite as important.
OP, the HS profile is something every school sends to colleges in order to provide some context for a student’s transcript when applying. Here are the profiles for the two schools you are talking about …
Cinco Ranch:
http://www.katyisd.org/campus/CRHS/Documents/profile.pdf#search=profile
Sigh, yes, we save all our money and move to amazing neighborhoods so that our kids don’t get into the flagships