So many people on Reddit say even if you can’t stand out at a competitive high school, it still helps you to succeed in college and at work if you had a good rigorous education. How does that work? Isn’t education mostly based on intelligence? At competitive high schools, a lot of students get Cs despite using tutoring and other support
Well, I don’t think being competitive in its own right makes one better, but I do think you need to learn. All of us have the capability of intelligence in some way - but you still need to be taught and learn - you aren’t just created with knowledge.
I think the biggest impact is likely wealth - those from a higher level of wealth have access to programs before one even attends schools and access to other info - just watching their parents - then kids from a less successful socioeconomic background.
Of course, there are programs and magnet schools and more in areas that aren’t as wealthy - but that’s a general thing.
So having intelligence alone - doesn’t matter if - you’re not exposed to things or taught things.
Of course. No one is automatically good when they are doing something for the first time
it’s not just doing - it’s being shown how to do and more. There’s a reason there’s a saying - the rich get richer.
I think many future higher education classes will in some way expect certain types of preparation. Things you should already know, skills you should alread have, and so on. And I do think being properly prepared for your classes is very helpful.
And in fact, two of the notoriously toughest transitions are from middle school to high school and then high school to college. So, like, 9th grade, and then freshman year, maybe into the first part of sophomore year. And I do think there is something to be said for being REALLY prepared for those transitions, like not just normally prepared but more prepared than most of the other kids around you.
I kinda wish that was less so, but unfortunately, I think if anything it is getting more important. Basically, in lots of different higher education and professional tracks, the “schedule” for moving on to the next step after college seems to be pushing earlier. And that means doing well right away in college is helpful–not strictly necessarily, but nice if you can do it.
That said, there is a lot else involved in doing well in a college class, and your high school is only going to play so much of a role in all that. So it is one component among others, not the only thing.
OK, but which HS will best prepare a given kid for college (assuming college is the best next step for them in the first place)? I don’t think that is a question with a simple answer, it depends on the individual kid, and possibly what sort of college and college program as well.
My daughter attended a competitive-admissions public magnet high school and then a rigorous college, and she found it a little easier than many of her classmates did.
So, I think the high school was helpful, but there are many factors at play in college, so it’s hard to answer your question definitively.
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I think that it depends upon the student.
Some very smart students breeze through high school with very high grades, show up at a highly ranked and academically very demanding university, and then find that they need to develop good study skills in a hurry. They never developed these good study skills in high school because they didn’t need them. The sudden need to develop study skills can be stressful. Some of these students might have been better off if they had been forced to develop good study skills in tougher classes in high school.
Some very smart students are not good at dealing with stress. This might be more true when they are young. They might not be comfortable in a stressful high school. Some of these students start to excel even as late as graduate school – at the point where all of their classes are in a subject that they like and that they are good at.
Also, high school, and university, are times when a student is dealing with other potentially stressful issues, such as dating (and in university for many of us living away from parents and family for the first time). For some students it might not hurt if their classes are not the absolute toughest classes that they could handle.
At least in my experience admissions at the highly ranked universities, and highly ranked graduate programs, are in most case quite good at interpreting an applicant’s record in the context of the school that they were attending. Thus a few B’s at a highly ranked and highly competitive high school might not be a problem for admissions. In terms of getting accepted to an appropriate university I would not worry one way or another about the difference between high schools.
IMHO a student who gets a lot of C’s might not be at the right school for them. However, I have seen cases of a student getting a small number of C’s, or perhaps barely avoiding a small number of C’s in the toughest classes, and still doing very well. As one example this might happen for a student who is exceptional at one subject (let’s hypothetically say math) and much weaker at a different subject (let’s hypothetically say English Literature or Art History).
I have certainly seen some students attend relatively average or even lousy high schools, and go on to highly ranked universities. I have also seen some students attend relatively average high schools, go on to relatively average universities (say, top 200), and then excel at highly ranked and very rigorous graduate programs and in their careers.
In terms of finding the right fit for the student, this is key. In some cases this starts in high school, in some cases this starts in university. This is however not necessarily an easy thing to do. In general I do not really know how someone finds a good fit.
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Yes, my two cents is what this and other similar studies have found is that things like average test scores or general selectivity of admissions just are not very helpful in terms of figuring out what would be a good school for a given kid. I don’t think they show all schools are interchangeable for all kids, indeed I think the authors are almost always trying to be very clear about that not being the suggested finding. But it is more showing that you have to try to identify what a given kid really needs to thrive in school, and not treat this as a generic sort of question.
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These are indeed hard phrases to put into practice, but I do think the general goal should be to go to schools where you can reasonably challenge yourself, and do your reasonable best. If you are so overwhelmed by the challenge you are not doing your reasonable best, including because of the classes but also potentially because of stress or other related issues, that’s not good. But if you are not challenged enough, you may not actually be learning and developing as much as you could, and in fact sometimes bored kids do worse than their theoretical abilities would suggest.
Again, that is fine in theory, knowing what it means in practice for a given kid is tricky. And so one of my basic feelings is if you (or your kid) is in a school and it really does not seem to be working, it is perfectly fine to change schools. Obviously a lot of people just need a little adjustment period, so you don’t have to pull the trigger too quickly. But I think sometimes it is pretty clear you tried out a school that seemed to make sense on paper, you have learned that in practice it isn’t right for you in some specific way, and then I really think there should be no stigma about changing schools.
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One of my kids went to a super competitive HS, and multiples Cs were VERY rare… Multiple Bs, much more common..(and these kids would be straight A at most public schools).
Anyway, there is no one answer to this about helping!
I went to a competitive HS and it was life changing in many ways… and for one my kids it was also, but in entirely different ways from me - though not sure it helped their college acceptance prospects at all. It helps for some a lot, I also know kids that competitive HS didn’t help at all… Depends on their backgrounds, personalities, etc.
My daughter went to a competitive entry, stem focused, college prep private high school. What made it unusual was that it was parochial and on the city voucher system so there was a ton of diversity. 99% of her class went on to 4 year college. The top 20% I would say were academic all stars. Overall the school had a very typical distribution of college matriculations, nothing super special, but what they did very, very well was prepare students for the rigor of college and making sure that parents knew how to apply for financial aid and merit scholarships so every graduate had affordable options that were right for them.
As a result of the preparation, my daughter had a very smooth transition to college. She already had great study habits, was used to project work, and was accustomed to college style grading and course structure.
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I was a poor kid (6 brothers and sisters and Dad was a Janitor, Mom an Admin Assistant) who went to Harvard.
My public high school was horrible and still is horrible.
I was blown away by how well prepared the kids from Choate, Exeter, Andover, etc.. were. It seemed that they had read everything under the sun. “101” level courses were just repeats of their HS classes. They had all done high-level math. They were far more polished and finished that I was.
But I never, not for a second, felt that I didn’t belong among them. My love for learning exceeded theirs in most cases. I would also say that some of them were “academically tired.” They had been grinding in rigorous academic programs for a long time and I was “fresher” than they were. Some of them didn’t get good grades. Not because they weren’t smart enough. But because they just wanted “out” of the grind after grinding for so long.
So, I deeply respect the preparation that they received, but I also feel that some of them were exhausted by their experience and didn’t have the love of learning that I did.
YMMV
Edit–one huge criticism of these kids was that they certainly lived their lives in some priviledged bubbles. Some of them were hopelessly ignorant about how the average American lived. Poor people and poverty? Forget about it. They had a whole spectrum of mistaken views on the topic. They weren’t mean or classist…just completely out of touch.
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Alternate view. One of my kids graduated from BU in 2007, and the other from Santa Clara in 2010. They both remarked how well prepared they were for college compared to many of their freshmen classmates.
Our kids went to a small semirural regional high school. They had fabulous teachers and were well prepared for college courses (and their college grades reflected that).
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Just a couple quick technical notes.
The Chetty studies and similar have found that the biggest thing kids may get out of selective, independent private schools that helps them in something as competitive as Ivy+ private college admissions is recommendations that actually get them very high non-academic ratings. Perhaps that is also related to some non-academic experience opportunities, value emphasis, and so on. But for sure it seemed like recommendations were a major transmission pathway through which otherwise similarly-rated kids academically were getting high non-academic ratings at a far higher rate.
The other thing is more subtle, but I think is true–if you look at the matriculations of a very selective independent private school, they tend to be pretty spread out these days. Sure, more Ivy+ than normal is part of what people key on, and what the Chetty studies were about. But then if they are not going to Ivy+ colleges, still a lot of them are going to very selective LACs, other very selective private universities, very selective specialty colleges (like say in arts of various sorts), military academies (which are extremely selective in their own ways), very selective non-US institutions including the UK and Canada, very selective specialty schools for things like engineering or business at publics where many are probably OOS, and so on.
So basically, it isn’t either Ivy+/US News National Universities T20, or go to your best in-state option. There are all sorts of other options these kids are finding that are not easy admits either, but collectively a large percentage of kids in the class are ending up at one of them.
So I actually think that is among the most “bankable” advantages of such schools. At least if you are willing to use them this way, their college counselors can’t guarantee they can get you into a particularly famous school (not so much anymore), but they can help you put together a list where you are eventually choosing between some still pretty selective programs that are particularly exciting to you.
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I think you also need to clarify what you are asking too - some are answering from an admissions perspective? ease of college classes perspetive? or earnings perspective? success in career perspective? etc.
Going to the harder HS taught to try hard, which I wouldn’t have had to do in my LPS and never had to do in middle school. College would have been a shock otherwise. Also, my HS was completely eye-opening class and social wise in a way that was SUPER helpful for college and changed the trajectory of my life and life choices. For my kid (who is WAY more worldly) it also has shown them fiercely academically passionate kids in a way that is beyond even our very good LPS and has some ECs that are way beyond our LPS that has change their life course. AS a “go along” kid, I think left on their own, they would have been a different kid at LPS… their peers very very much has pushed them to their potential in an amazing way. They would have been academically prepared well enough at either school. Their private school, interestingly, is more diverse as well.
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Exactly. What’s the angle so we can address your specific concern.
It depends on the kid and the circumstances.
The book “Privileged Poor” found that kids from low income families who had attended selective, competitive high schools tended to fare much better than their classmates in college for a whole host of reasons – academic preparedness, social capital, confidence in approaching professors. – kinda everything that would give someone confidence in an environment with a lot of smart, well-prepared, and often wealthy kids. (Harvard was one of the schools looked at.)
For many kids, just accepting that lots of hard work is the norm is great preparation for college and life. Hitting walls and learning what to do when that happens is a critical life skill that many bright kids will not encounter in a less challenging high school.
At the same time, some kids will thrive and develop confidence by being on top and/or find being middle of the pack – even a spectacular pack - soul-crushing. You have to know your kid pretty well to get this right. Confidence can make a lot of things achievable. Making the best team isn’t going to do much for you if you’re riding the bench.
Kids from competitive/selective high schools tend to be really well prepared for college. But colleges often structure the first semester to get everyone up to speed.
Ultimately, you need to be happy and well-adjusted.
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You should go to a high school where the kids are very competent, but preferably not cut throat, not backstabbing etc. Competent and hard working kids encourage each other to learn better. Kids teach each other as much as the teacher teaches the kids. The courses taught at such a school will also likely be taught at a higher level. And the quality and quantity of learning is the only criterion to judge this question, provided you don’t need to deal with a dysfunctional student body that is unpleasant.
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I’m not sure what OP means by “competitive” high school. As I do not think of a rigorous high school as synonymous with competitive (assuming that means competitive students).
I was the kid from a working class background that went to a fairly prestigious boarding school. I found that it was advantageous for college in several ways. First, on the admissions, it was likely helpful (though that piece was not nearly as hard in my day). Second, it prepared me for hard work, deep critical thinking, confidence to approach and question professors, and all of the academic foundations for college. I found the first two years of school at my Ivy League university easier than my senior year of high school. The workload was less and the standard of work required was no higher. Third, it prepared me for being able to assert myself in spaces where wealthy people were and dominated. Early in high school, I was intimidated by the backgrounds and experience of my peers. By the time I graduated, I had figured out that they were no smarter (and often less so) than I was and no more entitled to any of the benefits of the education than I was. So, in my view, there were huge benefits to going to a rigorous boarding school with privileged peers for me.
My kid went to a far more prestigious high school than mine. It was no more rigorous in my opinion, but her peers were far more talented than mine. On the admissions question, about 1/3 of her class went to what I think people call Ivy+ (Ivy, Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Duke), and when you add in the most selective LACs and Georgetown, Northwestern, Rice type schools, that number jumps up to 1/2 the students. Roughly 75% of the students went to colleges admitting less than 20% of applicants. And none of those numbers include students like my kid who got into some such colleges, but chose to go elsewhere. Pretty uniformly, what I’ve heard is that all of the kids from her school (including those who are at the bottom of the class) are well prepared for college and do not find it challenging to meet the academic demands of college. Of course, part of that is likely the talent of students selected to attend her high school. But a big part is certainly the four very rigorous years those students spend learning at her high school.
But as others have said, there is no one size fits all answer to OPs question, but it certainly can be beneficial to attend a rigorous high school, even if you do not end up at the top of your class.
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